Lost children

DQ and Bookworm have started something here, between their recent posts on “thoughts for the day” and how to instill values in children.

I look at so many of the really nice kids that I meet in our neighborhood and in our church and they are, to put it simply, utterly, totally, hopelessly lost! Many of them have college degrees and still have no idea of what they want to do. They have no idea of how the world works. They are college graduates and they live at home. They wait for someone to help guide them (i.e., parents). Many of them are hopelessly in debt. I would have to conclude that our generation’s parents have failed them.

In a parenting seminar at our church, I mentioned that my wife and I often played “good cop, bad cop” roles, but that we always had each others’ back when it came to disciplining our children. One (really top-drawer) mother raising three really great kids piped up, “Why do I always have to be the bad cop? My husband is such a pushover”.

Recently, I asked my 20-something son, an already highly decorated soldier, why he thought that so many of his peers were in such straits. He thought about it and said, “because everything was just given to them”. Is that the whole story?

So, those of you with experience with kids as mentors or parents, what would your advice be to parents today, so that their children don’t end up so lost.

Let me start if off: tell your children that nobody owes them anything. Everything good that they enjoy in life is a gift.

Over to you…