Raising Children: Importance of Family Guidance

Simple. When they feel you understand them, they will appreciate you and consider your guidance. Guidance is what most parents wish to share with their loved ones.

Every family member is eager to share their experiences and advice on how you should live your life. They are all meant with good intention but will fall on deaf ears if you adopt the wrong preparation.

To have guidance in your family circle is important. Everyone in the family assumes they can be trusted to have your best interest at heart, so listen to what they have to say.

It’s when you don’t feel they care about you that you will not really give much thought to what they suggest. For example, you are more likely to listen to advice from someone who is close to you rather than a complete stranger because a stranger does not even know you, and you don’t really know their motives for their help.

It is an asset to be able to have a conversation with your sister or mother regarding childbirth, relationships or other female matters, because you feel they understand what you are experiencing and feel they would not lead you astray with their guidance.

Moreover, it usually would be an asset to converse with your father or brother in relation to cars, sports or any male topics about which you feel they would be able share their knowledge and experiences.

Family normally should be the first port of call when faced with life’s troubles and tribulations, as you have a history with them. In most cases, they will do anything to try helping you overcome whatever is on your mind. It makes you feel as if you are not on this Earth alone to figure out all of life’s issues.

Guidance from your family often can come to you in disguise. Usually, the information they give is not what you want to hear, so people may discard it as not useful.

But true friends and family will give you advice that you need to hear, not what you want to hear. Just because their suggestions make you feel uncomfortable does not mean it is bad advice or not for your own good; it may mean they can see something you do not.

I strongly encourage you to take the guidance of people who already have gone through what you are trying to solve.

For example, I would not put into action advice regarding love relationships from someone who has been divorced two or three times and has not searched for new knowledge to receive new results.

But if you do seek out these people, ask them what they have done differently in their approaches to previous problems so they did not go through the same experiences. And, by the way, it is not good enough for them to answer, “Oh, I have just learnt and changed.”

You must find out specifically what action they did to create the change. For instance, did they take a course, attend seminars, read educational books? If the answer is no, you can rest assured nothing has changed. They have not grown as a person and they do not know what they are talking about.

If I want guidance from someone and I am looking to expand my financial circumstances, then I will seek out someone who has financial freedom and listen to what they have to say, hopefully with a family member. People are free with their advice, but only listen to the ones who are very successful in the area of your enquiry.

Can you imagine all of the pitfalls you would bypass and the mistakes you would minimize if you had someone you trusted guide you in the right direction? What a smoother journey it would be.

There are three ways we can move forward in our lives.

First, we can go in cold, learning from our mistakes and receiving all the knocks and punches along the way until we get it right.

Second, we can search for the knowledge and information ourselves and implement what we have learnt.

Or third, we can ask people who are experts and who we trust for guidance in our field of enquiry, and put into action the information they share with us.

Now, which strategy do you think people utilize the most? You guessed it. Number one. Most people prefer to learn from their mistakes.

Why? Because they believe the second one will take too much effort and will consume too much of their valuable time. As for the third option, they don’t believe the person knows what they are talking about, has no respect for them, or just thinks their situation is different from the person giving the advice.

I am here to offer my guidance and what I have learnt. I strongly encourage you to go with (in order of importance) these steps: the second one if time permits; the third one if you have someone who fits the criteria; and the first one only if you enjoy the rocky potholes on the road and mountainous climb to the top.

In my own life, I did not have anyone in whom I could find the correct criteria to guide me. I chose to find the knowledge and information myself because I had had enough of implementing strategy number one. My life has never been the same since. I have studied, learnt and implemented the tools I need to have to grow, and I continue growing as a person in this journey we call life, in a way where I can have all my desires and fulfillment along the way.

Hope you choose the correct one for you too!!