It does NOT take a village to raise a child...it just takes good parenting.
Creating safe neighborhoods and safe communities is NOT the responsibility of the President of the United States. Neither is it the responsibility of the Police, Schools, or Politicians. Community safety is the responsibility of parents. In my Parents on a Mission (POM) program I consistently encourage parents that they are the number one asset in the community...they are the most important person in the community-not the police, pastor, priest, principal of the school, or politicians-parents are in the best position to determine the health and safety of the community since it is they who have the future citizens under their care to nurture, discipline, and provide guidance during the most impressionable years of a child's life.
In POM I encourage parents to understand that they are not only raising "their kids", but they are also raising our citizens as our families all share "our neighborhoods", attend "our schools" and befriend "our kids". Therefore, the ultimate outcome of what goes on inside our homes daily, directly relates to the condition of the safety and health of the larger community.
After all, where do the citizens of the community come from? They come from our home. Thus, the question is, what kind of citizen are we sending into the community, the neighborhood, schools, parks, and playgrounds every day? The fact is the community is depending upon parents to raise responsible and respectful citizens that will make a positive contribution to the community as future leaders in business, education, religion, government, and a variety of other important roles that make up the community, the most important of which is becoming what I call a "parent on a mission", which is the subject of this book.
Although I understand this whole village proverb is well intended, it was meant for a different time, place, and culture. It's not the message parents need in today's culture of competition with 24/7 access to internet information, programs, and peer pressure through social media. Our intention is not to blame parents but to name parents as the most important people in the community. What we want from the "village" is help, not control of our children. That is our responsibility. If we parents are willing to take part of the credit for the success of our children, we ought to be just as willing to accept part of the responsibility when our children fail in their social responsibilities as citizens of the larger community.
I never assume that when children go astray that the parent is a bad person, negligent, or abusive. But what I have found is that many parents have simply never really learned many of the principles taught in the POM curriculum that I share in this book. Those who have learned these principles and practice them, in most cases, have healthy relationships with their kids who are leading productive lives. These parents usually learned how to have a healthy relationship with their kids from their parents, or whoever was the principal person who raised them as children. Yet, all too often, many of us lacked parents who could demonstrate to us how to go about building healthy human relationships and thus we end up using the age-old philosophy of child rearing; "If it was good enough for me, it's good enough for you", but in many cases this philosophy doesn't produce healthy parent-child relationships.
As parents respond to the ideas, and consistently practice the principles and encouragement in this book, I am confident they will have the same life transformation I call the "POM experience".
