June 1, 2019
There seems to be a misconception about personal branding as it relates to middle-school and high-school-age children.
In my recent essay announcing our new trajectory, I had talked about getting kids ‘started on a journey of building an authentic and distinctive personal brand for themselves’. That has generated some discussion. “You didn’t explain what you mean by personal branding for children,” said my mother, a career-educator and retired elementary school teacher. Another parent said she didn’t really care about branding children’s image for the outside world. Allow me to clarify what we mean by personal branding in the context of AlligatorZone’s young members. In the video below, I have summarized my thoughtfully written explanation, if you scroll down further.
Branding in general starts with knowing oneself. That applies to products, companies and people. We can’t communicate about ourselves to the outside world unless we know who we are as individuals and what keeps us ticking.
The first step in branding is self-awareness.
For children to know what excites them, why something catches their fancy, and where they can personally create the most positive impact, is a deeply introspective process. It is usually an observant parent or a teacher who knows first about a child’s authentic personal brand. You may hear that in the way a mother describes how her son always knows what colors go together on a greeting card that he’s painting, or how her daughter instinctively knows which song is playing upon hearing the first few instrumental notes.
How will our AlligatorZone Activity Premium Plan help in developing the personal brand of the children? The various activities that we are designing for children are a way for them to wrap their young minds around complex concepts through playful observation of the world around them and asking the right questions.
Through these tethered flights of exploration of the future as it is being created, the children will start getting an idea of what facets of their exploration they enjoy the most and, what areas attract an audience. Along with their parent or teacher, the children too will start recognizing their own personal brand and its value at the confluence of their interests, their positive impact, and their audience.
Along with their parent or teacher, the children too will start recognizing their own personal brand and its value at the confluence of their interests, the positive impact they can make, and their audience.
Then comes the question of how they express that personal brand to eventually arrive at their true calling and a community that cares about the positive impact that the child can create. It is a question also of how they take charge of their personal narrative and make it a coherent story of who they are why they deserve a chance to make an impact in any field. That coherent narrative brings compounded benefits when it is delivered with consistency over a period of time.
That coherent narrative brings compounded benefits when it is delivered with consistency over a period of time.
This is also another way for a child to develop habits that can be fulfilling and rewarding.
That is where the Ambassador Advantage plan aims to step up kids’ personal growth, by giving them opportunities to slow down and enjoy learning without feeling pressured, while taking the time to use their innate talent to express themselves through various media — be it creating poetry, art, coding, writing, public speaking, woodworking, emojis, mime or memes.
Allowing their personal brand to manifest through their preferred forms of expression will help children achieve amazing clarity about the kind of impact they would like to make in the world, and how.
We want to give opportunities to children to do this in a manner so elegant that the slice of the world where they believe they can make an impact, can’t help but take notice of their body of work.
The children’s distinctive and authentic personal brand thus gets built automatically, over a period of time, without conscious effort, without orchestration, while generating compounding returns, over a long period of time or even over a lifetime.
A personal branding journey for children can’t be rushed.
A personal branding journey for children can’t be rushed. It takes time, constant nurturing, and tremendous patience on the part of the parents, but a journey for personal branding is a worthwhile investment for parents to make. As with all of AlligatorZone’s programs, our emphasis remains on providing a learning environment that is forgiving, supportive and uplifting for the young impressionable minds, and provides active support and encouragement from parents and educators.
The author Ramesh Sambasivan, is cofounder & CEO of AlligatorZone.org, a membership community developing tools to help parents and teachers prepare children for the future of work. Learn more at https://alligatorzone.org.
