Take Ownership of Your Family!

Let’s ask ourselves as parents a few questions.  Whose responsibility is it to develop vision and purpose in the lives of our children?  Whose responsibility is it to develop the self-image of our children?  Whose responsibility is it to teach our children personal responsibility?  Is it the teachers at our child’s school?  Is it the coach of our child’s team or social club?  Is it the responsibility of our pastor or the youth group leader?  While each of the people listed above do play an important role in helping to develop our children.  The answer is that we as parents are 100% responsible for the development of our children in each area of their lives while they are under our care.  We may not like that answer because it places responsibility firmly on our shoulders as parents.  However, the problem is that many times we as parents are so focused on just meeting the basic needs of our children that we do not have the energy or focus to deal with these issues.  Therefore, we as parents transfer this responsibility to other people.  We then sit back and judge these same teachers, coaches, and leaders on how they are developing our children.  We reason as parents that we pay our taxes or pay for the fees for the services of these leaders and therefore we can demand that they produce good results in our children.  These unfair expectations that we place on other people in our children’s life are not realistic and give us a reason to blame others instead of taking personal parental responsibility for our child’s development.  However, how can we expect these people who interact with our children on a limited basis to change our children when we are not willing to accept total responsibility of their development?

There are many reasons why we as parents transfer the responsibility of developing our children to others.  The main ones are a lack of time, a lack of resources, or a lack of the knowledge of how to develop our children.  All of these seem to be valid reasons.  But none of these reasons justify us as parents not taking ownership of our child’s development.  Our roles as parents are to love, protect, provide for, discipline, teach and train our children to become responsible purpose-filled adults.  In today’s world that is a very formidable task.  All of these areas require a tremendous amount of time and resources.  Raising our children can definitely be overwhelming.  However, even in the face of overwhelming circumstances we as parents must be the development leader in our children’s lives.

I do realize that it is the decision of each of our children to make the right choices with their lives and ultimately to choose their own path.  However, we as parents are required to create an atmosphere and environment of growth that leads to maturity for our children.  So, while our children are living at home with us and under our parental umbrella, we are responsible for seeking out or creating teachable moments to provide guidance to our children.  These teachable moments can often be found while we implement our passion and family vision.