Give them a sense of pride

I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be 

-The Greatest Love of ALL, George Benson/Whitney Houston

To make it easier.   Our children are our responsibility considering we brought them into the world.  We are their heroes and they are our FUTURE heroes.

If we want to make the world a better place, it starts at home, helping our children to become human beings who take pride in themselves and love themselves.  When you can love yourself, you can then love others.   When you possess a great deal of self-esteem, you are then able to love and respect others.

At the beginning of the school session back in September 2009, my 10 year old son was voicing a lot of discontent about starting the 5th grade, so much so that he managed to exhibit this "attitude" towards his 3 different teachers.  Two out of the three teachers did notice that he had a lot of manners and a loving "way" about him, but the 3rd teacher was only interested in his "academic" abilities, and she could careless about whether or not he said, "Good Morning" with a bright sunshiny smile each and every day.

As a parent, I had mixed emotions, happy that my child remembered about the importance of proper manners, but not happy that my son was wasting so much energy "worrying" about the challenges of 5th grade.   5th grade in his school is the year to get a true sense of independence as they inherit lockers, change classrooms about 4 times a day, and become loaded up with school work.

On Back-to-School night, this "math" teacher made it clear that she thought my son was "struggling" to understand and was "overwhelmed", and at that very MOMENT, "I" made it clear that she will "struggle" to use those words to describe my son ever again.

From that night on, I made it my priority to help him in every which way possible to make this year a GREAT year for him (as he has always had great school years).

Yesterday afternoon I met with this "math" teacher and she had a great big SMILE on her face because she sat and said to me, "Well it seemed that he was overwhelmed in the beginning, but now I see he has improved incredibly," and then she continued to rattle off the list of his many test grades, 100, 100, 100, 95, 88, 100... he did have a 76 and a 56 in there, but those were momentary setbacks.    She agreed that it is CLEAR that he is showing great strength, understanding, and still maintaining he wonderful "jovial" well-mannered spirit. 

Giving my son a sense of pride and something to strive for is important to ME and to HIM.   He is now a very happy child and a child that knows he can perform wonderfully.  He is no longer "worried" about being in 5th grade and knows that his parents believe in him.   We MUST enforce that we BELIEVE in our children.

It is our job as parents to step in at the very INSTANT that our children are struggling and help them along.  Give them love, support, encouragement .... and extra love, support and encouragement.