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As Seen Through Your Child’s Eyes

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Imagine that you’ve just gotten off of an airplane in a different part of the world that you’ve never experienced. All of the people, things, places, that you encountered were a new adventure waiting to be explored. That’s as close as we can get to understanding what it’s like to be your child. They come into this world as a blank slate and everything they experience is a new impression on them.

Think for a few minutes with me about how your child sees the world. Can you imagine going back to the days when almost everything was a new learning experience? How did you figure it out? Mom and Dad. Your job as their parent is to teach your children what you want them to know. You teach them the names of things, how things are used, what sounds they make, and what is safe and what is not. They learn from you what things to eat and drink and what things to play with and avoid. They learn what appropriate language is and, if you use it, what inappropriate language is. Are you actively showing your child the differences?

Your children learn how to behave from you. Your kids see how you treat others, how you spend your time, your habits and mannerisms, and the way you talk. They learn emotion from what they see. Your child sees what it is like to be happy, sad, angry, excited, bored, and so forth. They learn what it means to be patient and when enough patience has been extended. They also learn how to hate from you, and how to love from you. Do you exhibit love, care, and compassion for others, or does your child see discord, conflict, and anger?

Your children learn relationships from you. It begins with your relationship with them, extends in the home to your relationship with your spouse and other children, and outside of the home to friends and family. Are you nurturing those relationships and giving them the time and attention that they deserve? They learn what it means to be selfish and to be giving from you. Which of these does your child see most?

Your child also gets morals and ethics from you; that is, you become their guiding compass. They pick up on right from wrong. They learn what hard work is supposed to look like. What you believe becomes what they believe; that includes religion and spirituality. Parents have been known to say they will let their child decide these things for themselves – is that really the responsible thing to do? Or, is it an excuse not to take them to church? If you don’t teach morals, ethics, values, and beliefs to them, there is a world full of people waiting to teach them. Do you want to leave it in their hands?

You are larger than life to your child. You are their whole world, and your responsibility for them is an awesome one. Be intentional in teaching and training them. Don’t leave it to chance that they will pick up the right things from the rest of the world.

Proverbs 22:6 – Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. (King James Version)

Application Question – Do you just assume that your children are learning the right things from you, or are you being intentional about it? Do you want them to see the real you or the you that others talk about?

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Why Is It Important To Know Your Child’s Friends?

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Remember when you were a child? You probably started out like the rest of us – your parents were the greatest things on earth and could do no wrong. As you entered school and the world around you, Mom and Dad lost their luster and the cool factor was found in your friends. It’s no different today; at some point your child will value time with their friends more than time with you. But you need to know what to look out for and know about their friends.

The most important thing to know, in my opinion, is that regardless of where you live or what you think, you cannot assume to know anything about what goes on in the homes of your child’s friends. I believe that if your child is going to spend any time in the home of their friends that you know the parents and even accompany your child for the first visit or two. They could be unwittingly exposed to something that can steal their innocence in a split second, and you’re left to deal with the aftermath. You would never trust just anyone with your money, so don’t trust just anyone with your kids. You know the adults that you like and trust, so you can steer your child to spend time with the children of those families.

Part of your child’s natural development is to absorb input and information from their surroundings and begin to develop ideas and opinions of their own. Normally, this is a healthy behavior if the right inputs are being absorbed. But children pick up on things from one another, and a friend who has differing values, religious views, morals and beliefs from yours can easily convince your child to see things in a way that you would not approve of. I’m not saying that you should brainwash your kids and turn them into little versions of yourself. However, knowing who they are hanging out with and where their influences are coming from should play a big part in your decisions about who they associate with.

Your kids are naturally curious, and sometimes their friends are eager to provide them with answers. While sometimes the answers will be technically correct, other times they will be very wrong. Whether right or wrong, you may not want your child exposed to this information from another child and maybe not at this particular stage in life. Knowing their friends can give you some idea of the types of conversations they have and whether you may need to intervene.

