Education

Hi, for The Salvation Army, this is Sarah Nelson. And I'm Bernie Dake.

Thanks for joining us and welcome to Wonderful Words of Life. Hey, everybody. Welcome back and hello to you, Sarah.

Hey, Bernie. Let me just tell you, Sarah is incredibly nervous because Nolan has started middle school and his education is really progressing. It is. And you're trying to convince me that he doesn't need me anymore, that he's that grown.

No, no, no. I just think as I entered middle school for me, that's when I, as I look back, I realized I was becoming too cool to be mama's boy. Yeah. And like Nolan is still like this kid that kind of like wants to still cuddle with me and spend time with me. We take walks together. We have this little daily tradition where we walk down to the stop sign at the end of our neighborhood and back. And he still wants to do those things.

So far, I haven't seen him like just outright like reject or deny me in front of his friends. But I, okay, I realize that I have to be prepared because chances are that may happen someday. Well, and you're a pretty cool mom, Sarah. Well, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Anyways, let's, let's move on here.

All right. So Nelson Mandela famously said that education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world. And today we discuss the importance of education and the parent's role in helping your child succeed. According to a recent Gallup survey, 91% of school superintendents say that the key to a child's success in their education isn't necessarily standardized test scores, but engagement. Not every kid will be the best test taker or be the best in math or science, but if they stay engaged, their chance of success is greatly improved. One of the things I found particularly while my daughter was in high school, and I hope she won't be upset with me for saying this, but like academically, there were some areas where she struggled and I did too. But what we did with her, with Hannah is really celebrate and encourage her engagement in the areas where she just really shined.

Creatively, Hannah is amazing in English and in chorus class. And I think that through like sort of leveraging that opportunity to really get behind her and what she was great at, like that encouragement started to spill over into other areas academically. And we got her through high school and then got her into college.

And to see the student that she is in college is amazing because she's really sort of found her like her sweet spot and she's excelling in her major. And so, you know, you got to stick with it as a parent. I understand it can be discouraging, especially when you have to like go the route of getting tutors and that sort of thing. But, you know, encouraging them through careful encouragement, I mean, they really can become a successful student. The other side of that is from an engagement point of view is even when you have the ability to just engage a young person's mind, they understand that you're actually taking an interest in who they are and what they're becoming. So keep them engaged and you stay engaged and you'll see them really rise to the top in a sense. I hope that especially for the parents out there, that this episode is a great encouragement for you.

If you have any advice or maybe some input to add to this discussion, we would love to hear from you. So send us an email at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org or you could give us a call. The number is 1-800-229-9965. If you leave us a voicemail, be sure to let us know if we can use it on the air and we will be so grateful. Jesus, I'll give you my heart, I'll give you my mind, I'll give you my soul. So thank you, I bless your name. Jesus, so we lift our hands as we lift our hearts as we offer up this praise unto your name in your presence, Ronnie Murchison.

I'm Terry Israel with my wife Donna. We are here to welcome you again to our series on parenting and today in this episode we begin to talk about education and future plans and your parenting role in helping launch your children into life. Every child is unique and different and while they all need a goal and a plan for their future, each one will look different.

So we have three boys that we've seen go through this experience and the oldest and the youngest have taken the traditional college approach and our middle son Nathan went a different route and had some other needs in pursuing career. So when it came to the pursuit of college and stepping our children through that experience, that tended to fall to my role. As we began to do that we wanted to stress to our children the importance to education and help them realize how for most people that's now the foundational stepping stone into a successful life and a successful career in the culture as we know it today.

That can't begin on high school graduation day. That has to, that focus has to begin earlier on reminding them of reminding them of the importance of education in school and encourage them each to do their absolute best. Not every child is going to be a straight A student but they can do their very best every day. We always took the premise that when you completed high school you were going to go to a college or major university and pursue your education which would eventually lead you to a successful career. We believe that's somewhat of what society and culture demand unless you have a very specific plan. Of course we readily acknowledge there are numerous career paths.

People can pursue the military and any number of other means by which they are successful in life. We've went the traditional college education route and so as we began that it's this wonderful balance of understanding this is going to be a decision that your child makes but it has to carry a strong influence on you. Ultimately it's your child's decision. To force your will upon your child may very well lead to a frustrating and exasperating experience.

However you have to also give a lot of guidance as they make such an important life decision. So for us that began with what are you interested in? What type things do you see yourself becoming? What career paths? What areas of the country?

What types of school? And gathering all that then there's always the issue of the family budget. What is our commitment as parents? What can you expect from us?

And that depends on your own personal family budget the extent to which you're capable or willing to do that. For Nathan it took on a different focus. He had planned to attend the community college where we lived and then we moved to a new community and so he started working in a different area and what he found was once he got a job and figured out the training that he would need to improve his position in that job that's the training he wanted in college and so he found a community college that had the administrative certification courses that he could take. He didn't have to be bound to grades and worried about a graduation date and those kind of things.

He was able to accomplish each task that he needed to move to the next level in his job. So in each of those experiences as parents we're providing the guidance and support and yet beginning to release the responsibility of making these decisions off to your children as they're going to need those skills in life. With our son Timothy he was looking at any number of schools. We particularly wanted to see him give strong consideration to Christian colleges. We weren't seeing him pursue that route but we carefully prayed about that and supported it and then there came this time where through another young person influencing him he made that decision. We then joined alongside him in supporting him and seeing him have a wonderful college experience. There can be tremendous anxiety as you have this stress of hunting down colleges and making all of this match and in that I believe you just have to trust the Lord and trust the things that you've set forth but that as Donna so aptly pointed out that has to begin long before senior year.

There are many programs and at colleges and community colleges for young people to start out if they're not really sure what they want to do or where they want to go they can begin at a community college or a local college taking the basic foundational courses that they have to have regardless of their chosen major. So a lot of it is transisting your child from this dependency of day-to-day life and activity that's dictated through the family and high school experience and suddenly realizing you've got to take responsibility to plan for your future. I remember the occasion where Tim was a senior and there became a particular time where the anxiety levels around the house were getting escalated and I finally had to sit him down and say look here's the situation you can't wait to graduate and get out on your own and that's occurring at a time when your mom wants you a little bit closer and wants to get one more hug in.

So if we all work together we can have everything we want. Yeah they get so excited about what's coming ahead and that they forget to engage at home and we still need them to be a part of the family. So as you launch them out onto their own there's still these numerous occasions where you've got to be the parent and provide the support and provide the guidance.

There's this incredible mix of privilege and responsibility and as you take on the privilege of making these decisions the responsibility goes with that. There are things to pay attention to and be aware of while the children are still in high school. If you have a student with disabilities you can plan in their senior year to have all their testing redone so that then any modifications or things that they need extra services they need will carry over to college.

Now they're not necessarily going to want their friends at college to know that they have special needs but it can be very important to them and the impact of their grades. So just as each child's unique each plan is going to be unique you're going to have to adapt it for your own family resources as well as the personalities and the strengths of your children. There's no greater time of joy in a family than to be able to see that you have done an excellent job of parenting and your children are fully equipped to launch into life and just as they celebrate their graduation from high school you can celebrate your achievement as a parent. We thank you for being with us for this episode.

Join us in the next episode as we begin to speak about parenting adult children. May God bless you. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support and we would love to hear from you. Email us at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org. Call 1-800-229-9965 or write us at P.O.

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