This is the week in Illinois that many public school start the new academic year. Too early, too early I think. I don’t share the Staples commercial view that parents believe that “This is the most wonderful time of the year,” playing a Christmas carol in the background. I love school. I hope that students also love school and that they become life long learners. That teachers teach with passion and compassion, inspiring the next generation of leaders.

God extends God’s innate lovingkindness to the thousandth generation. We need to teach our children diligently—with passion and compassion, so that they come to understand their place in the world, their responsibility to make this world a better place, so that they know that they are loved for eternity by G-d. That way we leave our children and their children a lasting legacy to the thousandth generation.

Children Learn What They Live
By Dorothy Law Nolte

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.[1]

Rodgers and Hammerstein said it this way in South Pacific:

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught from year to year
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a different shade
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You’ve got to be carefully taught

One of the bloggers I read, Hands Free Mama, http://www.handsfreemama.com expresses her hope for her children as we start the new year:

• Today I hope to take a few extra seconds to kiss the top of your head before you go.
• Today I hope to stand aside and let you do it yourself … even if it takes a little longer … even if it’s messier … even if it’s not perfect.
• Today I hope to say, “I’m sorry,” and “I love you” because they are life changing, comforting, and healing words.
• Today I hope to laugh more than I sigh with exasperated breaths.
• Today I hope to view missed shots and off-key notes as brave attempts at living rather than failures to succeed.
• Today I hope to focus less on your faults and more on your freckles and sense of humor because they light up your face.
• Today I hope to notice the color of your eyes when you speak to me.
• Today I hope to listen to your words without judgment and impatience.
• Today I hope to extend grace for accidental spills and other kid mishaps.
• Today I hope to help you as you clean up that spill and tell you about the time I dropped an entire bag of flour on the kitchen floor. Maybe we’ll even laugh about it.
• Today I hope to give you a little extra time to walk along the edge of the curb, do your own hair, and listen to your knock-knock joke.
• Today I hope to catch a glimpse of you that suddenly reminds me how much of an extraordinary miracle you are.
• Today I hope to remember you are more than your achievements, more that your academic performance, and more than your behavior.
• Today I hope you see my eyes light up, not because of something you do, but simply because of who you are.
• Today I hope you go to bed knowing life is better because of you.
• Today I hope you fall asleep feeling loved right now, today, just as you are.

What a gift these sentiments would be for our children. What a sense of love just because they are, not because of what they do. What legacy do we want to pass to our children’s and our children’s children?  What kind of role models are we? If you were to write an ethical will, not a list of how the property is to be divided but about how you want your children to live, some kind of moral compass you leave behind, what would it say? Write one.