One of the most important responsibilities of parenting is deciding who gets to influence your children. If you do not actively fill that role, someone else will gladly volunteer. In previous generations, parents competed with teachers, coaches, and the occasional eccentric neighbor who dispensed life advice over backyard fences. Today, they compete with social media influencers, YouTube personalities, celebrities, advertisers, and algorithms specifically designed to capture a child’s attention for as many waking hours as possible. Many of these influences are entertaining, but few are losing sleep over whether your child grows into a responsible, courageous, and compassionate adult. Parents who want the best for their children cannot afford to be passive observers in this competition.
Taking control of influence does not mean controlling every thought, opinion, or decision a child makes. In fact, children are remarkably creative at testing parental authority, often with the determination of a trial lawyer and the stamina of an Olympic athlete. Rather, it means being intentional about the values and expectations that guide family life. Parents who regularly discuss character, model good behavior, establish clear expectations, and engage in meaningful conversations create a powerful counterbalance to the endless stream of outside messages. Children may occasionally roll their eyes, sigh dramatically, and act as though parental wisdom is a violation of their civil liberties, but they are listening far more than they let on.
The ultimate goal is not to raise children who simply obey rules; it is to raise young adults who can make good decisions when no one is watching. Character traits such as responsibility, grit, generosity, resilience, and integrity do not develop by accident. They are taught, reinforced, practiced, and modeled over time. Parents who intentionally shape these qualities provide their children with something far more valuable than popularity, test scores, or social status. They provide a moral compass. In a world filled with competing voices telling children what they should value, parents have both the opportunity and the obligation to ensure that the loudest and most trusted voice belongs to them.
We welcome you to the conversation. Please let us know that you care by liking comments, forwarding posts, or joining in our dialogue at johnzurn.com. We would love to hear your own “Stories From the Classroom….”.
From our first posting:
“As parents and teachers, we need to reclaim our traditional role as influencers of our children – not by shouting louder than the influencers our children discover online, but by stressing ideas that are more important than fancy shoes and snappy TikTok tunes. We need to emphasize traits that everyone agrees children will honor. We need to convince our children that the people who are most important to them have a better understanding of what it takes to be successful in life.”
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