How are we raising our children today to prepare for the future tomorrow?
Yesterday, a 16 year old Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg was named Time Magazine's Person Of The Year 2019. She has over the years been campaigning for cleaner environments for our earth and how we humans can make it safe for everyone.
But it was what she said in her speech after her award that got me thinking deep about the many ways we can raise our children better and to be creative, and responsible adults in the future.
In the presence of presidents and powerful people around the world, this young 16 year old girl was able to tell all these powerful people a piece of her mind in boldness and in confidence.
She said:
"Our leaders are not behaving as if we are in an emergency. In an emergency you change your behaviour. If there is a child standing in the middle of the road and cars are coming at full speed you don't look away because it feels uncomfortable. You immediately run out and rescue that child."
As parents, we often leave all the responsibilities of raising our own children to their teachers in school. And we hope that the teachers and the school will train and raise our children the way we expect them to. Just because we have paid good money for them. But actually, the teachers' job and the school is to teach your child to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer etc to prepare them for work in the future after school. They don't teach the children how to be honest, how to be respectful and responsible, how to have integrity and stand up for what is right and condemn the wrong things they see.
The schools and the teachers don't teach them these things called values. Because we parents are supposed to do that. We are their first teachers in the world even before the school.
Our job as parents is not to protect our children from disappointments and failures. Our job is to help them recover from them and grow stronger when they experience them.
That way they learn more about themselves in a meaningful way than just the good classroom education that they have.
Like Greta Thunberg, give your children something more valuable than just school or classroom education. Teach them something that will build their character and confidence as they grow. But these things don't come easy. It needs full time dedication, time, commitment and sacrifice from us as parents.
We really have to invest well in the future of our children. So before you kiss your child or children goodbye just before they take the school bus in the morning, before you tuck in their blankets in their beds and kiss them good night, ask yourself
Am I raising my child or children the right away??
What am I living for my child or children to give back to the society or the world when I'm no more here on earth??
Remember, your children are your biggest and most expensive assets not your house or cars..
Raise them well. Raise them responsibly!!!!
*Kwame Sarpong*
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