Not a lot of us stop to trace our roots of behavior, but we are all functioning as adults in many ways we learned as children from our observations of adults and their ways. We aren’t always aware of how our past experiences influence our present actions but a little reflection may reveal a Top 10 from the hit parade of folks from whom we’ve learned the most.
Aside from relatives, who would your Top 10 picks be and what did you learn from those people?
I learned a lot about courage when our family friends’ son died unexpectedly while at school and I saw how and why we support the grieving with our prayers, presence and gifts of food and service.
I experienced discipline firsthand from my spinster piano teacher who cared far more about my success as a pianist than I ever did. From her determination to teach me (thus giving me a “gift” I enjoy daily) I found it was far better to practice at home a little each day rather than for an hour a week under her scrutiny.
The model for acceptance came to me as an Army officer’s wife who stayed with us while her husband was preparing to leave for Korea. She accepted the very real possibility of his death with good sense and the determination to make good memories of what time they had together.
Devotion to a cause I have learned from our good friend who has spent over 30 years, underpaid and overworked, serving as director of a youth organization that desperately needs her time and talents. Fidelity was taught me by my friend’s mom who kept their home intact despite an impossibly difficult husband.
Determination I learned from my mom’s friend who became a 50-year-old graduate school student in order to teach.
Adventure I learned from the director of a singing group which traveled worldwide and nurturing I learned from the sister of a friend of my mom who provided my “home away from home” while I was away at school.
Make a list of 10 people outside your family who influence your children the most. Try to identify what they’re learning from them. If people such as Power Rangers, Madonna, O.J. Simpson or similar figures head the list, we all may be in big trouble.
Before television, the primary source of information our children received was the home, the church, the school. Those are now the places where our children receive the least amount of information. Turning on your Top 10 for your child is a great way to communicate values that will influence him the rest of his life.
