I came across this quote recently, ‘’Do something today that your future self will thank you for’’ and it got me thinking about the choices I have made in my Life. Some good, some very good and others not nice at all- don’t ask me. I won’t ask you about yours.

In retrospect, I had the opportunity to pick one or the other, make one decision or the other. I don’t think all the choices you or I have made were shoved down our throats.

In our lives, we all come to forks in the road and make certain choices based on certain things at these junctures. Some of these choices have been direct results of our observations and exposures. All the same, these choices have made contributions to how our lives have turned out.

This brings me to Parenting and how this impacts on the kind of choices we aid our children to make by our own trends and patterns of decision making. A few questions come to mind as I think about this.

  • Are you and I laying the right examples with the regards to choices?
  • What are we consenting to or allowing that is influencing how our Children make choices?

I also remember Daniel in the bible and his experiences with making the right choices. Allow me to dwell on his story a little bit.  We are first introduced to Daniel at a time when he too came to a fork in the road. Bible Historians make it clear that Daniel was a teenager just like his other friends. They had been taken captive from their home in Jerusalem and had obviously been separated from their parents at the time Daniel Chapter one introduces them to us.

 Some more back story: Daniel and his friends were not commoners. The bible tells us that they were selected from the noble families and royal families in Israel.  Just imagine young boys from the current royal family in England. So, they had pedigree and they had been raised into certain cultures and traditions. They had a particular way of life and they were rooted in it.

Carted away into exile and away from their families, it was decision time for these young men. However, they were not the only ones taken from their homes. Emphasis is made of these four guys because of the exemplary lives they lived through the choices they made.

Now,  they obviously families and parents who must have influenced them in certain ways and helped them develop into these young men who made excellent choices that affected their future as emigres in a strange land with strange practices, cultures, polytheism and a strange language.

So, Daniel made a choice. He was resolved about the kind of food presented to them and that was a clear indication of his ability to decipher between things that could edify and things that defiled. We read more of the other choices he made in subsequent chapters.

rankly, he could have gotten away with compromising and accepting to eat the choice food allocated to them by the king. But for Daniel, it was deeper than food and his appearance. It was a deep set of values and an unshakeable integrity to do right by God.
This is what I am trying to bring out of this. His parents or whoever brought him up had done a good job of making sure wherever he was, he knew what was right and wrong and  had the internal consistency to chose to do right. It may never have crossed their minds that the place of testing for Daniel would be in a strange land. The enemy’s land!

As we continue on our parenting journeys, we must, with conscious efforts determine to help our children make the right choices. Choices that set them up for success and build their characters every day bearing in mind that they will be tested; most likely when we are not present.

Making mistakes is inevitable for human beings but one mistake too many quickly develops into a habit. Therefore, we must stick to the process of laying the right examples for them and training them to MAKE choices that their ‘tomorrows’ will thank them for. Aiding and abetting the wrong choices where a child is concerned gives us a glimpse of the kind of life that child may lead.

I would love to read your comments.

Many blessings,
 
Joy.


DISCOVER TO GROW!

I am please to tell you that my book Discover to Grow is now available to purchase on amazon Kindle. This book is an easy to read practical guide for Parents who are curious about helping their children unlock the gifts and talents that God has blessed them with. 

E-copies are available here.


Do you agree that getting a good education is a key ingredient needed for the shaping of an individual? 
This is how Martin Luther King Jr explains his thoughts about education.

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus Character- That is the goal of true education.”

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

I believe a good educational institution/school is a good place to start. A school that possess values and ethos that are similar to yours. An education that matches and can contribute positively to your plans and dreams for yourself or your children. Don’t you think?

However, it could be a daunting experience for anyone who wants to get the best education they can possibly get based on the above. Sometimes, time is just not available for research and proper fact finding needed to find at least a close match. This is where I can I help. 

By holding your hand and supporting you through these decisions I work to help you achieve those educational goals.  Using my wealth of experience in this area and robust bank of information, I provide support through extensive research, needs analysis, school assessments, exams and settling in. 

Book a clarity call  here and I would be glad to help!


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Joy is a Parenting Leadership Coach. She is a mother to three children.  She runs arrowsnarchers.com, a community where she helps Christian parents develop key leadership capabilities as well as clear paths to all-around excellence for their children through intentional, transformational Parenting.

She enjoys teaching and mentoring, writing, singing, research, and travelling.

Joy is also an author. Copies of her book " DISCOVER TO GROW"can found here

Connect with her on Facebook.

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