The Joy of every Parent is to see that their children are successful in their life’s endeavors. I am sure we all want to be referred to as the parents of outstanding leaders and innovators in the society.
Achieving this does not come easy and requires a lot from us, we must understand that for that future we desire to materialize we have a role to play. Our Children have been given to us by God as such we are caretakers/custodians of God’s heritage Ps 123: 3 – 4, they are given to us as a gift, reward but he requires that we bring his purpose and plan to bear in the life of those ones he has committed to us.
We are expected to nurture, groom, train and mentor them for that purpose. As care takers, we have a responsibility to nurture and groom them to be mighty arrows that will serve as our defense in the future.
How then can we plan for that future that will be beneficial to the children, to us the parents and ultimately to God?
I will be considering this from 4 P’s generally they are ‘Pray, Project, Plan and Prepare’
1. PRAY
Every Child (indeed) every one on earth has been endowed with distinctive skills and ability and is destined to impact or affect some part of the world. For this to come to pass and to enjoy positive impact, we must seek the counsel of God in prayers, we must seek his face to direct us concerning the child and what he will have that child be, As children grow up, they begin to manifest some of the inherent talents, we must prayerfully explore those talents.
I still recall my father’s friend I had to stay with for a period in time in my life and I saw how he ‘watered our lives through prayers’ committing every phase and aspect of the lives of his children and ward into God’s hand from where they were to that desired end. Of a truth, his prayers were not in vain because all his children are distinguished in their areas of endeavor.
2. PROJECT
‘Project’ means envisioning the kind of future you want for your children, where there is no clarity in what we want, we tend to achieve nothing. Projecting speaks to lifestyle, level of education, exposure, relationships etcetera that we envision that our child should be. It also speaks to our relationship and interaction with our children and their dreams aspirations and tendencies.
I wish to sound a note of caution here, projection does not mean trying to impose our will on the children or trying to live our dreams through them. Our role is to guide and direct, not to force them to be who we wanted to be or who we think they should be.
The fact that we are in a line of business or profession does not mean our children are so inclined or wired.
3. PLAN
Planning for that future is the crux of the matter, whatever part of their future we are planning for: Education, business career, or marriage. A lot depends on us and our ability to discipline ourselves to achieve our goals.
In planning we consider investments, savings and preservation of resources, assets and even self to ensure that our desires are achieved.
In considering Investments to go into, you must consider the following:
- Your age as parents
- The age of the child
- What goals or target do you desire? – University Education, Post Graduate Diploma (PGD), Specialization, Marriage, etcetera.
The following types of investment are recommended:
- Savings – as much as possible, start this early in the life of the child- the adage little drops of water make a mighty ocean comes to play here.
- Equities- stocks and shares – this is very good for long term planning as the interest is high over a very long period and can be used to hedge against inflation, however this is a high risk and volatile investment and should not be considered when the funds are required in the short term. This too like ‘a’ above should be commenced as early as possible. I recommend the use of professional financial planners and analysts in deciding which shares to invest in.
- Mutual Funds – Professionals who pool together funds from various people to invest in blue chip companies and give reasonable return on such investment manage these.
- Insurance: This could be in the form of life insurance for the parent or an Educational Endowment scheme for the child, which will be accessible to the child upon achieving a certain level of education or age.
- Targeted Savings or placement with banks and other financial institutions, which can serve as collateral for debt to fund further studies of the child, most of our banks in Nigeria have various schemes like this.
4. PREPARE
This speaks to preparing your child physically, mentally and spiritually for that future which you desire. The Bible tells us to ‘Train up your child in the way he should go and when he grows up, he will not depart from it.’ We must model the future we want and ensure our children have a sense of understanding of it, they must from an early age have responsibilities in the house and understand the basics of money management. We must encourage entrepreneurial skills in them and allow them learn vocational skills. We should encourage extra curricula programmes that develop their mind and communication skills so that they can be all rounded in their learning. This is not to the detriment of house chores.
They can only succeed and make our planning a success where the opportunities that life presents to them meets with preparation on their part. Then will the sky not be a limit for them.
This article was written by Oluseyi Tolu-Boluwatise Divisional Head, Corporate Services at Credit Direct.