Beginning around the tween years, peer pressure begins to kick in. Your child’s desires to fit in may lead them to do things that their so-called friends cajole them into. Knowing your child’s friends can keep you on the lookout for this type of behavior and help you talk to your child about peer pressure.

To summarize, the steps you can take towards knowing that your child’s friends are a good influence are:

  • Target who you want your child to befriend
  • Know their parents
  • Visit with their parents
  • Observe your child with their friends in supervised play
  • Ask your child questions and answer their questions
  • Build your child’s self-esteem and they won’t seek it from others
  • Set clear expectations for your child
  • Let them see your moral code in action
  • When something feels wrong, it probably is – act on your child’s behalf

Outside of the home, nothing influences your child more than the interactions with their friends. During the school year, they spend as much waking time with their friends each day as they do at home, so it is important to know who they’re hanging out with. By intentionally guiding your child through the development of their friendships, you set them up for success in the development of their adult relationships.

Some other articles you might like on this topic:

The Buddy System: Are Your Child’s Friends a “Positive  Influence”?

Getting To Know Your Child’s Friends

When you dislike your kid’s friends

And related posts that I’ve written:

Go with the flow or hold steady?

Why Is Peer Pressure So Powerful on Teens

Does Your Teen Need a Curfew? Seven Reasons I Say Yes!

Computers and children

Chime in with your comments below or share if you like this post!

Application Question – Am I involved enough in my child’s interactions with their friends?

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Depth or breadth?

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When looking to round out an admission or scholarship resume, one of the categories that comes up is involvement in activities.  Is it better to go wide and be involved in as many activities as possible, or go deep and be heavily involved in a few choice activities?  While it might look more impressive to list as many activities as possible, sometimes too much is, well, just too much.

As you can imagine some of those activities really don’t add much clout to your resume.  Instead, they just take up room on the which, at some point, leaves the reader a little weary. Many of the clubs, activities, and organizations that you might list are really open for membership to anyone who wants to join or who is willing to pay money to join.  The more of those that are on your application or resume, the more clutter you have added.  Those don’t add meaning or depth to your credentials.  Instead, they just tell the reader that you were very busy.

Volunteer activities are always good to list on your resume or application.  Committees love to see applicants who serve others without expectation of compensation or benefit.  The longer that you’re involved in the volunteer organization, the better.  If you held any leadership positions or coordinated any volunteer activities, be sure to highlight those.  Paid work experiences can be good; they indicate an ability to handle work alongside of school.  If you’ve done any entrepreneurial activities, those are excellent for describing your initiative, work ethic, and creativity.

If you’re an academic type, do you think it helps to list every math team meet, scholar’s bowl competition, or science olympiad?  My recommendation on these types of activities is to only list those where you were a winner or runner-up of an event; I don’t think it really helps to list all of those fifth and sixth place finishes.  If you were a team captain, then that should be stated as well.  This gives the reader some indication as to previous leadership responsibilities that you might have held.

For all the clubs and organizations that you were in, the vast majority of those are simply filler on a resume or application.  Band, sports, and other mass-participation activities don’t really add value unless you are applying for a talent-based scholarship related to that activity.  If you were an officer in one of these organizations, be sure to include that for the leadership points.  If the organization is one of the honor societies, then those are also good to put on the form.  Religious affiliation and activities may not be of value on the application unless they support the other items (likely leadership or volunteerism) that are on your form, or unless the application is for a religion-based school or scholarship.

The key is that you be prepared to tell the story behind the information that you include.  You may be called upon to submit an essay or sit for an interview so be sure that your application backs your story.  It’s my opinion that scholarship and selection committees are looking for substance over quantity, so choose depth.  They want students who are committed to a cause, show passion for that cause by their activity and involvement, and have been profoundly impacted through their activities.  The more that your application reflects the person you are, the easier it will be to tell your story.

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