I was a heavy kid.

I was a heavy kid. Entering 6th grade I was well into the 99 percentile for weight. Not dangerously obese, but big enough that I had a hard time running, got made fun of nearly every day, and the beach and the pool stopped being fun.

I wanted to play peewee football in 6th grade, the weight limit was 120 pounds for my team. At the beginning of August 1995, I was 145 pounds and barely 5’ tall. The coaches told me, “You can practice, but you can’t play until you cut weight.”

“I can lose the weight?” I said to my parents. Unsure of what to do next, but sure that I wanted to play.

They were concerned. Was it healthy for me to try and lose the weight that fast? What if I failed? Is football this important to him? And at the same time, they knew it wasn’t healthy for me to be that big. They had wiped my tears after fights with other kids, seen my difficultly breathing, and reminded me to bring my shirt to the beach.

So, we changed everything.

I stopped eating sugar and sweets, snacking around the clock. I started jogging every morning, and showed up to football practice every day.

In 6 weeks I lost 25 pounds, in 8 weeks I lost 30. I played football that season. And even though that was my last season. I never stopped running, but I did stop getting called fat.

That experience was formative. It allowed me to say, “I’m an athlete". It allowed me to learn, “People can change.” And it made me unafraid to try hard.

Being a fat kid shaped a part of me. It’s a definitive part of my story. Ask anyone who was a big kid, who grew through it, and they would tell you the same.

And it occurred at the exact moment of my development when I started to define who I was.

Identity awareness comes on sharply in early adolescence when kids combine abstract thought with heightened social awareness. They begin to see themselves in the scenes of their life. To be able to say, “So, this is who I am.”

And parents, we have a massive role here, because we are the main characters in their life. They model our behaviors, they are dependent on us, their voice and values reflect ours.

If we want to have a say in healthy identity development. Follow my dad’s lead.

Be open minded and supportive: My dad knew that trying to lose the weight was a challenge, and football wasn;t so important, but he knew my motivation was important. So he worked with me, everyday, always patient and positive. Support our kids in their healthy exploration of autonomy.

Facilitate persistence: The story changes if I don’t lose all the weight, it’s still a useful experience, but my persistence made the event formative. That doesn’t happen without an adult challenging me to keep going. Persistence and mastery are the basis for self-efficacy, and that is the basis of self-belief.

Reflect: Kids can’t always process their progress and emotions in real time, we can help by processing the emotion, defining the growth they can’t see. Every week, I would weigh in, and every week Dad and I would talk about how it felt to be a little closer.

The danger that adolescents run into is identity foreclosure. Closing the experiences of healthy identity formation occurs more easily than we would like our kids are more fragile than we realize, small things can have big effects. Here’s what could have happened that summer.

Labeling: My parents could have said “Football just isn’t for you, honey” or “You’re too big, sorry.” While that assessment may have felt accurate or obvious, when we define the boundaries of their identity for them, they will conform and internalize those limits.

Overt control: My parents could have made me lose the weight in a way that was painful, embarrassing and controlling. Identity shrivels without collaborative choice and voice. A positive challenge quickly turns to resentment and coercion.

A failure to persist: While they respected my voice, they helped me capitalize on motivation and turned it into 6 weeks of progress, but that took a lot of structure, support, and patience. Supporting positive identity formation requires support that allows a child to persist to mastery.

Not every kid has this story waiting for them, but these small moments present themselves throughout adolescence more than we know.

This weekend

Get curious with your kid, see what small change or risk they are seeking, what new thing they want to try and see if you can meet them there, support them in taking the first step. Or help them get back to the thing they love, the thing that they