Children Learn What You Teach So Be Careful What You Teach

Writen by David Perdew

On our swing through Tennessee last weekend, we stopped to see my daughter -- my oldest child -- who had moved there from Atlanta last year. She took a new job in the whitewater rafting business.

She loves the outdoor recreation industry. Her old job was in the same business, but she worked in an office building in Atlanta managing several outposts in north Georgia. She decided it didn't make much sense to live in the city if she loved being in the country. I'm proud of her for making that rational decision that helped her move her life in a more peaceful direction.

From an early age, I pushed my kids to do well, to be the best, to see no limitations, to succeed in everything. It's the American way. We think happiness is achieved, that it just can't possibly just be. That's the way I lived. It was the way I'd been taught, just as I was teaching what I knew to my kids.

Unfortunately, what I set up was a world where they could never achieve enough -- even after I realized the error of my ways years ago.

Albert Einstein, one of my favorite spiritual gurus, had a different take on it:

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

(Young parents, take note: It's nearly impossible to undo what you've done in your children's early years. The only thing you can do later is be a better example.)

So, as our first visit drew near, my daughter said, "I'm really nervous about showing you where I live. There's a junk yard next door."

See! There it is. That fear that dad will be judgmental. It shows up less frequently now, but I know that's it's always lurking in the background. Yet, I couldn't be more proud of her.

But when we arrived, she was standing on the front porch of a little batten board cabin at the base of a range of Tennessee mountains. The cabin was really nice, clean, well-decorated and -- next to a junkyard.

So what? She's happy.

How great is that? After all those years of judgment, my daughter has figured out a way to be happy. I'm so proud of her.

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