The Family Plan

Sep 17, 2014 by Jim and Jerolyn Bogear

 

 

When was the last time you took your family on a trip, and you had no idea where you were going? Crazy right? You don’t just pack up suitcases of clothes, hop in the car, and start driving. Of course not.

You dream of where you want to go. You research what is available at that location. You create a budget and save up your money to cover the expenses. You get out a map or your GPS and plot the route you are going to take. You have a plan for what you are going to do each day. Even if you have a ‘do nothing’ day, you still plan for it. It’s all very organized and gets you to your goal – a great family vacation.

So why don’t we apply this same focused planning technique to raising a family?

It’s not that hard or time-consuming. You just have to be purposeful and consistent.

First, where do you want to go? In raising a child this answer falls under “What kind of person should I be raising?” Who will they become? Generous or selfish? Honest or lying? A hard worker or lazy? Loving or hateful? Of course you chose the first options. No one sets out with a goal to raise a hateful, selfish, lying slug.

So if that is NOT our goal, we need to be steering our children’s character in the exact opposite direction and demonstrating for them how to get there. How do we do that?

We establish values for everyone in our home that will point our children in the right direction.

So what are those values? These happen to be ours:

• Devotion – loving God with everything your are.
• Integrity – truth-telling, hard-working, and loyal
• Purity – purity of body, but also of mind and heart
• Positive Attitude – getting rid of negativity
• Generosity – with our money, possession, time, and grace
• Significance – instead of just striving for success, working to make a difference.

(You can click on each on and see the posts that give practical ways to instill the value if you are interested.)

When you daily instill character-building values into your children and are modeling them in your own life, you are training them to become healthy, productive, loving adults who can make a difference in their world. Your kids only have one life – help them to start it in the right direction.

What are your family values?

~ Jim and Jerolyn