Leader Of Tomorrow?

I’d always believed that children learn more from what they see their parents and guardians do, compared to what they hear them say, when it comes to selecting which behavioural patterns they eventually pick up. I still believe this. Or should I say, I have more reason to believe this now.

I have my nephew to thank for this.

Cutting flowers and handing them to his loved ones has become one of his favourite activities. I had cause to pick him and his brother up from day-care some days ago.

As I gathered his brother and their other belongings into my arms, he went as usual to harvest some wildflowers. I saw him hand one to his “day-care aunty” and then sort the rest for later distribution.

I regard myself as a keen observer of my surroundings so, it caught me a bit by surprise when he told me with a downcast face that his day-care aunty had thrown away the flower he’d given her.

He was genuinely sad and interpreted it to mean that she didn’t like it. I tried to convince him otherwise and vaunted the flower he’d given me as one of the best I’d ever received (I wasn’t lying by the way—I don’t get a lot, so everyone I get is special).

Did his day-care aunty love him and the children under her care? Undoubtedly so, as I’ve seen (and heard) about how she takes care of them. Did she appreciate the intent behind the wildflower gift? Most likely so, she probably had a handful of things to handle at that moment and thought to do away with the flower—howbeit so discreetly that I didn’t even notice.

But as far as my nephew was concerned, what he saw her doing was a weightier indicator of her feelings compared to what he heard her saying.

Direct your children unto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.

(Proverbs 22:6, NLT)

Effectively directing your children, or the young minds around you, is best done when you’re walking in that path in the first place. When they see why it pays to follow the path you’re on, chances are very good that they’ll follow and stick to that path, even when they get old enough to make their own way.

Our children are our tomorrow, in them we see a great hope of what can be. But how can they lead a tomorrow they’ve not lived yet? How can they successfully navigate a tomorrow they’ve not been equipped to chart unless we show them how?

If our children are our tomorrow, then we, into whose care they’ve been entrusted, are (in a manner of speaking) the actual Leaders of ‘Tomorrow’. How well they will shine and excel in that tomorrow is highly dependent on the kind of examples we show by our lives, and not merely by what we tell them.

If our children will be people who spend less time unproductively on their devices, then we must lead by example. Don’t bequeath that responsibility to them. Be the leader they need; be who you want them to be.