Take a moment to think about your child. Now take a moment to dream what you would want for them and how you’d like them to conduct themselves in this world.
Instead of thinking about the hear and now, think about what kind of human being we want to turn loose on society in a few short years.
This is the what we need to keep in mind throughout the difficult parenting years. We need to think about the future, so we can set goals and stick to them in the present. So, how do we raise independent, righteous, humble, generous, understanding, selfless, loving, forgiving, compassionate, empathetic, non-prejudiced, and society-improving adults? That’s a long and challenging list of qualities! This is going to take a lot of time and effort- a lot of work. If we look back on our own lives we can see what shaped us- and we are going to discuss them all!
And where do we start? With ourselves.
A simple man believes anything. But a prudent man gives thoughts to his steps.
Proverbs 14:15
We all must analyze our history, steps we’ve taken, choices we’ve made and analyze our past. We can learn a lot by looking over our shoulder. Investigating what kind of parents our grandparents were to our parents, and make correlations with the type of parents our parents turned out to be can help us navigate forward.
Word to the Wise:
When we don’t analyze our past we don’t make correlations as to why we behave the way we do. We can then miss out on a lot! The road to forgiveness, empathy, understanding, replicating or eradicating is all done by understanding the past.
Most of our ideas of child rearing can be traced back to our own lives as children. This includes how our parents treated each other (if we had both parents in our lives), how they treated us, what birth order we were in and how we got along with our siblings. Then the outside world makes its mark. Were we accepted at school or were we an outcast? Were we athletic, academic, shy, outgoing, artsy? Were there some pivotal people in our lives who made a difference? Was there one person who saw something special in us? Were we cherished or were we set aside?
