A young man went to seek an important position at a large printing company. He passed the initial interview and was going to meet the director for the final interview. The director saw his resume, it was excellent. And asked,'
"Have you received a scholarship for school?" The boy replied, "No".
'It was your father who paid for your studies? '' Yes.' He replied.
'Where does your father work? ' 'My father is a Blacksmith'
The Director asked the young man to show him his hands.
The young man showed a pair of hands soft and perfect.
'Have you ever helped your parents at their job? '
'Never, my parents always wanted me to study and read more books. Besides, he can do the job better than me.
The director said:
'I have got a request: When you go home today, go and wash the hands of your father and then come see me tomorrow morning.'
The young man felt his chance to get the job was high.
When he returned to his house he asked his father if he would allow him to wash his hands.
His father felt strange, happy, but with mixed feelings and showed his hands to his son. The young man washed his hands, little by little. It was the first time that he noticed his father's hands were wrinkled and they had so many scars. Some bruises were so painful that his skin shuddered when he touched them.
This was the first time that the young man recognized what it meant for this pair of hands to work every day to be able to pay for his studies. The bruises on the hands were the price that his father payed for his education, his school activities and his future.
After cleaning his father's hands the young man stood in silence and began to tidy and clean up the workshop. That night, father and son talked for a long time.
The next morning, the young man went to the office of the director.
The Director noticed the tears in the eyes of the young man when He asked him,
'Can you tell me what you did and what you learned yesterday at your house?'
The boy replied: 'I washed my father's hands and when I finished I stayed and cleaned his workshop.'
'Now I know what it is to appreciate and recognize that without my parents, I would not be who I am today. By helping my father I now realize how difficult and hard it is to do something on my own. I have come to appreciate the importance and the value in helping my family.
The director said, "This is what I look for in my people. I want to hire someone who can appreciate the help of others, a person who knows the hardship others go through to accomplish things, and a person who realizes that money is not his only goal in life".
'You are hired'.
A child that has been coddled, protected and given everything he or she wants, develops a mentality of "I have the right" and will always put himself or herself first, ignoring the efforts of parents, family and friends. If we are this type of protective parent are we really showing love or are we helping to destroy our children?
You can give your child their own room in a big house, good food, a computer, tablet, cell phone, and a big screen TV, but when you're washing the floor or painting a wall, children need to experience that too.
After eating, have them wash the dishes with their brothers and sisters, let them fold laundry or cook with you, pull weeds or mow the lawn. You are not doing this because you are poor and can't afford help. You are doing this because you love them and want them to understand certain things about life.
Children need to learn to appreciate the amount of effort it takes to do a job right. They need to experience the difficulties in life that people must overcome to be successful and they must learn about failure to be able to succeed.
Children must also learn how to work and play with others and that they will not always win, but they can always work harder to reach their goals. If they've done their best, then they can take pride in all the effort they put forth.
Life is about giving and serving and these qualities are taught in our homes.
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Perhaps you have seen the video Navy Seal Admiral William H. McRaven, where
he shares the reasons to make your bed everyday.
The wisdom of this of this simple act, has been proven many times over.
Making your bed will reinforce the fact that the little things matter. If
you can't do the little things right, you'll never be able to do the big
things. If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.
It has to be with integrity, responsibility, discipline, character and a
sense of pride. Sometimes this lower level simple logic gets overlooked.
So simple things like the expectation of being prepared for class; meaning
bringing a pencil is an equally important "little thing."
The problem is for whatever reason they have switched to a community pencil
bin. And what is more, rather than being responsible for sharpening your
own pencil, there is now often one member in charge of sharpening the pencils in
community bin.
Another expectation used to be at the end of class, to put your stuff away on
your desk. Again for whatever reason, many times the class is leaving
their binders and such on the desktops. The equivalent of leaving for the
day with a messy bed.
These smaller expected behaviors, I really think are how you maintain order
in the schools and society. Without them you have chaos. Be it shenanigans
in the bathroom, disrespect to others, etc. There is no real remedy other
than instilling the right behaviors, and consequences to steer them back to the
right behavior. You might think you can remedy the situation some other
way, perhaps automatic paper towel dispensers, but without the right instilled behaviors,
they will just find some other way to be destructive.
Yes the argument is that this sort of thing is the parents responsibly.
The problem is the schools provide way to many "baby sitting" opportunities,
rather than promoting some down time, for family time. I mean if you have
the opportunity to keep your kids in several after school sporting activities,
then where is that family supper time, etc?
The other problem is schools are all about saving face than having a down to
earth approach or even business approach. If there was an ongoing bathroom
behavior problem, in a school that sort of thing should make it back to the
parents, via a PTO newsletter or whatever. And if this behavior is destructive
enough (vandalism), then prosecution should be pursued. This sort of thing
almost never happens, because it makes the school "look bad".
What looks really bad is when we are becoming a undisciplined society that is
going to cost future generations a lot of money. Not just in criminal
justice, but in work productivity etc.
But this illogic is all to common in the schools. The same folks who
are "concerned" about the school shootings, etc. But you never
hear them address it at these lower levels, and if you do, its very one
sided. I mean we bribe kids to be good with gimmicks like bird/ voyager
bucks. But it doesn't work that way in the real world. I mean have
you ever heard of a cop pulling someone over to commend them on their excellent
driving and maintaining the speed limit, and then offering them a sticker or
cookie No. I haven't either.
