Prepare Them Now. While You Can.

Life is easy now. We should just let them enjoy it, right?

Before they have to work for a living. Before they have to care about what’s going on in the world. While they can do whatever they want, while they can get away with eating whatever they want, and all the innocent freedoms that children are blessed with.

Right?

Sort of. But there is a tension. Because living in the moment now isn’t always the best preparation for the moments to come. As Plutarch advised parents and teachers, “Just as in fair weather, then, one ought to prepare for the storm, so also in youth one should store up discipline and self-restraint as a provision for old age.” 

So now is the time for lightness and fun… but it’s also the time to prepare for a future that will not always be so light and fun. Today they have freedom, but tomorrow they will need to know how to cope with less freedom—tomorrow, they will need the self-discipline to know how to deal with a world where adults can do whatever they want, but have the responsibility not to. 

Prepare them now, while you can. Teach them restraint. Teach them the difference between could and should, want and need, legal and ethical. Because when the storm comes, when the future comes, they will need this skill. And it will be too late to learn it then. 

P.S. This was originally sent on February 4, 2021. Sign up today for the Daily Dad’s email and get our popular 11 page eBook, “20 Things Great Dads Do Everyday.”

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