Good morning! I hope the world is being good to you and you’re being good to it.

Grab your coffee or beverage of choice and share a thought with me!

Kids, man, raising them has to be one of life’s great challenges. Aside from the inherent need to keep them alive despite the things they may do to the contrary, it’s important to instill strong values and positive qualities. Along that journey, there are often moments of self-reflection to ask, “Am I living like that?”

As a former Boy Scout, I had the Scout Law drilled into me from weekly recitations at our local troop meeting.

A scout is:
Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

While my wilderness survival skills may have waned since those days, I have always had the twelve guiding principles of the Scout Law in mind. Now, do I have a spotless record adhering to them? No, absolutely not. There are plenty of moments I can look back upon and chide myself for not being a better person. Life is a roller coaster though, and sometimes we’re at the mercy of the turns.

The point of all this is, my wife and I are currently scaling the mountain to instill a stronger sense of trustworthiness in one of our kids. As we navigate those successes and failures, as I’m preaching about the importance of being able to trust they will make responsible decisions or abide rules they’ve been given, I have to catch myself to make sure I’m walking the walk and not just talking the talk.

One of the best tools for building positive behaviors is leading by example. There is a consistently renewed realization of this whenever I’m trying to convey a life lesson or curb poor behavior, so now I’m more cognizant of catching myself doing something that I would, essentially, give myself a talking to about. It’s a good mechanism for checking whether I’m still being the kind of person I want to be. If I’m truly going to set a good example, those twelve principles need to be ever-present in the forefront of my mind. I don’t know that the world will allow perfect adherence at all times, but the principles can at least serve as a compass as I’m navigating turgid waters.

So who knows if the necessary positive qualities will take with the kids or not. (I hope beyond hope we get at least a little of that trustworthiness built up.) You can only take the parenting so far, and then at some point, they need to take it the rest of the way. I do know, however, that there’s always work I can do on myself, and eventually, I can confidently say, “Do as I say and as I do.”