What do you want to accomplish in your child’s life before they leave home?

When our oldest daughter went into the 9th grade, my husband made me look at the time we had left with our children (the other two were just a couple of years behind her), and asked what we would like to accomplish with them before they graduated and left home. After some discussion, we agreed that we desired our children to have a good understanding of what they believed and why (apologetics), our perspective on US History (civics), and that they would be leaders. It was not too difficult to accomplish the first two of those goals as a homeschooling family, although many of the high school level courses were not taken at home. But it was more difficult to determine how to make a leader.

As you might imagine, our eldest child was a natural born leader. She was very accomplished in giving orders and was not easily intimidated by others. She is also a very logical thinker, which is a wonderful asset to any leader. Although she might be pulled into emotionally charged arguments, she has always been able to keep a calm tone and a clear perspective. I admire that about her.

But how to develop leadership skills in our other two children? We looked for opportunities for them to take leadership roles in our homeschool support group, on the cross-country team, even in the ballet class. We encouraged them to be servant leaders and to look out for the needs of others. I am confident today that their compassionate hearts will make them very good leaders where ever they go.

My tip today is not how you might make a leader of your high school student. But rather what do you want to see accomplished in your child’s life before they leave home and your opportunity of influence is lessened.

You may have one semester left or three years, but if you are not intentional about setting and attaining goals you are much less likely to achieve them.

So today I ask you, “What do you wish to accomplish in your child’s life before they leave home and how will you go about making that a reality in their life?”