As I looked through a bucket of photos today in search of a particular image, I was reminded of life's many chapters. I wish I had a preview of these chapters from the start, but even if a preview was available, it's unlikely that I would have payed much attention since you're so full of life when you're young, that you mostly think about the moment that you are in.
So today as I think about life's chapters, I'm thinking about what's most important at each stage.
Childhood
Children deserve as much love, attention, safety, and good scheduling as possible. Children thrive when they are surrounded by loving adults, positive activities, and healthy routines. Honestly, if young children sleep well, eat nutritious foods, enjoy a schedule of positive activity such as reading, writing, healthy activity in nature and lots and lots of play, they will do well. As I look back on my childhood, I am most grateful for the wonderful family activities my mom, dad, and extended family planned, the good elementary school I attended, and the nice neighborhood where I lived.
The Teen Years
Teens need a lot of sensitive support as that's the time in life when people are figuring out who they are and the kind of life they want to live. There is usually a great struggle between independence and dependence going on during this chapter of life, and that's why it's important for adults to help teens gain independence in safe, caring ways. For example, teens with too much freedom are apt to make poor choices while teens with not enough freedom don't develop the kind of independence they need to thrive in later life.
The teen years are a good time to embrace the notion that it takes a village to raise a child as coaches, teachers, religious leaders, neighbors, friends, and leaders at teens' places of employment, volunteering, or interest will play a big role in teen's development. A good strategy for raising teens is the weekly family meeting beginning when children are about to approach the teen years. At the family meeting, family members can share what's important to them in the week ahead as well as how they might help each other reach their goals and needs during the week. A colleague introduced me to this strategy and once I instituted this practice, it worked well as it kept everyone on the same page.
Teens will often listen to their boss at work, a teacher, coach or another leader rather than a parent so fostering good relationships with your child's school, sports teams, and other activity leaders can be very helpful. Further observing your teen closely to see where they gravitate can provide a big boost to your child's confidence and success. For example if you have a dramatic child, you may want to give them the chance to try theater, dance, or another arts activity. If you have an active, sportsy child, you may want to sign them up for a range of sports activities to see which activities they enjoy the most. Discovering who your child is and who they want to be is an enjoyable part of raising teens. There can be challenges if you find that your child is gravitating towards activities, interests, or ways of living that are unknown to you or perhaps even in an arena that you were biased about in the past. When this happens, it's a good idea to start exploring what those interests are all about and how adults nurture children who demonstrate these interests or life ways. Fortunately there's great resources available to help parents with any situation that arises beginning with a simple Internet search for reputable experts and organizations that can provide guidance.
As teens age, it's important that they get some kind of job outside of the home too. When they work outside of the home, they learn a lot, earn a bit of personal money, and gain confidence. It's a nice break for parents too as when teens work outside of the home, the parent is not in charge during those hours, and they can become a confidant as the teen shares their work challenges and successes.
College, trade school and career
I remain a believer that individuals should follow their passions and interests when it comes to career paths. As I notice the people around me, generally those who followed their passions and interests have happy lives. Of course, there's some practicality to consider as well since some jobs pay more and offer a better lifestyle than others. It's important for individuals to consider how they want to live and where their passions lie as they choose their college and career paths. In this regard, it's great for individuals to look around and consider the lives of others in their midst and those they read about. Real time, online, and historic mentors can be of great assistance as people choose their college, trade school, career paths, and lifestyles.
The big ideas here are to make choices that you can live with as you age. For example, it's important for all individuals to realize the kinds of choices that greatly upset anyone's future life, and to give good time, attention, and study to the big decisions in life. Dealing with personal challenges is important for all as no one wants their personal weaknesses to get in the way of their future success and happiness. There's lots of support agencies available to help people deal with all kinds of personal challenges. Those that find the counseling, physicians, and other experts to help them with their challenges, generally do better as they move on in life. Rather than be embarrassed by life's impediments, it's important to seek the help that's out there. With that in mind, it's also important to realize that some challenges will remain as, at times, the solutions may remain out of your grasp. Challenges that one generation faced, may have to wait for another generation to solve them. This is particularly apparent with medical issues--we lost good people at young ages in the past due to medical conditions that we are able to solve today.
Young adulthood and Building your life
It's amazing to think about how the decisions you make as young adults truly create the foundation of your later life. Who you hang out with and couple with as well as where you live, the jobs you choose, and financial decisions you make impact your later life greatly.
Obviously, it's best to make the best possible relationship decisions. We can't see the future, but in general you want to choose friends and partners that help you to be the best possible you, and you want to choose people that you enjoy spending time with.
With regard to financial decisions, my dad's advice of "a little for today and a little for tomorrow" is good advice as it's good to put a portion of the money you earn away for the future or for a rainy day. My sister's advice to "live beneath your means" is also good advice as that means you don't invite the tremendous stress of debt into your life. There's lots of low cost ways to enjoy life, and when you're young you typically don't need a lot of expensive items or experiences.
