Identity Purpose & Direction to Keep Kids Moving Toward Success | ep. 135

Identity, Purpose & Direction: Guiding the Next Generation Toward Success

In this powerful episode of Falling for Learning, T.D. Flenaugh is joined by Lauren Moseley for a meaningful conversation about how we can intentionally guide the next generation toward success by strengthening three critical pillars: identity, purpose, and direction.

Key Takeaways
1. Identity: Helping Children Know Who They Are
Children develop identity through stories, traditions, and community.
Family gatherings, storytelling, and cultural practices build a sense of belonging.
Exposure to ancestral history and culturally relevant books helps children see themselves reflected in the world.
Without identity, children may seek belonging in unhealthy spaces.
Core Insight: Identity is not taught once—it is built continuously through connection, culture, and community.

2. Purpose: Helping Children Discover What They Are Meant to Do
Purpose grows from exposure and experience.
Encouraging reading, creative expression, and exploration helps children uncover their strengths.
Early opportunities (like presentations, hobbies, or activities) can shape lifelong paths.
It’s equally important for children to learn what is not for them.
Core Insight: Purpose is discovered—not assigned—and requires space, trial, and encouragement.

3. Direction: Helping Children Navigate Their Path
Even with identity and purpose, children need guidance and structure.
Mentors, teachers, and programs (like AVID) play a critical role.
Early exposure to opportunities (college, careers, entrepreneurship, trades) expands possibilities.
Clear steps, expectations, and encouragement help children stay on track.
Core Insight: Direction transforms potential into action.

Powerful Moments from the Episode
The importance of multi-generational influence: children thrive when supported by a “village,” not just one parent.
A reminder that rest and self-care are essential for both parents and children to function at their best.
Real-life examples of how early exposure (books, reports, experiences) can shape lifelong success.
The importance of educators as advocates and partners in a child’s journey.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode
Little Mobile Home on the Tundra - littlemobilehomeonthetundra.com
→ A memoir-style novel centered on healing, identity, and interrupting generational dysfunction.

AVID - https://www.avid.org
→ A program designed to help students develop skills for college readiness and academic success.

Roots - https://www.history.com/shows/roots
→ Referenced as an example of cultural storytelling that helps build identity and historical awareness.

United Negro College Fund - https://uncf.org
→ Highlighted for its message about the importance of education and opportunity.

Encyclopedia Britannica -  https://kids.britannica.com
→ Used as an example of early learning tools that can spark curiosity and purpose.

