(Originally posted November 7th, 2006)

Yesterday I shared with you why it is important to create a Legacy Plan (see Big Family Success).  Today, I am going to begin a series to share our personal Legacy Plan in hopes that it encourages you to get started or compare notes if you already have one.

What is a Legacy Plan?  It is your set of values, actions and plan for teamwork that will leave a lasting impact on your children and their children and so on.  It is the plan that works towards the goal of raising competent little people who will one day leave the nest and go out to impact the world with their gifts and personalities.

A great legacy plan includes a balance of love, understanding, boundaries, discipline and something I feel is the ultimate key: treat children like little people.  Respect their feelings and give them increasing responsibilities, even at an early age.  If you reward kids, not with something you value, but with something they value, you will generally have their coorperation.  My experiences and research tells me that if you reward selfishly or have selfish expecations, you will surely know it by the frustration you encounter at almost every post.

So, our plan?  Our plan begins with remembering these little facts:

• No matter how frustrating children can be at times, they mean no ill will as they carve their own niche to discover and reinvent life.
• We must always remember that they didn’t choose us - we chose them.  We did the deed that planted the seed.
• It’s perfectly normal to want to send your kids on a boot-kick trip to the moon.  It is not normal, however, to actually send them.
• Kids are never as bad as people may say they are - nor or they ever as good as people may say they are.
• Aside from brain development disorders or the rare prodigies, all children begin with the same blank slate.  No child is ‘smarter’ than any other child.  What we call smart is just this - knowledge.  If somebody has a great deal of knowledge of a particular subject, we call them smart as if they had some greater ‘ability’ to learn.  Sorry, but no.  If you want children to have more knowledge - give it to them. (read my ‘Secrets to High IQs’)  But remember, the more you give them, the more they will want.
• Each passing year, a child will fight for increased independence and the more they gain, they more they will secretly seek out a parent’s approval.

Remember, raising a child is a lot like playing on the teeter totter.  In the beginning, you have to offset the imbalance and carry the load.  As your child grows, the more they will be able to participate and the more they should.

Next up?  Goals we have for our children.  Cya then.