May 14, 2017: Givers and Takers
What road do we teach our children to take? A wise man once told me, "The world is full of takers. Our job as parents to fill the world with givers." This has always stuck with me. In the age of helicopter parents, sometimes it is too easy to lose sight of this simple goal. As parent s, ou r job is to equip our children to be good people who are productive members of our community. Instead, we get caught up in our kids making the best select teams and getting accepted to the most prestigious universities. It is all about their personal achievement and receiving a participation ribbon. The unfortunate result is a selfish child. One who knows how to work an A and earned entry into all AP classes, but without a hint of empathy on how to spend time with an aging neighbor in early stages of dementia. A child with no sense of knowing how to drop everything and make someone else feel important. A giver. In the words of a favorite columnist of mine, John Rosemand, on...