Transcript

0:07

Thank you so much for joining the Falling for Learning podcast today. It is me, TD Flynn, and Lauren Moseley as joining us as well today. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Happy Sunday. Yes, so we are gonna get started. We're gonna talk together about making sure that next generation is on track, right? So the whole thing that I have going on with my podcast and my new book that I'm going to be talking about is making sure that our next generation, that we interrupt dysfunction, right? So I have my book, The Little Mobile Home on the Tundra and The subtitle is about interrupting generational dysfunction. And this is why I have this podcast. uh Identity, purpose, and direction for our next generation and what we can do to help support parents and educators. and making sure that next generation is on track. Yes. Yeah, and I just want to give you a quick. I wanted to give you a quick shout out because I am reading your book and I know I mentioned it to you earlier, but I am just so inspired. by your writing style. And I feel like, yes, you have the read-write method. You teach people how to write. But you are also a writer. Like, you are also a phenomenal writer. So I just wanted to put that out there. I am really enjoying the book. The details, there's so much of it that I relate to. uh just descriptions of the trailer home. I told you I grew up in an area where a lot of my friends lived in trailer homes. And this part that I'm at right now where you're describing the cleanup of a trailer home was just like, yes, I've seen that. I've been there. All the things you described. So yeah, so what's been going on with me is I've been uh working on promoting my book because I wrote this book for healing, for my own healing and for other people's healing. And again, specifically for that next generation, I know that my parents had the best intentions a lot of times. Maybe they weren't the most patient or whatever, but they had the best intentions and things went wrong. And I have come full circle. We've healed, we've talked, we've argued, we've gone through the things, and we're in a good place. But this book, I felt like the story still needed to be told because it just keeps happening generation after generation despite parents' best intentions. The same thing for the podcast. We have the podcast so that parents have a neutral place to go to. not a school because schools often you know have certain district policies or different things they have things that they can't really tell you so I have the podcast to just be an open place where you could talk and uh educators and parents could get resources. um What's been going on with you Miss Moseley? What has been going on? Well, um I am on spring break, so lots of rest. I also had an opportunity to go on a mini retreat during my time off. And it was it's through the Fanfare uh Institute of Wellness. And she hosts these amazing retreats where we group of women, we get together and half of the retreat is resting. It is literally sound baths and drinking cinnamon tea and just breathing and being in this beautiful environment. We this time rented the space, the space that was rented for us was a uh plant store. like a little nursery. So you got these beautiful plants all over and it was really refreshing. The second half of the retreat is really just connecting and inspiring each other with stories of ways to use rest as a form of resistance against all the things that are going on currently. I think as women, we can all relate to just the enormous amount of expectation and pressure to be all things to all people at all times. And a lot of times there's very little left for us. And so just learning how to pour back into yourself and learning how to affirm your need to rest. Now we live in a very capitalistic society where grind and hustle and work is kind of the order of the day. And we just want to fight back against that and say, know what, it's okay to rest. It's okay. Our ancestors understood the need for rest. so, yeah, that's what I've been doing, resting. Getting some work done, being productive, you know, but also resting, yeah. Very important. Yeah, self-care is like, I always say that self-care is like your highest. um your highest calling, right? Like all the things that you wanna do, the people that you wanna take care of, the people that you wanna influence and give positive impact, you need to rest and take care of yourself. Otherwise, we are humans, we expire, we oh get sick, and if we're not taking care of ourselves, then we will more quickly meet the time when we're not able to help others. So it's very important for us to take care of ourselves. Yeah. So let's get into this topic of helping that next generation with their identity, their purpose, and their direction. When we're first talking about identity, what's coming to a surface for you about how to support that next generation? Right. So, you know, as I explained earlier, I went to this retreat and one of the things that we did was we talked about ancestral traditions. We talked about things that happen in our family that kind of create identity. And one of the things that I recall was as a young person, you know, going to grandma's on Sunday, right, every Sunday, that was a part of our our family tradition. And we really found a lot of identity in that because that's where our family met. collectively and whether it was sharing stories or hearing about you when grandma was young and things that she used to do. The place where we met was at across the street from a place called the El Dorado Ballroom which was a place where my mom's generation hung out on the weekends and had dances and you know listened to music you know that's where she would go on dates with my dad so it's kind of you know beautiful just to see that a lot of my identity that comes from hearing these stories of my family and just knowing that I come from a long lineage of people who were fun loving and happy and joyful and went through some hard times, but were resilient. And my grandmother had a garden. used to, we were calling times when we would go out and she would go pick vegetables straight from her garden and cook Sunday dinner for us. none of us have gardens now. So there's a part of reclaiming my identity and going, having these many retreats kind of helped me go back to saying, hey, I come from a lineage of people who gardened and who had resources and weren't always beholden to the big systems that we have in place, like the HEB and the markets, like we grew our own stuff. So um I just think for people giving them that sense of identity and belonging and family and telling them the story of their ancestors and the history of who we are as people, think is always very important to help with identity. Yeah, I think that's right on target. Like giving kids a sense of self, right? Because if they don't have that sense of self, sometimes we'll find... that they are looking for that sense of self in other things, right? We