Step Five: Training Your Child to Be Successful in Adulthood
Years ago I was preparing to spend several weekends in Mexico City. I decided to take a Spanish course so I could at least ask for agua when I was thirsty. However, the class I took was more frustrating than helpful, because it focused more on grammar than conversation. In short, I put in a lot of time and learned nothing practical I could use on my trips.
Unfortunately, I believe the same thing happens with many families and their parenting "plan." The American family has wrongly assumed that children will learn everything they need to know while in school, on a playing field, sitting at a piano, or in front of the computer or game box.
The goal of parenting should be obvious—to raise a godly and mature adult. To accomplish such a goal, here's the next question to be assessed: "What part of my parenting curriculum or my children's learning experiences will help them enter into adulthood?" Merely arriving at their twenty-first birthday will not do it.
The responsibility of every parent is to take time to assess the competency needs of adulthood today. In other words, what does an adult need to know in order to succeed in life? Each year, our educators take time to evaluate the annual assessment tests that a child needs to take. With that information, they then tailor the teaching process to prepare the child for those all-important tests. Likewise, parents need to assess what their children need to know in order to become successful adults, and then tailor their parenting plans to teach their children the skills they need.
Parents can use several tools to assess the process of preparing their children to pass the tests of adulthood. One in particular is the book of Proverbs—an ongoing list of the potential pitfalls of adulthood. Read this book at your parental staff meeting (husbands and wives together or single parents alone or with another single parent friend). Proverbs contains 31 chapters. Read one a day for a month and take notes. Pull out various skills you think your child will need—such as handling money properly—and develop a plan, a "parenting curriculum."
One of the ways we (my wife, Rosemary, and I) selected various topics for our personal parenting curriculum (PPC) was to discuss the challenges and areas in which we felt under-prepared when we ourselves entered into the responsibilities of adulthood. Who felt ready to handle finances and credit cards?
We cannot allow ourselves to fill our children's lives with whatever activity happens to be available. We must plan ahead in order to prioritize their learning experiences. If we do not, we will fill up their days and nights with superfluous activities and information that may only perpetuate childhood rather than prepare them for adulthood.
Suppose you show up at school at the beginning of the school year with your child, and you ask the teacher what she plans to teach this year. Imagine hearing the answer, "I'm not sure yet. We're just going to wait and see what happens . . . what opportunities and field trips become available." As a parent, you'd likely start looking for another school for your child pretty quickly!
To just keep a child busy with whatever activities become available is irresponsible parenting. That kind of parenting is more about managing schedules than preparing them for adulthood.
There are a few core courses all children need to be taught before they leave home—how to handle money, how to manage time, how to deal with peers, how to understand their sexuality, and how to think for themselves and make decisions. These are not elective courses; these skills are core competencies. As parents, you must choose to teach these skills while your children are at home or they will spend their twenties fumbling around trying to catch up.
In the past four months of articles, we've explored how to prepare a child to be able to make decisions by having the personal discipline to follow through with those decisions. That's a mature adult. We also talked about instilling in a child the correct philosophy of life so he or she knows how to make the right wise decisions. That's raising a godly child!
Over the next several months, we will put it all together. First, we will discuss how to train a child to be a successful adult. Second, we will explore how to prepare a child to reach his or her full potential . . . to live out the plans God has for him or her. Third, we will look at ways to help you combine mature discipline together with the proper template of faith, to teach your child how to make wise decisions about handling the challenges of the adult world.
Between now and June's issue of Family Advocate, make a list of seven things you think a child needs to learn in order to succeed at adulthood, and then we will compare notes. Too many parents send their children off to college wishing their students were better prepared. You don't have to wish you had done better; you can be glad you did—by preparing your personal parenting curriculum now.