Home, naturally

I was recently asked to blog with Raising Rescuers. After a long period of thinking, deliberating, and praying I agreed. In the next blog entries, I will share a few of my initial concerns and my overall thoughts on rescuers, rescuing, and raising rescuers.

How do I want to raise my little girls? I want them to be strong, healthy, happy, intelligent, capable, confident women who love God and love life. I want them to dream big and work hard. I want them to be good daughters, sisters, friends, and neighbors (and someday good wives, too). I want them to love themselves and love their neighbors.

I believe that raising strong boys and girls will lead to individuals who are actually capable of helping others. It all goes back to the announcement of the flight attendance that we listen to every time we are on an airplane. “In case of loss of cabin pressure, put your own oxygen mask on first – before you help others.”

Only if we know how to take care of ourselves can we actually be of help to others. If we don’t get oxygen for ourselves, we will pretty quick run out of energy to support others. And being there for others, helping them, supporting them, and yes, sometimes even rescuing them requires quite a bit of energy. If we want our children to contribute good things to this world, we have to fuel them as best as we can.

• We can love them so much that they naturally feel the desire to pass this love on to those around them.
• We can teach them strong values which they feel confident relying on.
• We can show them what it means to work hard and fight for our dreams.
• We can eat healthy and take care of our bodies to instill healthy habits from early on.
• We can love God, ourselves, and our neighbors and role model that in everything we do.
• We can set healthy boundaries and highlight what has priority in our life.
• We can make sure that we put our own oxygen mask on first so that we can keep going.

I strongly believe that we can only be of any help to others if we find ourselves in a good spot. We should try to help our kids understand the map and find this spot.