How to Raise Your Child with a Strong Sense of Purpose

Do you have a plan to raise your child with a strong sense of purpose? How about s strategy to help your child stand up to the many challenges s/he will face that work? Do you have a picture of who your children will become when they reach adulthood?

A Good Outcome Requires a Plan

If you were building your dream house, you would need an architect and a meticulous plan. You would not just build a pretty home but you would make sure that each detail had a purpose. The decisions that you would make would depend on the ways in which you need the house to function.

You would decide where each room should go and how your family could make the most of the available space. The plan must give attention to natural light coming into the house as well as each light fixture and outlet that is needed. You would consider the storage in the home and where closets and cabinets would be most efficient. The kitchen and other main traffic areas in the home are important in the planning as well. And finally, you must consider appropriate furniture and how it would fit the needs of your new home.

The planning of a home takes an incredible amount of time and energy. When couples plan their home, no detail or possibility is overlooked. No one would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the building a home and not consider the outcome. Obviously, considerable time would be spent on how the house would actually look and function in the end.

Even those not building a home from scratch would spend hours planning out how a new home would be organized. They would plan the color and style of the furnishings and make improvements that are particular to their specific needs.

Parenting Requires a Plan with Purpose

If this is so for a physical house, how much more so when raising a precious human child? How important would it be to think about the details of raising a child? How will s/he emerge after the 18 to 20 years that he/she spends in your home under your direction?

But surprisingly, few people think of details at all when it comes to raising a child. Parents often think about the furnishing that will enhance the child’s room as well as the clothes that the child will need. Some parents may even give thought to the child’s future education and may even set up a fund for that purpose. However how much planning and thought is there about who the child will actually become? What kind of person will s/he be when s/he grows up?

Raising Children Can be Confusing for Parents

The truth is that even parents who do give thought to these important ideas are often at a loss when it comes to knowing how to plan for their child’s future. Life is busy and the physical care of a child takes up so much time. Add to the mix the many other responsibilities that we have in a day and it is no wonder that little time is dedicated to planning in the long run.

However, days turn into weeks, weeks turn into years, and other children and responsibilities quickly arise. Too often parents are jolted into reality as their children become adolescents. Parental influence wanes and children become more easily influenced by the values and interests of their peers.

So how does a parent make plans for the outcome of their children? This is really what my blog Every Kid Insights sets out to address. Thinking about and planning for the raising of a child that adheres to the values and purpose that his/her parents hold dear. On this blog, you will find many ideas about how to raise children and to plan for who your child will be when s/he grows up under your influence. And you will also be able to ask questions about the parenting issues that you are facing.

However, every family has to plan out for themselves the values and purpose that they want their child to embody as they grow to be adults. Starting to plan when the child is ten or twelve years old, is much too late. And that is why it is important to think about your values and your mission as soon as you start having children. And once your mission and purpose are clear, it is important to plan out how you will accomplish these goals.

How Do We Instill Values?

If one of your values is that your child should be considerate of others and not only think of himself, how will you inculcate that value? What does your child see in your home on a daily basis? How does s/he see you acting and how are you exemplifying that value both in and out of the home? Kids are like sponges and absorb everything that that see and hear and there is no fooling them. What an awesome responsibility!

However, with careful planning (hopefully together with your spouse), you can take control of the future of your children. Of course, nothing is guaranteed. We can never know what each of our children will experience or the challenges that they will face. There are many things that are not in our control. However, by doing our best to instill solid values and purpose in our lives and the lives of our children, we have built a solid foundation to stand them in good stead when facing times of challenge and difficulty.

Planning Requires Commitment and Thought

Planning to raise your child with purpose demands a time commitment and thoughtful practice. However, the benefits are clear. We want to make sure that we raise thoughtful, well-adjusted children that will be decent members of the communities in which they live. As we meticulously plan our homes and environment, we need to give just as much thought (and a whole lot more!) to how we will raise our children so that they will stand strong in the face of challenge. We want them to have the resources they need to stand against the peer pressure that they will face as adolescents.

I hope that the posts that you will find on my blog will help you to plan your course of action. Here are some additional posts that speak further about these ideas.

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