Future of the 4th

“For score and 7years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…” In 1863 President Lincoln delivered such remarks through the Gettysburg Address. Years earlier (July 4th, 1776) those words were written in our Declaration of Independence where it stated “We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  Do those words still hold true in our country? Will they still hold true for our children’s children?

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In our last article we mentioned the importance of Father’s.  Dads, grandfathers, father figures, male role-models … adult role models in general are important.  Their words and actions often define future outcomes for the next generation.  Good or bad words / actions.  Sometimes it’s easier to focus on the “bad” and point out where we were steered wrong. Some of the actions of our forefathers weren’t exactly kind after all.  Hopefully our children learn from the past instead of letting history repeat itself when it comes to those “bad” actions.  The fighting, the violence the wars between our own neighbors…these behaviors continue and I fear where it’s headed.  It’s hard to answer the questions of children who hear the news and wonder what’s going on in their world. I try and answer my children frankly, but not with too much information that overwhelms or scares them.  I want them to learn  to stand up for what is right based on reason and outcome vs fear and scare-tatics.  Some of our fathers, and mothers, have misguided feelings on scare-tatics being the right way to bring up a child as they survived it and turned out ok, but we need to change that mentality.

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No, not every child who’s been spanked has become a criminal, but research does prove it’s not the best method. Children do not learn how to self-guide their behaviors and usually replace an extinct behavior with a different one when they don’t learn the reason of why and only “stop that.” Reactions based on fear are not educated decisions to change.  Teaching through guidance, even through debate has healthier outcomes.  We live in a debatable world.  America is the land of controversy after all.  The land of the free where we can speak our minds and live our livestyles.  But it seems the controversy over lifestyles, race, gender, politics and religion always leads to violence… How do we teach our children to “be kind to one another, even if you disagree on stuff (Eph4:30-35)” ?

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This article is not meant to spark a religious or political or personal debate. We obviously don’t have all the answers, but I can hope our children will have more peaceful responses.  I can hope our children will learn to base decisions through educated reasoning, through observation, through fact and not fear, not because “dad said so” or “mom said so” or “my teacher or pastor or whoever said so.”  I want our children to think these issues through on a new level, because it’s a new world from what our fathers built.  In some ways it’s a better world, in some ways a world worse off – but it’s their future we are creating today by the questions we attempt to answer.  The future of the world, of America is unpredictable, but I can hope in the future our children are proud of their forefathers and what we leave them.  I can hope they grow up proud of what America has become.  As always my children will celebrate the 4th and enjoy the food, fun and fireworks.  They’ll make memories with friends and family and camp and celebrate our freedom.  They’ll learn about military roles of their great grandfathers, grandfather and godfather. They’ll gain pride and even gain disgrace as they learn about the stories that make up our nations history. They’ll learn about the difference they will make as they begin our nations future.

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As Mi Families and Adventure Academy continue to grow we offer programs for all ages to make a difference in their communities and beyond. Our tutor time students (infants thru elementary explorers) have been learning about our world all summer.  Our childcare and homeschool students will continue the adventure in September.  For more information on our youth programs please visit the website. For ideas how to help your children learn about our country and find festive ways to celebrate our nations birthday please check out our Pinterest page.  Feel free to share your ideas and thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page . Thank you for reading! Please take some time and check out our Mi Families (“my families”) site to learn more about us and what we do.

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