know a long time, you know, people have been talking about they join gangs or something like that because they had a place to belong. They had a place that was dedicated to them that they were dedicated to. And when you don't have that, you're looking to get that. And you don't, especially when you're young. you are sometimes you don't go to the right place you're not getting the advice that you need if you don't have that system and you know some kids of course may not have family but some kids do but i think in us being so busy us not getting rest as parents we're not um really nurturing kids the way that we used to And part of the nurturing, if you're thinking about that multi-generational family visits and traditions of gathering, that all that nurturing isn't done by a parent, it's done by the grandma, the auntie, the big cousin, and the whole burden is not on the parent, right? But if the parent is isolated, um from the family for a variety of reasons. My family moved away to Alaska, so we didn't have a lot of family around the way that we had at one point. um Then the burden is on the parent, right? So having a community, you know, they talk about it takes a village to raise a child. But also it's a lot of responsibility for one person to just be that person instead of all the people that can speak life into and love on a child instead, you know, the shared responsibility of it. Absolutely. And sometimes you have to create your own family. Some families might not have a functional structure where that's even safe. So to be intentional to say, find like-minded people that I can create community with is also an important part of a responsibility, because it is hard to do it alone. So you definitely need a healthy community. Yeah. Yeah. em you know, when we were talking earlier, you were talking about getting a sense of identity came from having knowledge, a base of knowledge, right? And that knowledge could come from storytelling or even just the... The experience of being with your family and seeing how they handle things or how they bounce back even when it's hard and how they continue to nurture and love one another and care for one another is a sense of knowledge. um And what other ways can we build a sense of identity? Like, what are you thinking about? Well, I was thinking we always had books about prominent people of African-Americans that were doing great things uh in real time as well as historically. And I know that we have to reclaim that literature because a lot of places those books are not. being allowed anymore. So making sure we are still, yeah, we're definitely having to fight back against the erasure of us as a people. that's, I just feel like anytime there's tried to, you know, anyone's tried to erase us, we always come back. So part of it is being intentional and part of it is being mindful. And we have so many ways that we can share our history. There are books that are still there. and in the libraries and in, you know, I have a ton of books that I've just intentionally bought for that sake of, I always want to have culturally relevant representation at all times because I have cousins and, you know, God children and, you know, coming up and I want to make sure that they have something that they can go back and look at. When I was a kid, I remember my dad making me come in to watch Roots. And I did not want to watch Roots. I did. I had a sense of identity. When I grew up to appreciate it, I had a better sense of, hey, yeah, these are the stories of people who look like me. And to see us rise above the... the shackles of enslavement and still be able to fight against injustice and the civil rights movement and all those things. Those were important because my dad kept those stories alive, whether it was through dragging us in and making us watch it, or buying us books, museums, uh taking us to the Ipi Tumbe performance. I don't know if you remember that from the 70s, but that was a big... uh theatrical kind of musical celebration of African culture. And we went to that and so just find you, it's out there. Sometimes you gotta look and dig and scrape, but it's out there. That's good, like to really think about reaching out, finding those things. And I feel like it's so much easier to find out things too now because we have social media, we have Google, we have all kinds of ways to find out about things. Email list, right? There weren't an email list back in the day. Ready? ways that we can find out. And there are also different people on social media that are getting together and sharing resources and information for that next generation. And that really makes me think about purpose. So as we're thinking about uh our kids getting a sense of self and then actually finding a purpose for their own selves. And that comes from... all of these different experiences, right? They're going to be watching a play. They're going to be watching documentaries. um And, you know, giving them some reading that they have to do. Like my mom had us uh do uh encyclopedia reports, which is just uh finding a person in the encyclopedia and we just copied it down. I was in first grade, so I just copied it down and read it. And I did my report. And, but I was first grade, know, first, second grade. Like, I was reading very well and doing a lot of reading. And, but my mom... Well, when we were in Alaska, you know, they would have in-service day when it was Martin Luther King Day. The school was closed for in-service. Was it closed for Martin Luther King Day? No mention of it on the school calendar. And back then, the school calendars were just a piece of paper that you pass out. You put it in your backpack. Your mom may put it on the refrigerator or not. Maybe it gets uh buried at the bottom of your backpack. Who knows? But my mom was like, Oh no! you need to, you are going to tell your teacher that you are going, you have a report on Martin Luther King that you will be reading to the class. So that's also where the reports came from, right? So also, you know, that's a way to give me a sense of self, but also through reading those reports, through uh reading about from the encyclopedia, I just became a very uh avid reader. And eventually as I was reading books, I was like, you know, I could write my own book, you know? And, um you know, I eventually became a writer and um that comes from, you know, exposing your child, challenging your child to do different things, encouraging them. And also like, you know, she put some responsibility on me. Like it's your job to educate the kids basically. And your teacher, and it was like, and your teacher better not say anything. You will be doing a report today. We're not asking. Cause I was like, huh? She's like, no, you're not asking. You're letting them know. Your mom said you have a report to read to the class. And I did that for Martin, I did it for Martin Luther King Day, but I also did it for Malcolm X. Like she was like, it's time for you to read the report. And I was like, okay. And