Lesson Number 11

Kids don’t do what you say, they do what they see

Kids are very smart. How you live your life is their example. They don’t absorb the values you do not follow. Good parents are role models – they take responsibility, own problems, enforce standards, and figure out way to overcome challenges. Bad parents blame everyone else. There are no bad kids, only bad parents.

To raise happy and well-mannered kids is one of the greatest contributions that parents can make to society. It breeds good adults. But nobody really knows what the world be like in ten or fifteen years, hence nobody knows what to teach kids today. Consequently, it’s likely that what they learn at school will be irrelevant by the time they are twenty-five or thirty.

I learned to focus on teaching my kids those few timeless lessons. Taking them on trips is going to be the best investment in their education. They learn more having adventures with their parents than having more toys.