Parents, your mission is to not only prepare but train your children to be PRODUCTIVE members of society. This starts when they are young. If you wait until they are teenagers, then they will absolutely reject your authority in this area.
1- Start training them when they are young. The earlier training begins, the better. Don’t buy this nonsense that “happy” kids are free from responsibility. Responsibility paves the way for productivity. Irresponsibly produces passivity.
Parent, your job is to produce a responsible adult, not a happy adult, a needy adult or an adult that thinks or acts like a child. This means an adult who can pair their reason with their responsibility which yields productivity.
You don’t train babies, but you don’t let babies train you. Too many young parents who had helicopter parents think that their baby needs everything. A baby appreciates affection, protection, nutrition and a clean diaper. They don’t appreciate thousand dollar birthday parties or five hundred photos posted to Instagram or Facebook.
Toddlers are trainable. No, it’s not easy. Digital media and Pintrest are like the seven real super parents that actually exist on the planet at one time, the other 700 million are just pretending to look good or trying to capture the one good memory they have. Training toddlers is hard work. Your priority of your toddler is not absolute obedience (Good luck with that!), but rather the ability to mold their will.
Dr. Dobson says, “your objective as a parent is to shape the will of your child while leaving his spirit intact.” The spirit is the place of creativity and sensitivity. The will is the seat of decision or defiance. There is a difference. You don’t want to crush your child’s spirit, but you do want shape their will. Their will is the place where they will chose obedience or disobedience. The will is the switch that will submit to authority or rebel against authority. If you want your children to be prepared for the workforce, then they must absolutely know how to submit their will to authority even when they think they have all the answers (especially when they think they have all the answers!).
Teach your child that YOU are the Teacher. They are the student.
2- Ask them questions. Then, allow them to answer. Too many parents operate from the position of “I have all the answers AND I’ll ask all the questions.” This is a mistake. Yes, your position is the place of authority (don’t forget this), but it is imperative for you to allow your child to work through their thought process. By asking them questions and listening to their responses, you do two things: (1) allow the child to feel a part of the process and (2) help align their thought process. Yes, their thought process is skewed, because they have a limited world-view or perspective. If you only ever enforce your perspective on them, then when they are teenagers or college-age, then there is a strong possibility they will outright reject your perspective. But, if you allow them to arrive at your joint perspective, then it the chances of this lasting beyond their preteen years is much stronger. Teach your children to think better thoughts.
Better thoughts produce better decisions.
You don’t just want “smart” kids. Not everyone is blessed with intelligence, but every child can get wisdom. Every child can get understanding. Teach your children, not to pursue intelligence (knowledge entrenches pride in their life), but to pursue wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge born of experience and truth. This will pay huge dividends as they engage with tomorrow’s workforce.
Teach your child to get understanding. Workers who understand better and quicker go farther than their contemporaries. They have to “get it.” Too many in our workforce just don’t “get it.”
3- Read to them and have them read good books. The sooner they fall in love with reading the better. Especially, read the Bible. The greatest source of wisdom and instruction that I have ever had in my life started as a toddler when my mother would read to me and my five siblings the Bible almost every night. We would read two books: a book of our choice and the Bible.
This actually did several things for us as children. First of all, it taught us that reading was fun and a family affair. My mother would always ask lots of questions (which is probably why my reading comprehension was off the charts as a child). Secondly, her process of asking us questions, made us think about what we read and then how we would or could apply what we learned to our lives. Thirdly, it instilled a discipline of reading as something that was normal and ultimately something I looked forward to doing. Fourthly and most importantly, she watered our lives with the words of God found in the Bible. I slept soundly as a child when my mother read us the Bible and prayed over us at bed time.
Reading makes you think. The key to decision-making is your thought-process. So, in order to make better decisions, teach your kids to think better thoughts.Thinking, literally, means that we need to “set our minds.” A child that can think through his or her decisions, will be a great asset to an organization in the future. The right thoughts produce the right action. The wrong thoughts produce the wrong actions.
When you ask your child, “What were you thinking?” and they respond,”Uh, nothing…” That’s not entirely true, they are just afraid to tell you they simply “wanted to see what would happen” or “followed an evil impulse” or “wanted to do the opposite of what you told me.”
Readers are learners. Teach your child to be a life-long learner, these are the real movers in the workforce.
4- Fellowship with families of high moral character and conduct. First of all, be a family of high moral character. Sadly, this is something that is rapidly spiraling out of control. Just because you have community relationships with people at the ball field or school or gymnastics or swim or choir doesn’t mean your family should hang out with them. Just because your family associates with people at events or activities, doesn’t mean you should allow them greater access or influence over your children. I have seen too many parents who lack strong moral convictions, expose their children to the families and lives of families with even lower moral convictions.
When I was young, my parents never allowed us as children to associate with families that didn’t share the same values as ours. My parents wanted to teach their children high moral character and they believed “bad company corrupts good morals.” They wanted their children to be around other adults and children that practiced admirable conduct. Just because someone says they are a “Christian” doesn’t mean they have “Christian” conduct.
Families of high moral character practice accountability. There is behavior that is unacceptable and behavior that is acceptable. These families allow their children to be corrected or held accountable by adults of like conduct and character. This is very healthy for your child. There are no perfect children on earth, not mine and not those on Facebook. The goal is not to raise perfect children, but raise responsible, productive adults with high moral character. The highest moral character that I have ever found is in Jesus Christ. How he lived and what he taught is worthy of total life emulation, both for you and your children. I am not training my children to be like me. I am training my children to be like Jesus.
The other piece is that Milennials and Generation Z are lacking in emotional intelligence. They know how to be social, but they don’t know how to build a relationship. The new understanding of being “social” means you don’t offend anyone’s preference at the expense of your own. This is actually gross foolishness.
Teach your children how to communicate with words and eye contact and manners. Teach your children that “connecting” means more than “liking” someone and a “network” is more than the system that keeps you connected digitally. Your kids desparately need social skills. It’s your duty to socialize them. The internet, televison nor the DVR does not socialize your children.
Teach your children to have high moral character.
5- Make them work–hard. Teach your children it’s okay to sweat. Teach your children that hard work is good. Teach your children that working hard means not complaining about working hard. Teach your children that there is great fulfillment in hard work.
Here is a secret: Celebrate your child’s hard work. Few things reinforce the value of hard work like celebrating the finished task. Don’t celebrate before its over or celebrate that it’s over. Celebrate completion, then rest. Then, praise your child for working hard. No, they can’t work was hard as you yet, but don’t punish them for their genetic composition. I have found that many, many in our society today have a poor view of working hard means. Hard work builds great things.
Working hard means maximum effort combined with attention to detail until the task is fulfilled into completion. If you don’t demonstrate this, why would you expect your child to model what they have never seen?!
This means you teach your children to never quit. Retiring is not quitting. Resting is not quitting. Quitting is the intentional abandonment of a responsibility. Commitment is the intentional maintenance of a responsibility. Chores teach your children commitment. You teach your children commitment. If you are always complain about your job or talking about finding another job, you are wearing your child’s capacity for commitment. Children need models of commitment. You, the parent, are your children’s greatest model of commitment or the lack thereof.
Teach your children to work hard. The world needs more hard workers. When all fails, the hard workers always rise to the top. Why? Everyone else has quit. Celebrate completion.
