Message to Parents: Do Right So Your Children Will Too

Our actions influence our children's behaviors, choices, and attitudes. People have created these funny memes about mothers and their daughters. The memes are funny but are also truthful.

However, adults must be more mindful of their behaviors, attitudes, and choices. Our children are our mirrors, and we are their role models. So, we have to be careful of our actions. We, as parents, also need to ensure that we curb any negative behaviors that our children exhibit.

I thought for a while about sharing this because I also have children. No parent is perfect. I am sharing these two (2) examples where people can be more mindful of how they parent.

• The Child Who Figured Out How to Use PayPal

Recently, I learned of a situation involving a child who used someone's credit card to create a fraudulent PayPal account to purchase an item. The seller then contacted one of the child's parents. The parent admitted that the child had previously used another person's credit card to buy merchandise. The parent confirmed paying off that bill. This parent then emphatically promised to pay for this recent PayPal charge. However, to date, the parent has not paid.

If that parent intended to teach the child a lesson, the punishment could have been a sacrifice of a favorite item to pay the bill. This unconcern makes me think that the parent enables this child's disregard for others.

• The Tardiness and AWOL Genes

If you are always late for work, do you think your children will be on time for anything? Were you one of those persons who partied hard for the festival season and then called in sick on the next work day? (If you're sick, you're sick.) Do you expect your children to do anything differently? Parents set the tone, and I hope that we all want to have our children going on the right path.

This blog post is about bullet #1 because that story upset me. Hearing that the child committed what can be classified as an indictable offense twice really bothered me. However, I can't worry for that parent - I can only pray for them. I think what I can do is what I do. I try to write on these topics hoping that I can inspire someone.

We no longer allow the community to assist with our children's upbringing. Where we as parents falter, we need our relatives, godparents, friends, and neighbors to support our children. However, parents are the first line of discipline. So, let's teach our children the right behaviors by exhibiting these ourselves.

The Lashing Dogs sang it well in "Blame the Parents," "a lot of things the childrendem doing these days, I blame the parents for them."