Of course, once you settle down, it's good to buy a place to live as that's a great investment. After that, people make all kinds of financial decisions. Some are true risk takers who have the goal of making lots of money and others are satisfied to earn a good living and invest the energy and time that's left on other life matters.
Positive associations as a young adult can help you to create a strong future too. I think it's great if young adults can choose one ore more positive organization to belong to. For example, you may decide to invest energy, time, and money into a religious, college, health, community, political, social service, arts or other organization that contributes to a stronger, better society. These kinds of affiliations help you to be a good member of society which, in turn, leads to good friendships and lots of positivity in all areas of your life. You may want to test out organizations as a young adult before choosing those that will become a regular part of your life.
Also, as a young adult, it's important to recognize that relationships will change greatly over the next twenty years or so. As childhood, high school, and young adult friends build their lives, relationships will change mostly due to time, money, location, and commitments. It's impossible for all friendships to stay the same as these changes occur. Rather than grieve the losses of what was, I recommend rethinking what works for the relationship. For example, a friend you saw everyday during college may become a walk-and-talk friend once every six months. If you choose to enjoy your friends' changing lives and choices, you'll find that the variety of their lives enrich your life too. Jealousy at this stage can be hurtful since as friends lives take multiple paths, you'll realize that some have what others don't have--no one can have it all, so it's best to enjoy your friends' success as well as your own successes. It's also important to be empathetic to the challenges you and your friends face because everyone will face challenges, some of those challenges will be visible and some will be invisible.
Life with children
In the United States today, raising a family is difficult simply because it takes a lot of money, time, and support to do your best by a family. You won't be able to live the same life you lived as a young single person or a couple because now you have to support children with good time, energy, knowledge, money, and lots and lots of love and patience.
It's best to establish positive routines when raising children. It's also important to realize that you have to reduce the amount of personal activities and investments so you have time for the family. That said, it's important for parents to carve out some personal time on a regular basis. My mom convinced me to have one night a week to myself. My husband was able to pick up the kids, come home early, and take care of dinner and bedtime so that I had a night to catch up on work, see friends, and do a few errands on my own before coming home. This was a great gift. My husband, on the other hand, switched his work outs from early evenings to mornings which was a great support for family life while giving my husband the time he needed and desired to work out.
When two parents are working, it's essential that the house chores are split evenly as much as possible. It's also important that children take on a reasonable part of the home chores. This starts with simple daily jobs and grows to greater jobs that leave them with greater responsibility and lots of learning. Children that have reasonable home jobs, gain skills and confidence. This is good.
The best parents make their children's welfare a priority--the worst parents ignore the positive, healthy routines of good sleep, nutritious food, positive activities, safety, time for talk, and the love that children need.
Often when working with children, your own shortcomings become more apparent. When this happens, it's important to get the support you need to overcome those weaknesses.
Life with adult children
I believe it's important to revise your relationship with your children as they become adults. I try to be very selective about any advice I wish to impart because it's time for my children to chart their own course in life. If I do feel that a choice is dangerous or destructive though, I will speak up. In many ways, I find that this stage of life is a time for parents to step back, do what they can to establish a positive later life lifestyle, and be there for their children if extraordinary needs arrive. This is also a good time for parents to invest in family culture by maintaining a comfortable place for adult children to visit, creating celebrations for special times, and being a good listener and support for your children's many pursuits and interests.
This stage in many ways can revert to what it was like before you and your partner or friends had children as with more time and less expenses, you're able to engage in many fun activities and interests. It may be q time when you renew friendships from the past as well as make new friends, and it's a time when you're apt to reflect a lot on life and use that reflection to motivate all kinds of activities.
Retirement
I embarked on retirement from teaching after a 34-year career about five years ago. I don't like the word "retirement" because few to none "retire" at this stage. Instead it can be a wonderful time of transition where you are not as tied to the pace and expectations of a tight routine, but instead you have the luxury of more time to choose what you want to do and how you will craft you new schedule of life. For me that meant adding more gardening, travel, family time/help, house updates, friend events, and some part-time teaching work. I'm always remaking and revising my "retirement" routines, but in general, it's such a nice time in life. It's also a time in life to get ready for "old age" by spending more time on health care, house updates, and other choices that lead to best possible older age chapters.
Old age
I've watched my grandparents and parents enter and live through old age. It's clearly a humbling time in life, a time when what you valued before may not be as important anymore--material goods are hardly an issue and time with the people you love most as well as your health, safety, and comfort become the priority.
My mom and dad's later life benefitted from the fact that they had a very livable, simple home and positive, healthy routines. I believe that their simple living as well as the good relationships they fostered over time resulted in very good old age chapters. I'm thinking of this good example now.
We don't know what's going to happen in our lives as we only have so much control over who we are, what we do, and what happens to us. I do believe though that with reflection and good choices, we can live our best possible lives. There will be tough times and great challenges, but with good relationships and positive investments, we can hopefully navigate those challenges as they arise. Onward.
