Total Honesty Prepares Children for The Worst Possible Scenarios

My kids say that sometimes, when offering guidance, I am overly dramatic, because I often relate my advice to the worst possible scenarios. This is because I believe that if a person at least considers the worst possible outcome to their situation, then they will be prepared for anything that happens with that situation. It is like what Clausewitz wrote in his book on war. Clausewitz wrote that we should not prepare only for what we think that an opponent might do, but we should prepare for all that we know an opponent is capable of, and this is what I have tried to teach my children about life. Heightened preparedness creates a competitive advantage.

One thing that I discuss in this vein with my children is the matter of honesty. When they were younger, I told them that they should always be honest with their parents. The reason that I gave for this was because there might be an instance where they are faced with expulsion from school or prison time because they are accused of a heinous act. As a parent, I always wanted to be able to stand behind my children and believe their version of the story.

My instruction to my children was to always be honest with their parents. That way, without question, if the children said that they were innocent, then we could stand behind our children with impunity. When asked by my children why it had to be expulsion or prison, I would reply that it was because these were the worse cases, and as I mentioned, they would be prepared for anything less than this.

Parents will always defend their children against outside forces, but many times, though the parents stand behind the kids no matter what, when the forces provide evidence that the children are not being truthful, the parents are made to look foolish for not knowing the child as well as they thought. However, an unflinching policy of honesty between child and parent and vice versa creates unyielding support from the parents and prepares the children to be able to face down the worst possible scenarios with the knowledge that they have built-in support from their parents.

Asking For Help Does Not Make One Weak

When I was in high school, Driver’s Ed was a required class, and I took it during the 2^nd semester of my 10^th grade year. After the class, I could have gotten my driving permit, but because I wasn’t willing to discuss things with other people, I didn’t. I took Driver’s Training during the 1^st semester of my 11^th grade year, and after the class, I could have gotten my driver’s license, but because I wasn’t willing to discuss things with people, I didn’t. When I finally went to the DMV to take the written test, so much time had passed since taking Driver’s Ed, and since I hadn’t studied, I failed the test twice. I passed the test a year later, but I went from possibly having a driver’s license at 15, to getting it a few months shy of 17; not a big difference, but a difference. 

During this same time, I had amassed enough credits to be able to graduate from high school one semester early. However, when I approached my counselor to tell her that I was ready to leave school, she asked me if I had taken the Civics class that was required for seniors. When I realized that I hadn’t, I was forced to return to school for an additional semester in order to take a single class. As it turned out, if I had spoken to my counselor before my senior year in high school, I would have known about the class, would have taken the class, and would have finished high school one semester early. 

The meaning of this is that young people often convince themselves that older generations are not able to relate to the modern times, and thus cannot offer advice or information that will help the current generation. The truth is that experience is a great teacher, and people who have experienced things can use those experiences as educational tools for the next generations. 

I always tell my children that they need to be willing to, and cannot be afraid to, ask for help. It is possible to learn things on one’s own, but at times, there will be a need to get answers from people who have information that we do not have, or who can give us insight into an unknown situation, like with my driver’s license. 

Asking for help does not make a person weak or inferior. In fact, the opposite is true. Greater strength is required when we admit that we do not know everything, and that help is needed, or that we simply need to speak to someone about our situation. Stewing in a vat of misinformation does not make us stronger. Asking for help shows strength, and receiving help when needed strengthens us even more.

What You Did in the Past Could Affect Your Future

The current climate of famous men being brought to task because of inappropriate actions that happened in years past reminds me of a bit of advice that I received from my mother, and that I passed along to my children. The advice was to be careful with what you are doing because your indiscretions might not come back on you today, but they will almost certainly come back to you when you least expect it. 

As the number of famous and powerful men who are being outed due to their inappropriate sexual behavior continues to grow, very few of them are actually denying the claims. Many are simply apologizing for their actions, and are accepting their punishments. As a result, these men are resigning from, or are being fired from their jobs, or are having jobs taken away from them, and are costing themselves millions of dollars. Sadly however, very few of these claims are related to recent actions. Many are from several years or decades ago, and the actions are just now catching up with the men. 

I have often told my children that the things that they do today will affect their lives tomorrow. Whether it is the appearance of an 18-year-old unknown child, a forgotten arrest, or, as in the case of these men, sexual misconduct that was thought to have been overlooked, forgotten or dismissed, these things tend to resurface, particularly as people get rich, famous and powerful. When these situations arise, they must be dealt with, whereas, if they had been dealt with at the time that they occurred, or better yet, had never occurred, the events and actions would not be haunting their perpetrators years later. 

The moral of this is in order to not be caught flat-footed because of a stupid thing from the past; we must try not to do stupid things. The question surrounding Dallas Cowboys Running Back Ezekiel Elliott was whether or not he would be able and allowed to play football again, when it should have been a question of why he keeps getting into trouble, and how to keep it from happening again. These men are in trouble today because of misguided actions from their pasts, but if they had been thinking beyond the moment in time, and looking towards their futures, perhaps they would have been mindful of how their then-present actions would affect their futures.

