Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

The other day a teacher said to me, ‘Parents love their kids. All parents do. The problem is … they just don’t have the time for them!’

(ie. both parents are busy working fulltime that they have so little time to spend with their kids)

Recently too there are articles in the Straits Times highlighting issues and problems amongst teens nowadays. How they – who mostly don’t have close relationships with their parents to begin with – start to mix with the wrong crowd, and are sadly driven further away from their family, dragged deeper into the ‘black hole’ (read: drugs, glue-sniffing, stealing etc).

I’m honestly very concerned.

And when I do look around and see the lifestyle many teens have these days, I sometimes do wonder ‘WHAT IF my kids turn out to be like one of those teens’.

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The things we parents do right now to and with our children will have a big effect on the kind of persons they’ll become years from today.

Anya and Vai are all okay and good right now. Of course. They’re just four and 1.5 years old.

In fact, I’m sure all our young ones are okay and adorable right now.

But. What kind of persons will they become 10 – 15 years from today?

Now THAT to me is a really serious question we parents must think about.

I strongly believe, the things we parents do right now to and with our children will have a big effect on the kind of persons they’ll become years from today.

Childcare centres, schools and other educational institutions ‘look after’ our kids for certain number of hours, and teachers fill our little ones with ‘knowledge’. They prepare our kids academically.

While academics is important to our kids, other crucial aspects are sadly often overlooked by us parents, like our children’s moral values, faith and relationship with us and with others.

While our little ones are well groomed ‘inside the head’, who’s preparing and filling their hearts and souls?

Where (and how) do they learn about strong family values and bonding, morality, righteousness, faith and the importance of respect, open communications and relationships with one another.

I believe it all starts in the family.

God gives and entrusts little ones to our family because that’s where they’re supposed to learn about love, relationships and lots of other stuff that schools and childcare centres cannot and do not teach much.

But, how can we teach our little ones about all these if we’re hardly with them, ie. if on average they spend more time with their TV, computer games, tuitions, friends, maids, than with us parents.

God gives and entrusts little ones to our family because that’s where they’re supposed to learn about love, relationships and lots of other stuff that schools and childcare centres cannot and do not teach much.

Raising our little ones comes with sacrifices.

It’s not always easy, and yes we parents (especially stay at home moms) go through physical, emotional and mental challenges on a daily basis.

But when we see the precious value of something, don’t we naturally choose to invest the time and energy? We’d even choose to give something else up and make sacrifices for it.

Just like when a man willingly chooses to queue up for hours and hours under the scorching sun and pouring rain to get some meals given for free, to feed his impoverished family. He sees the urgency, the need, and he goes for it, despite the struggles and difficulties.

Having said all that, I believe there are limitations too as to ‘how much’ and ‘how long’ we can teach our children.

There’ll be a time when our kids will simply choose to stop listening to us because they feel they’re all ‘grown up’.

And even after we give our very best in parenting and teaching our little ones, there’s still no absolute guarantee that our kids will ‘surely’ be on the ‘right path’ when they reach adolescence and beyond.

[It takes many years for us to plant positive foundations in our kids, and just a few minutes and hours of bad peers and influence to destroy or ‘undo’ them one by one]

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I personally do NOT want to look back later on with regret (for not giving my best in bringing them up NOW)

I know I have limited capabilities as a Mom. I’m very far from perfect. I have flaws and I make mistakes.

But I’ve chosen to invest my time and energy NOW and forgo certain other opportunities for the sake of raising my kids fulltime.

Yes, there’s no guarantee that – even after all that we’ve done for them now – Anya and Vai will never go astray.

But one thing is for sure, I personally do NOT want to look back later on with regret (for not giving my best in bringing them up NOW).

Ten to fifteen years from now I’d hope to be able to say,

‘I’ve done as best as I can when I had the time, and now I’m leaving my all grown-up children in God’s hands. May God’s grace and mercy be upon them always, keeping them in the right path, making full use of their lives so that they can glorify HIS name and be a blessing to others.’

…

There’s only so much that I can do for my children, and I’d like to learn to do my best each day, while there’s still time, and while I still can.

May God give us parents the strength and wisdom we all need.