For Our Children

When was the last time you thought, ‘Life is beautiful’? Probably not very recently, if you are like most, the prevalent thoughts are about the economy, how to cope, deferring plans instead of implementing, changing schools because school fees are now cutting too deeply and survival is becoming a figment of the imagination!

Stop! Don’t continue on that route. It’s distracting, dangerous and very defeatist. If things are so hard now, imagine what they would be like when you are 60 and your 10-year-old is 34! What is he supposed to be thinking then? What wise words and example would he be to his own child if he takes this route?

I remember at an important community meeting, someone wanted to brush away history as not being relevant to an issue that did have its roots in the past, and one of the elders promptly corrected the erring gentleman.

‘What are we if not creatures of History?’ , was the prompt rebuttal from the old man. ‘We are who we are because of the things that happened in the past, those things have shaped our today. What we do here, today, will determine where we will be tomorrow, what our future will be. So please do not throw away the past. Learn from it so that mistakes of the past will not be repeated. If that happens you know we will be treading a dangerous and really unnecessarily painful path that will not yield any good fruit!

Those words have always stuck with me, and made me question the practice of not teaching history in primary and most of secondary schools. We keep churning out young Nigerians who have little idea of their history and geography! I am digressing, sorry.

We should be looking ahead because it will soon be 2017, a new year. Are you accessing your year in 2016? How has it been? Have you done all you planned to do? Are those New Year Resolutions of 2016 done and dusted? Or have they been swept under the carpet? Did you have goals set for your children? Did you teach them how to set their goals? Are you going to teach them what this means? I have an online friend who runs a parenting forum on Facebook called Parent Right, one of the things she is keen to pass on is ‘Deliberate Parenting’.

All over the world little is done to really prepare the youth for sex, marriage and parenting. We usually learn as we go along. Is this wise though? I believe we must look forward and plan for the future.

So if I am going to do this for 2017 these are the questions I am asking myself

• What are the things I have achieved in 2016? (Give thanks for successes.)
• Are there situations or things I could have done better? (Learn from my mistakes)
• What are my goals for 2017? ( God, self, family, business, community)
• with family I want to work on helping my boys grow in some specific areas
• What are the specifics of these goals? (Time specific and measurable)
• How am I going to help the children plan and work on their goals? (Review all goals periodically in March, June and September, and move on to the desired goals.)

Usually I would plan for myself, but not make specific parenting goals. It will be different this new year of 2017. As I look forward to it I will plan for what I also want to achieve in my relationships with my two sons, not just academics but working on their financial, emotional and social intelligence as well.

What are you looking ahead to achieve for yourself in 2017? What do you want to plan to achieve with your children in 2017? As the saying goes: We must plan to succeed or else our plan would be to fail! The old man at the meeting was definitely right, what we do today will affect tomorrow. No planing for tomorrow will not help the results we get. So I hope we will get our drawing boards out and start looking ahead as we care for our children.

Do share your thoughts in the comment box below.