1. A meaningful touch.
2. A spoken message of affection and love.
3. The attributing of a high value.
Finally, #4, the picturing of a glorious future.
Help your children discover who they are. Help them find their niche and what gifts and talents God has given them. It is embedded in their DNA. Our job as dads is to help them find out what they are good at and how they can find a career at it. Counsel and guide them to become the kind of person God wants and made them to be.
The mistake many parents make is to try and make their children to become what mom and dad want them to become instead of what God made them to be.
Let your child excel in his God-given talents. Encourage them to try new things. Tell them that they have a wonderful future ahead and that they are gonna be alright and that you believe in them.
It will make a difference.
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7 comments:
maybe it's hard for dads to do this because so many of them are stuck in jobs that aren't their passion or fulfilling what they should be doing. so they view a career as simply something you have to do, instead of something you get to do.
just a thought..
Something you get to do vs. something you have to do...that is really good. Right now the hot topic in my home is..What has our son decided he wants to do, what career path has he chosen for himself? His dad is teaching a couple of his collegues high school kids chemistry and different instrumentation using that chemistry so they can decide if this certain area in medicine is for them or not. He is taking time out of his day to help these young kids hone in on what it is they have a passion for. My husband thinks the kids need to have a goal to pursue so their studies and classes they take in school will prepare them for this field. Question is, what is the field my child has a passion for, what has God gifted him in? The scary thing is my son spends hours upon hours playing the guitar. If he's not playing the guitar, he's watching videos of people playing the guitar or reading biographies of some guitar player. I guess were hoping this is just a phase and he somehow applies that same passion for guitar on to some focused field of study. This is a great topic of discussion. I'll see if my husband would like to leave his 2 cents about it.
When God created human beings he differentiated us from other living beings such as animals, plants, microbes etc by giving us a highly evolved brain, ability to learn, invent, reason and last but not the least ability to remember and achieve excellence in any field we chose to through hard work and practice. He gave us free will and freedom of choice and Yes ! he endowed every individual with certain set of gifts and talents, but he didn’t pasted those gifts and talents on our forehead he want us to discover those talents by seeking knowledge and truth. It is only through the process of trial and error we will find out what our gifts are. If we don’t try, those gifts will go with us to our grave un-utilized and wasted. It is not easy for us to discover these hidden gifts and talents and we need tools to find them in a same way a fishermen needs to learn swimming and to weave a net to catch fish.
In today’s world these set of basic tools includes mastery over language, mathematics, science, morality and social studies. American kids are very blessed (especially the ones living in league city and surrounding communities) that these tools are available to them for free through public school. All they have to do is open their mind, study, learn and practice. However majority of kid’s are lazy especially teenagers and don’t want to make an effort to learn difficult concepts and tend to follow the path of least resistance when it comes to education. Parents are equally lazy and don’t want to take time to help their kids in mastering these topics. Kids like to play guitar, video games, read comics and lately texting because it is easy and fun. Parents don’t stop them because it keeps them occupied and out of their hairs. Unfortunately playing guitar, video games and comics will not prepare them to find out what their hidden gifts and talents are.
Therefore it becomes imperative for parents to force this knowledge into their child’s brains not to make them a mini version of their own self, but to give them the tools for self discovery. In old days dad’s used to teach their kids how to farm, hunt and fish, not because these are fun things to do but because they were essential for their kid’s survival. In today’s world every parent must strive to educate their kids with the tools of survival for these times if that includes teaching them spanish, math, chemistry, physics, computers, algebra, geometry, reading, writing and biology so be it. It is only through knowledge your child will acquire wisdom and through wisdom he will find his/her god given gifts and talents. No feeling is worse than the depression one gets when they realize that they are not able to pursue in their god given talent because of their average to less than average GPA in high school and college.
Parents have to make an extra effort to make sure that their kids have achieved mastery over basic high school and college curriculum. It is not easy, it requires sacrifice but it is as important as teaching your child to brush his teeth everyday in the morning. Thomas Friedman noted this in his op-ed column in New York Times “Craig Barrett, the C.E.O. of Intel, noted that Intel sponsors an international science competition every year. This year it attracted some 50,000 American high school kids. ''I was in China 10 days ago,'' Mr. Barrett said, ''and I asked them how many kids in China participated in the local science fairs that feed into the national fair [and ultimately the Intel finals]. They told me six million kids.'' If you don’t make this sacrifice and effort now there are at least 12 million parents in China and 555 million Indians under the age of 25 who want a bite at American dream. Therefore as you teach your kids to sit around the fire, holding hands and singing kumbayah, also prepare them to face the tsunami of talent that is heading towards US coast.
"Unfortunately playing guitar, video games and comics will not prepare them to find out what their hidden gifts and talents are."
-unless of course they are really talented at playing the guitar and become successful musicians or computer programmers (from all that video gaming) or an artist or something very different than the "doctor, lawyer, teacher.." career paths we "all" want our kids to aspire to.
I think the point though is that no matter what the child chooses, after the parent has given him all options and training and skills needed, the parent should be supportive...
:)
Wow! What a great discussion we have going here. I love it.
We must always love! ( as Christ has continued to love us) but supportive? What age are you talking about. Kids want parents to be supportive of their ideas and choices at a younger and younger age. Young people can not fully discover their "gifts" or "options" in career or life choices if they have narrowed their skill set to young.
Keep putting it out there Anonymous 1 and 2. Your children will NOT forget the values you displayed and voiced. Just don't expect to get any appreciation any too soon!
i hear ya Anonymous 4...(why doesn't anyone leave their names??)
i'm talking about being supportive once their older and have made a decision as to what they want to do in life. you can provide them with all kinds of stuff but in the end it's their decision to make in what direction they will finally go.
younger kids definitely need structure and guidance...or else they'd all end up being 50 different things...ballerina first, astronaut next, then a rockstar, pro tennis player.... :) ha!
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