It's Summer and the living is easy...Unless you're a parent. Ha! Well it's true. Parents and Kids need this valuable reprieve from the scheduled gantlet of the school year. But, In the long lazy days of summer, it is a good time to do some character developement and life prep with your kids. As a parent you will be quite aware of where any deficiencies may dwell in your child's preparation for life. And obviously, a 6 year old will have different tasks and levels of urgency than say, a high school graduate heading for a university.
But basically, there are 5 different areas that will set your kids up for success if mastered, but trouble if not. So take the skills I'm about to share and come up with ways for your child to practice them, within the scope of their own maturity level. Talk about issues that might come up. Role play, practice, within the safety of a hypothetical situation. Assess your child's readiness to deal with these issues and work toward preparing them. This is a crucial job of yours. If you neglect it, or fail to take it seriously, it will be your child who suffers.
1. Time Management: Your child needs to be able to string several steps of a task together and not get bogged down, distracted or delayed. Examples would be getting ready for the day, working a "to do" list, or preparing a project due at a later date. It's never too early to begin this training. Even a 3 year old can work on completing all the steps of getting ready for bed in order and in a timely manner. A ten year old should be able to pack for a trip including laundry, planning, gathering supplies and checking off a list...and so on. By graduation they need to be able to priorities and produce a productive day without too much prompting, on time, under budget, goals completed and results evaluated. They need to be able to keep a calendar, a schedule and plan ahead. That includes going to bed/waking up when appropriate, knowing when to work and when to relax, caring for personal needs, and keeping your responsibilities, keeping an eye on coming deadlines and due dates. If you've ever been around or worked with a grown up who can't manage his or her own concerns you know what a handicap it is and how it imposes on others. Work with your child to develop this skill. Don't expect perfection just progress and learning.
2. Stress Management: Life is mean, relentless, and full of trials. Your kids need to learn how to deal with stress. Help your child figure out what de-stresses them. Is it reading, music, exercise, movies, TV, a hobby, talking about it, not talking about it? If your kids can't cope with stress in a healthy way, they might just freeze or turn to drugs, alcohol, porn, or adrenalin to find relief. Teach them to pray with faith. Teach them to use communication to work through stressful times and achieve compromises. Teach them to set limits and ways to avoid situations they can't handle like over-commitment or certain people. Show them how to defuse a situation, problem solve. Teach them to confront if necessary. Teach them sometimes you just have to rip the bandaid off and get on with it, but that there are healthy ways to let off the steam and refresh.
3. Peer-pressure or flesh-pressure management: Develop leadership in your child's individual way. Help them to find pre-set answers to help them say no to bad invitations. Help them choose self-imposed guardrails to keep them out of situation they can't handle. Empower them to be able to report or share inappropriate situations they are put in. Assure them that you are there to talk and to help them fix it. Establish safe confession- by this I mean assure them that it will always be better less costly for them to tell you than to cover it up. Let them know you will not be too shocked or too mad to help. Learning to be sneaky and keep things hidden or secret is dangerous. Help them make a lifestyle out of keeping short sin accounts with God through confession, repentance, holiness, and personal accountability.
4. Money Management: Help them learn to give tithes and offerings. Teach them to budget, deny themsleves, set and reach goals, and save. Help them learn to keep records. Teach them the pitfalls of debt. Teach them to know the difference between a want and a need. Teach them how to spot a scam, point out that if it looks too good to be true it probably is. Let them learn how to work hard and to earn. Help them see the value in things. Take them shopping and talk about quality versus quantity. Teach them to pay their own way. Stamp out any and all feelings of entitlement. Teach them to be generous. Let them do without when necessary to show that when it's gone, it's gone. Start them a savings account and if age appropriate help them learn banking skills.
5. Relationship Management: Interpersonal skills are so key in success. Kids need to learn to function within a system of authority. They need to be able to network. They need social skills like being able to communicate with adults, the opposite sex, bullies, and opponents. They need to learn to dress and participate in various social realms. They need to learn to express love, appreciation, gratitude, as well as needs. We worked on manners, dating expectations, how to greet and shake hands, how to make small talk, how to navigate customer service. We wanted our boys to be able to be respectful. We wanted them to learn how to have close friendships yet be comfortable with setting boundaries. We wanted them to learn to use social media wisely and to be discreet.
All of these skills are needed to successful in life. Many of them I'm still learning. But they don't just happen. We must be intentional as parents to develop them in ourselves and in our kids. Why don't you make this summer a time of learning. Take a look at where your child needs the most help. It's probably the place you need it the most too;) Then determine to work at it, practice, discuss it, pray about it. You'll all grow! We are working on it all here at the Frank casa too!
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