when I first, I was a little bit like worried, but then I went ahead and asked and I did it and they had everyone sit on the carpet and I read the report. And so it also, learned, know, I'm obviously a speaker, I do workshops for people. And so again, just those different things that you do could lead to the child's purpose, um Other things that I've done, found this wasn't my purpose, right? I did some gymnastics classes. I'm not very coordinated. That's not the thing for me. But you know, getting exposure. What's good for you, what's not good for you? What are some gifts you have? And I even say it now. I'm like, when people ask me to do certain things, I'm like, that's not one of my gifts. I have a lot of gifts, but that's not one of them. but I will be happy to do this, this and this, but I don't do that. It's not for me, you know? And so, you know, getting to know yourself. What are your ideas about like purpose and... Yeah, so kind of in the same way. as a child, my we also had uh the Encyclopedia Britannica and my favorite page was the page of the human body. And it was several pages, but they were clear like cellophane looked through and they were layered. And you could see like the different parts of the body. And I would get really excited about, you know, the muscular system and the skeletal system. And I remember being very, you know, at a very young age. very conscious of the human body in the sense of our bodies are, there are vehicle that allow us to do everything that we can, you you can climb a tree with your body, you can do a, you can ride a bike. So I think the idea of health and wellness really started for me as a child thinking very, literally about like what how amazing my body is and not necessarily Maybe I didn't understand like fitness and diet and, you know, but I think I was more drawn toward things that I knew made my body feel good, like eating well from, you know, being a little kid. I didn't eat a lot of meat when I was a kid, and that wasn't because I was trying to be plant based. I just think literally my body just didn't like eating a lot of meat. And my dad would be like, all your food can't be white and yellow, because I would like, I liked corn and pasta and bread. you know, you would give me chicken and beef and I would eat it, but those were never my favorite things. So growing up, you know, people would always ask me like, when did you start being plant-based? And I'm like, I think I always was. I just think from a little child, my lean was always toward plants. I loved eating, you know, lettuce, vegetables and making salads. And we had a big candy bowl. And I remember, well, it was supposed to for candy, but was filled with fruit. It had apples and oranges and bananas and to me that was normal growing up with a big candy bowl that was literally full of fruit. So yeah, I think in the same way like having those little experiences and I was a dancer and although I wasn't into competitive sports because I was a little bit too empathetic, as this like I just want everybody to have fun. So I was never good at competitive sports, but I enjoyed being outdoors and I enjoyed walking and flipping. And, you know, I was in gymnastics as a kid, too. I was in drill team all the way up into college. So I was always doing something physical. And when I got older, I got into yoga and Pilates and all those different types of, you know, fitness things that came along. But the thing that really stuck was yoga. And part of it was again, understanding that in order to do anything in life, like if we don't take care of our bodies, where are we gonna live? Our whole being is based on how well you take care of yourself and your ability to take care of other people starts with you first taking care of yourself. So this whole idea of getting rest and drinking water and like that to me wasn't trendy. That's just a way that I kind of grew up. Again, my grandmother had a garden, so we always ate fresh, veggies. Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, I would just say again, making sure you expose your kids to as many different things and don't feel like because, you know, society says, you gotta, you know, eat this way or be this way, you you don't have to. The world is big and it's vast. Try lots, expose your kids to lots of different things. So yeah. So that brings us to direction, helping give uh kids direction as they are, again, this podcast is always about how do we prepare them for success, right? Sometimes they might get off track, sometimes um they face some setbacks, but how do we make sure they're on track and then they stay on track? And that's something that we really need to be intentional about. What are your thoughts on that? So I was talking to one of the uh National Board uh members in my cohort. We're having some teachers go through the process of getting their uh credential renewed. And one of them is an ADVITS. I'm not sure what ADVITS stands for, but it is basically the person whose job is to give direction to the students as they prepare for college. And she was, I was just blown away with how she starts talking about getting seniors ready and taking them through the process of getting applications and where are you gonna apply and financial aid and just helping the families get ready to prepare their kids. And then she noticed that... a lot of the families were so, it was such a foreign idea going to college, because maybe they were coming from low income or first generational uh here in the States and going to school. The process is very different from where they came from. And so she started the program looking at 11th graders. And now she's even looking as far back as starting the second year of their sophomore year, semester of the sophomore year preparing these kids, giving them lots of direction, know, the kind of scores you need to have and the pre-test that you need to take and all the things that have to happen in order to get you through this, you know, what can be a very complicated system that I think in some ways is designed to see who's going to keep pushing ahead and who's going to try too hard to give up. But just giving kids that direction and knowing that there are people out there and there are organizations that are out there, that you don't have to go through complicated decisions about your student's future by yourself. That there are avenues that will help you get direction and get to those places. So your kids can go to college and they can succeed and be um in places where maybe those doors don't swing wide open for them. But just get your foot in there. Just put in there. Yeah, I really think that the other thing that sometimes we miss as educators, and I've talked about this before, is that sometimes we're very biased about what we want our kids to be. We just want them to be doctors. We just want them to be a teacher or even college itself could be biased if we are not supporting them in maybe joining the military or joining a uh trade or something like