Live Like a Child

Recently, I was in a shop where I needed to pick up some merchandise. The usual procedure here is that I have placed an order, and then I go to the shop, tell them about my order, they bring it to me, and then I sign for it and take it away. Anyway, when I arrived at this shop, there was a little girl there with her father and the girl couldn’t have been more than three or four years old. As soon as the little girl saw me, she greeted me with a very pleasant “hello”, and then, knowing that I would have to sign for my order, she reached up onto the counter in the shop and gave me a pen.

This interaction started me thinking that if more people lived and behaved like children, the world would be a much better place. Now, I am not referring to running around out of control in the name of playing, putting foreign objects into our mouths, and screaming and crying when we don’t get what we want or are told “no”. I’m talking about being pleasant as often as possible, being friendly with perfect strangers, and doing things for people because it is necessary without asking for anything in return. 

Clearly, not every child behaves like this little girl. Many children are either too shy to say “hello” to strangers, and many might not yet be able to grasp the idea of giving someone a pen because they know that the person will need to sign something. However, small children seldom behave maliciously towards others, and are usually less inhibited towards strangers than adults. Small children also nearly always have positive attitudes and are in good moods unless something is bothering them. People need to be happier, more pleasant and more helpful towards others. In other words, people need to be more like children and the world would be a better place.

Resist the Devil and He Will Flee (Excerpt from "Things I've Learned From the Word")

Peer pressure is something that we will all have to deal with, especially when we are believers and we associate with individuals who are not, or who might not believe on the same level as us. There will be times when our friends or relatives will attempt to get us to do things that we should not be doing, or go places that we should be going, but we have to have strength enough to not allow them to get us to do things that would not be pleasing to God. In essence, we should behave as if God is watching because he always is. 

There was a time in my life when, shortly after my mother had passed away, I had just become a legal adult, and I was trying to figure out life on my own. I had never gotten involved with smoking, drugs or drinking, and everyone close to me knew this. However, one day, someone close to me was smoking marijuana in my presence, and asked me if I wanted to participate. When I stated that I did not wish to, their response to me was that I should try it so that once I was alone in the world, and someone tried to pass off some artificial or harmful marijuana to me, I would be able to know the difference, as if it was a forgone conclusion that at some point, I would become a weed smoker just as they were. Fortunately for me, even though I did not have a relationship with God at that point in my life, I had the strength to refuse that person again, and through the grace of God, I can say that I have still never gotten involved with any substance habits. 

What we need to remember is that if we give in to temptation, or if we simply just say no to the occasion of the temptation, the devil will continue to follow us. If someone attempts to tempt a believer into doing something that goes against their beliefs, there is a difference between saying “no” and meaning “no”. If someone offers a non-smoker a cigarette, the non-smoker can say “no”, but the smoker could interpret that to mean “not right now” or “not today”. However, if the non-smoker replies with “no thanks, I don’t smoke” or “no, smoking can kill you”, then there is no way that the smoker can confuse the response with there being a chance that the non-smoker might smoke in the future. 

The same can be said regarding peer pressure and sex. If a young man is trying to pressure a young girl into having sex, or if a group of people is trying to coerce a person into having sex because ‘everyone else is doing it’, the person being tempted can simply say “no”, but as before, the answer could be interpreted as “not right now”, “not today”, or “not in front of all of you”. However, if the response is something along the lines of “the bible says that sex outside of marriage is a sin, and since my soul matters to God, it matters to me also”, then there is no way that this response could be confused for anything else. The point of this is that we must turn back temptation and live according to the will and the word of God.

The Best Money Advice I Can Give: Make Sure that You Can Afford to Live Alone

One of the best pieces of advice that I have ever given my children was that many of the problems in relationships stem from money issues. Keeping in mind that I said many and not all, I told my kids that the best way to minimize, and potentially eliminate those money problems is to make sure that they can afford to live on their own. This means that whatever their living situation is, they need to make sure that they can afford everything by themselves.

The idea of being able to afford everything alone seems unreasonable based on today’s economy. However, it also forces people to reach higher in order to have the lives that they want. 

If a single person is able to afford all of their living expenses alone, when they bring a second person into their home, whether it is a roommate or a spouse, as long as the first person’s revenue does not change, the housing will never be compromised. In addition, if the second person is also able to afford all of the living expenses, should either party’s revenue get interrupted, the living expenses can still be covered. 

Consider this; if each person can only afford half of the expenses, hence their reason for living together, and one or the other of them suddenly finds that they are unemployed, the entire household falls apart because the other half of the expenses is suddenly unavailable. On the other hand, if each can afford the total of the expenses yet was only paying for half, they both should have been able to increase their savings. If one or the other is suddenly at a loss of revenue, not only will both have savings to call upon, the employed one’s revenue will also be able to carry the house until the other is able to recover. 

Without having to worry about money, the two people are less likely to fight over money and are likely to be more supportive when one of them falls on hard times. Without the resentment over the feeling that the couple is struggling due to one’s lack of revenue, other smaller fights are likely not to happen. While I cannot guarantee this in every case, know that most fights that couples have are not actually about what the couple is fighting about at the time.

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