No. 1070 - TRAIN UP A CHILD!

No. 1070

Jim Davidson -- NEWSPAPER COLUMN

TRAIN UP A CHILD!

With your permission, for my positive thoughts today I would like to put on my teaching hat. While I am not certified, and have never been a schoolteacher, back in the mid-1970s I had the pleasure of working with our schools, primarily in my home state, as a businessman consultant. This was a time when I represented the late Earl Nightingale and his motivational programs.
Sometime later I counted up and found that I had spoken to more than 500 school faculties, primarily at pre-school workshops, countless student bodies, and many commencement exercises. The most satisfying of all was conducting over 50 “How to Plan Your Life” seminars with high school seniors. At that point, most had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives.
When I began this process, I wrote and published a booklet titled “How to Plan Your Life.” During six hours of teaching these life-planning concepts, we worked through the booklet and answered the following questions: Who am I? Where am I? Is it possible for me? Where do I start? Now what? and Is that all there is to it?
During this process we covered four major areas of life: Spiritual, Family, Work or School, and Income. As it relates to each of these areas we discussed the importance of setting goals and how to reach them, how to determine the value of their time and how to manage it, the importance of forming good habits, the importance of developing good communication skills, and finally learning to adapt to change and continuing their education.
I am pleased to say this was a wonderful and positive experience for all of us. By the end of the day we had developed a friendship. I had won their confidence, because they knew I cared for them. In closing, I reminded them that they were the future of our nation and that they should conduct themselves with character and integrity and being a good citizen. They should also understand that society has certain standards of morality and decency that are necessary to insure that their children and grandchildren have the same opportunities they would enjoy.
Now, keeping these thoughts in mind, let’s fast-forward about 40 years. We know that many things have changed with regards to education, and certainly the standards of morality and decency. What brought these thoughts to mind was a newscast I was watching a while back during the annual Spring Break that has become so popular with young people. What I saw on this newscast was so sad, as beautiful young women were almost naked and making vulgar motions with their bodies to the delight of all the other students who were there.
While doing some research, I found that Spring Break has been around for years but really became popular in 1986 when MTV launched its first Spring Break special in Daytona Beach, Fla. It has grown from there. However, Daytona Beach has repented, as then-Mayor Robert Dressler went on “Good Morning America” to say that Spring Breakers weren’t welcome there anymore. Of course, other cities will welcome them and the money they spend.
It has been said that “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world,” be it mom or dad. If Moms would teach their daughters how to be and act like a lady and Dads would teach their sons how to be and act like a gentleman, we might see better conduct on our beaches and elsewhere during Spring Break.
Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” We can do better!!
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(Editor’s Note: Bookcase for Every Child – Changing Lives & Futures – ONE AT A TIME. Please visit our website: www.bookcaseforeverychild.com)