that. Yep. Yep. that we need to think about as far as well as entrepreneurship, right? Maybe some kids want to start a business and they are very entrepreneurial. They might've been starting businesses in high school, middle school, whatever. And then we're saying, well, you have to go to college to do this. And again, you have to know your child and help them know themselves. Some people, you know, to be an entrepreneur, you need to be very motivated. If they're not very motivated and they're not, you know, a self-starter, then it probably isn't for them, but certain kids. it might be. You know, I know also like I was the first person, you know, first generation college graduate. So like out of my great-grandfather's descendants, I was the first. So it just, you know, just thinking about what that took as well as like I had to apply to all these different scholarships to make sure that I paid for it. I was also independent at the time, but I don't want to get into that. ah Just helping kids and again, when they're looking and finding a purpose as they're older, as they're growing up and as they find different activities that resonate with them that they wanna continue to do or they don't like so much, then that helps them to have a direction and then help put them in programs that help them to lead them exactly to where they're supposed to go. I mean, I talk about... and write about my fourth grade teacher, Miss Nelson, um a black teacher. I think she was my first black teacher. And um she told me in fourth grade, like, you know, you can get a scholarship. But at that point, I'd only heard of um football scholarships or track scholarships. And I was like, well, I don't play any sports. So I don't think that works for me. And she's like, no, you actually could get an academic scholarship. and I'm all about reading and writing and all that and I was like, my gosh, just for getting good grades. And I didn't know, I didn't know, but she talked to me about it in fourth grade. She talked to me about what to do to get recommendation letters, what activities I should be in, in school, in high school. And I was in fourth grade. I hadn't even been to middle school and she was talking about these things. And she did, she had my sister four years later. And she followed up with me, because I was just going into high school. um You know, I was getting ready for high school and she followed up with me, followed with my mother about things that I should be doing. um And it made all the difference, right? Just giving me some direction, because I didn't know what to do or how to get there. um And, you know, she was very helpful in making sure that happened, just planting that seed so early. um And I grew up on the United Negro College Fund commercials. yes! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Because of mine, this is terrible... thing to waste. And I was like, it's so, you know, I didn't know how I was gonna pay for it. I grew up very poor, but at fourth grade, she told me what I could do. And, you know, I followed through with it and kept working on it. And she followed through with me as well about things that reminded me the things I need to do, how I need to do it. Very, very intimate details as far as like, okay. You have a scholarship, you're applying to or you're applying for this program, you need to give whoever you need a recommendation for, you need to give them two weeks, no less than two weeks in advance. You need to write them a thank you letter afterward. And of course, sometimes that thank you letter went to her, but she just like for whoever, because you are gonna need these people. You wanna establish relationship with the teachers and stuff like that. And you wanna be in leadership roles when you are part of a program. in school, like you're either the leader or you found a new program, whatever you want to do, but you want to be in leadership roles and uh volunteering, different stuff. you know, it really just helped me to get it together where no one in my family knew about that really or what to do or how to do that. And she did. And programs like AVID, which actually mean Advancement Via Individual Determination. Advancement via individual determination. That's what AVID means. You know, help kids navigate those different systems. um So, yeah, very important to have someone to give us direction. Some mentors. Yes. Yes. And you know what? Just, you know, for parents, a lot of times it is your child's teacher. There will be other people in their life, but I would say part of the reason that people go into the teaching profession... is because they really believe that what they're doing is going to impact the future via these children. And we want to see them successful. parents, make your child's teacher your advocate. Make them your partner in helping your child be successful. They're rooting for you. know I have several kids that are gone off to college, some have graduated from college, but I'm still in contact with. And just to know that I played a little part of that journey and helping them get to where they're going by giving them the direction they need, maybe writing a letter of recommendation or helping them fill out some forms. your child's teacher is on your side. So just a little reminder that direction is super important and it takes a village. Yes, absolutely. So just kind of recapping, uh this podcast overall was built about making sure the next generation is interrupting dysfunction, right? That we have the tools and resources needed to help kids when they get in setbacks. We help make sure they stay on track for success. And this particular podcast, we really were focusing on three elements. that's helped kids to propel them to success. Identity, purpose, and direction. And identity really about helping kids develop a sense of self through ways that we nurture them, um having that village that gives them knowledge that feeds into them, and then helping your child find a purpose by giving them lots of different experiences to help them find some talents that they have and also to be clear about things that they don't want to do, right? Or talents that they don't have. And then about direction, having mentors, having programs, having, um you know, a place to go to understand what's the path to actually get to where I want to go and fulfill my purpose. So thank you so much for listening to us. Anything else you want to add to this, Ms. Moseley? You know, I am, again, I'm reading your book, The Little Mobile Home on the Tundra. All the things we just talked about are in this book. The sense of, you know, right, purpose, direction is all in this book. So yes, if you haven't picked up your copy, get it today. I did not pay her any money for that. I was like. That was great. Okay, so again, thanks for joining us. Please reach out to us if you have any questions, suggestions, any of that. We're here to support and do something today that gives your child the competitive advantage. Have a great day. Thank you.