As a loving parent to your young child,
you should guide them to help achieve the goal
of their choosing, taking care all the while
to allow their dreams for life to unfold.
Often a parent sees another chance
for now obtaining unfulfilled success
of their own childhood dreams perchance
if the child can be forced to acquiesce.
Many a child, eager to please the parent,
will strive to live up to expectations
which for them are ill-suited and errant.
You must allow children their own aspirations.
A child’s personal happiness doesn’t reside in
playing football if he’d much rather dance
or going to medical or law school when
she’d rather as an artist take her chance.
It’s okay when a child’s talent and goals
happen to match the parent’s own to urge
that agenda for their life, but if it unfolds
as unwise, then their life’s path must diverge.
A parent should steer, teach how to best cope
for adult success and how to live well.
That they will share your values you can hope;
you must encourage, not try to compel.
Each child should live a childhood beguiled.
Remember the life isn’t yours but the child’s.
Some wise advice in a poem. I don't have any children, but I've seen, many times, especially during adolescence, when a parent tries too hard to steer their children in a direction that child was never meant to go. I don't know how many times I've said that I was so grateful that my parents did not try to force me to do anything I didn't already want to do. I do recall my father giving me some lectures on life in my teenage and early college years, but they were more like debates that I won rather than him forcing me to do something… I just didn't take his well-meaning advice.
Not having children I had many students. All of the students who worked for me and different talents and expectations. I did whatever I could to enhance what they had rather than try to steer them in some other direction. I'm amazed at how well the students have done by directing their own lives.
This is a book of free verse poetry that addresses the seven main tests in life and offers some sensible solutions to passing those tests with minimal discomfort.
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Diana...
Not having children I had many students. All of the students who worked for me and different talents and expectations. I did whatever I could to enhance what they had rather than try to steer them in some other direction. I'm amazed at how well the students have done by directing their own lives.
Ron