November 1, 2011

Pre-teenage is the best time to build character

A child is dough in your hands. You can mold it in any way you want, shape it any way you want, or give it any taste you want. The mind of a child is so receptive by its very nature so much so that we don't really have to try to make it so. It just is so. Therefore, the onus is on us to craft ways to mold that mind. The effort must come from us through our sense of responsibility for shaping the future of our family, community, society or nation. Looking at this process even beyond to encompass even humanity as the great prophets and compassionate leaders of yore have done with the grace of God.
In our own small way, it is therefore incumbent on us to mold the future of our children who are in fact God's trust to us. One way of looking at it is that these beautiful little lives we have that we call our children are seen as ours and what's ours must be, by the very fact of our selfish nature, things to protect and secure. Another way to see our children is as a trust from God, and in this perception, we having to be ever respectful of that trust. Either way we cannot absolve ourselves from the arduous responsibility of bringing up our children for building posterity. Breaching this would be ignominy, and a deep travesty of the blessings we have of life. Humanity is nurtured through us - parents - as we build each successive generation. As I emphasized in the last blog, we need to build character in our children and that comes from good consistent example and the experience of some hardship in life. Rich parents are generally averse to their children going through hardship - as if loving a child means giving everything they want. Unfortunately that will inevitably leave for the world a not so fit citizen of whom society will have more problems than benefits. We need to breed children who will when they are adults "ask not what my country can do for me, but ask what I can do for my country"

Parents please use the beautiful pre-teenage years to nurture this character!

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