In pursuit for more and the “best” education, we ought to wonder ”what if our children crumble in the process?”

The new school year has just begun and once again I have had time to think and pray about our own schooling journey for our children. I have had years when I have doubted my ability to be the best teacher our children need or even wondered if I had all the “perfect” ducks in a row for our little ones’ education?. Yet seasons past now, I find myself confident in the route we have chosen in teaching our children. We are very intentional with what our children learn but more so keep in mind that we as parents ought to minister to our children; to speak directly to their hearts intentionally not passively.

I am a product of “perfection” when it comes to academics. My dad always pushed for perfection and excellence when it came to academics. Failure was not an option. I was beaten and called names if a dared show weakness in any of my school. Like a robot, I kept on aiming for what was expected of me. This was hard; I was crumbling inside. In fact, I hated school if this is what school was meant to look like. But, I loved literature (I could get lost in a different world that wasn’t my reality).

As a child in school, I remember thinking of the pain that aiming for “perfection” brought me. I couldn’t wait to never feel that way again. Ask yourself as a parent, could your child possibly be feeling this way, have you driven your child to this point?

Seasons later, I got married, had two little ones and without a doubt I knew I wanted school to be a different experience for our children. I desired to see our little ones enjoy school, I have prayed and hoped that school experience would be different for our children; beautiful!

Don’t get me wrong, I love learning, I love what school can offer a child, in fact I enjoy teaching our children. But yet I refuse to let “perfection” lead me to pushing our children to a breaking point; at times a point of no return. Perhaps we as parents ought to remember to nurture our children’s spiritual beings, their character, their passions in life and most importantly their hearts as they grow.

I hope and pray that this new school year will be a beautiful one for our children. It will be a time that we as parents will continue to love and nurture our children and not push them into a robotic mode for un-attainable “perfection”. Our children are human beings; precious human beings not just a number or statistics.

God bless.

P.S. Are our children enabling our dreams or are we enabling theirs?