Lenny wanted to be a Navy pilot.  Since he was a little boy he had always taken an interest in the aircraft that flew overhead and his parents encouraged that interest by purchasing Matchbox aircraft, Classic WW2 models and anything else with wings!  They sent him to visit his uncle who was stationed on an aircraft carrier in Virginia and who supplied him with an overlarge flight suit that he wore to that year’s “Dream the You, You Want to Be” talk in school.  Lenny wore his suit with pride and delivered  his dream to the audience impeccably.

Five year’s later, he was playing football at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD and four years after that he was the lead pilot in the Navy fly-over prior to that years’ Army-Navy game.  Lenny went on to enjoy a spectacular career in the Navy.  He had developed a focus in his early years at our school and never took his mind off his goal.

I often spoke with his father at back to school events and I know that Lenny was not always as easy and as focused as he sounds.  For many years, Lenny’s focus would periodically turn to baseball, or computers, or social networks.  Lenny’s Dad was especially concerned the years Lenny seemed to be showing a greater interest in fashion, in machine guns and in military internet games. But Lenny’s parents encouraged all of his dreams, never wanting to close the door too early.  By the end of grade school, they knew that Lenny would always come back to his big dream in the sky.

Lenny today is a pilot with a major airline and when I spoke with him, he still dreams about the power and lift of a great take off.  But he also talks about his upcoming role as a new parent.  Now he dreams about becoming a great parent and of learning the ways of his own parents- how to allow your children the independence of focus without cutting them off too early.  Lenny did not know yet what focus lay ahead for his child, but I was confident that he had been trained well by his parents in allowing his child’s dreams to unfold.

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.

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.”

#charactereducation #successtraits #parentingtips #homeschooling #teachertips