Parents are a child’s first teacher. From infancy onward, children are watching their parents to learn how to navigate life’s journey. The parent’s job is to lead and to cast a vision for a sense of the family’s greater purpose.
“I remember a number of years ago, having a conversation with a young man who said to me, ‘When I have kids, I’m going to be their best friend.’ I thought to myself, ‘I hope that works out for you,'” says leadership expert Dr. Mark Mendenhall. “It has been said that where there is no vision people perish. It isn’t so much about being your child’s best friend as it is about leading them to develop and become better human beings.”
Research indicates that leading is difficult when people, regardless of age, don’t have a larger sense of moving toward a purpose.
“Having a vision for your family is important,” Mendenhall says. “It is the parent’s role to decide who we are as a family. At home, kids can go to school and parents can go to work. If there is no big, hairy, audacious goal that everybody knows they are aiming for, people tend to just go through the motions. Everybody needs to be able to answer the question: What is it as a family that we are all in on?”
Years ago, Mendenhall purchased a new SUV. He explained to his children that, since the garage was a tight fit, they needed to be careful getting in and out of the cars to make sure they did not ding the SUV. One morning he was in the family van, preparing to take his daughter to school. She came bouncing out the door and he thought to himself, “She isn’t going to remember to be careful.” She opened the passenger door, dinged the SUV and got in the car.