Dynamic Choices » Family Wellness

Live Your Potential

Are you living your full potential? Are you supporting your kids to do the same? Do you have a dream or a vision that you are actively pursuing? Are you taking the steps you need to maneuver around the obstacles that are getting in your way so you thrive in your life rather than exist? Are you supporting your kids to do the same?

As we watched our son cross the stage at his graduation last week my husband and I were smiling. This young man is absolutely living in line with his natural gifts and talents. What about you? Are your nurturing your child’s potential? Are you helping them to identify their unique strengths and gifts or do you often fall into the trap of only pointing out their faults? When life is busy and we are juggling many different obligations and responsibilities, it is easy to become preoccupied with the “doing” of parenthood and forget to take time to listen. We need to listen to our children and take time to really know who they are. We also need to take time to notice the challenges they are facing and the places where a little support might make a world of difference.

If you or your child have health or behaviour issues that are getting in the way of doing what you want, look for answers rather than let it slide or make excuses. If your child is struggling at school, get help early rather than wait until their self esteem takes a nose dive. If your family life is like a runaway train with no time to simply hang out together, change it. If you are so busy at work that you barely know your kid’s friends or hardly ever get to their soccer games, rethink your decisions. Take an active and proactive role in creating both your own life and the environment that your child grows up in.

You see, before you know it, it will be your child crossing the stage at a graduation and you will wonder where the time has gone. I hope that you, too, will reach that stage and enjoy the proud moment as we did last week of watching an amazing child you have raised step into adulthood. Not just an adulthood that is mediocre but an adulthood that honours exactly who they are and what they want with loads of room to dream of what is possible from here. It makes all those anxious moments of parenthood worth every minute.