By Chris Kovatch

 

What do you want to be when you grow up? To be honest, I am still not 100% sure what I want to be when I grow up. All kidding aside, this question is something I remember being posed to me in my older years. My answers were as fluid as water. One day you would hear one response, and the next you would hear another. The one thing that was consistent for me though I didn’t voice much was that I wanted to be a dad. Needless to say, I have accomplished that goal for myself. So it’s my turn to begin asking that question.

There is a lot of strife in the world these days it seems. I think the ease of information access is to blame in large part. People have always had struggles, it just that print media and phone calls were the Facebook and Twitter of the past. However, their reach was not as significant. I also think we, as a society, have swayed too far one way on child rearing. I remember growing up if I had a behavior problem in a class, you can bet my parents believed I was the cause (and the majority of the time I was to blame). These days we don’t hold children accountable. We blame the issues on the teacher or the school. As the years pass it is evident that our children are mirroring this behavior they see. Accountability is out the window.

I believe there is a balance we can come back to. I am all for developing my children’s’ sense of reason and decision making. I am fine with giving them space to make their own calls and will be there if they succeed or fail. However, I will also be there to ensure they deal with the consequences of their decisions. Life isn’t always easy and we have to prepare our kids for that fact.

These days Jackson wants to design games, Rosie wants to be a dance teacher, Thayer wants to be a YouTuber (not sure on this one), Summer wants to be a princess, and Stryker wants to be a policeman and a dad. I think they are on the right paths to become great people. Great people succeed and great people fail. It’s a commitment to trying and not giving up that will get them where they want to go.