Are you a promise keeper?
Easter is almost here and how time has flown! How are you enjoying the second 2022 lockdown? How are your new year resolutions coming? Do you even remember them? Are you keeping those promises to yourself?
My three-year-old asked for a rainbow this week. She wanted a painting or picture for her room but I couldn’t buy any from the Chinese shops. Even though the request seemed simple, it took me a while to remember all the colours and their right place in a rainbow. With only thirty minutes to spare, I quickly painted a rainbow on a canvas before picking her up from school.
If your child is anything like mine, they have long and good memories. They won’t forget your promise of a rainbow the day before. “Where’s my rainbow mum?” was the first thing she asked when she got in the car. I told her she’ll have to wait for it. There were a lot of excited “wow” and “thanks mum” when she finally saw the surprise.
My parents have always been promise keepers, no matter how small or big the reward. At the beginning of every academic year, they would sit us down and give us the reward list. The best rewards were reserved for those who topped their class. Every year was a different reward and they got more expensive as we reached high school and UPY.
A new dress, a Seiko watch, a brand-new bike, return airfares to Christmas holiday in New Zealand with NZD$500 pocket money, which to a nine-year-old was huge! During my last year of high school, the stakes were quite high, a brand-new car worth up to $100,000.
They kept every promise and this was great motivation for all of us. I received each reward with great expectation and was probably the main reason I studied hard. That and I really enjoyed school.
My parents were not millionaires but they taught us the meaning of hard work. You have to work hard if you want things to move in this life. Hard work will never go unrewarded and we continue to live by these principles.
Are you a promise keeper? With promises come language. Using positive, encouraging and uplifting language around our children is said to have flourishing effects. Our children will be like trees growing near rivers, deeply rooted with healthy green leaves and producing good fruits in time.
Our language is an indicator of how we see ourselves and others. Even more important, kids can be secure in the knowledge that we are people of our word. That the most important adults in their lives will remember their promises. Don’t make promises if you can’t keep them. It’s that simple.
When we speak loving and encouraging language around our children, we instill in them a source of security providing them with an immovable, unchanging and unfailing foundation. When they too become adults with pressures of work, families and society, they can fall back on this foundation.
They can see change as an exciting adventure and opportunity to make significant contributions and are able to see things differently and thus think and act differently from the largely reactive world. They view the world through a fundamental paradigm for effective, provident living and adopt a proactive lifestyle, seeking to serve and build others (Covey, 2004).
However, negative and critical language is said to have the opposite effect. It becomes self fulfilling prophecies resulting in insecure, unhappy, dysfunctional adults. Their confidence will dry up like an empty well, making them shrink in every hard situation.
As we enjoy another peaceful Sunday Samoa, let us remember to keep our promises to ourselves and others. Excellence is not an overnight achievement; it is a habit that is worked on every day.
Let us remember to encourage our children in whatever they do and work on things we can do something about, things we can change or improve about ourselves. Don’t forget your masks and sanitisers as well as your vaccination cards. Let’s continue to keep Samoa safe and stay vigilant.