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Reading Activity XXIV
FAMILY LEGACIES
No matter who we are, where we live, or what our goals may be, we all have one thing in common: a heritage.
That is, a social, emotional and spiritual legacy passed on from parent to child. Every one of us is passed a heritage,
lives out a heritage, and gives a heritage to our family. It's not an option. Parents always pass to their children a
legacy … good, bad or some of both.
A spiritual, emotional and social legacy is like a three-stranded cord. Individually, each strand cannot hold much
weight. But wrapped together, they are strong. That's why passing on a positive, affirming legacy is so important
and why a negative legacy can be so destructive. The good news is that you can decide to pass a positive legacy on
to your children whether you received one or not.
Today, if we don't intentionally pass a legacy consistent with our beliefs to our children, our culture will pass along
its own, often leading to a negative end. It is important to remember that passing on a spiritual, emotional and
social legacy is a process, not an event. As parents, we are responsible for the process. God is responsible for the
product.
The Emotional Legacy
In order to prosper, our children need an enduring sense of security and stability nurtured in an environment of
safety and love.
The Social Legacy
To really succeed in life, our children need to learn more than management techniques, accounting, reading,
writing and geometry. They need to learn the fine art of relating to people. If they learn how to relate well to
others, they'll have an edge in the game of life.
The Spiritual Legacy
The Spiritual Legacy is overlooked by many, but that's a mistake. As spiritual beings, we adopt attitudes and beliefs
about spiritual matters from one source or another. As parents, we need to take the initiative and present our faith
to our children.
The Emotional Legacy
Sadly, many of us struggle to overcome a negative emotional legacy that hinders our ability to cope with the
inevitable struggles of life. But imagine yourself giving warm family memories to your child. You can create an
atmosphere that provides a child's fragile spirit with the nourishment and support needed for healthy emotional
growth. It will require time and consistency to develop a sense of emotional wholeness, but the rewards are great.
A strong emotional legacy:
• Provides a safe environment in which deep emotional roots can grow.
• Fosters confidence through stability.
• Conveys a tone of trusting support.
• Nurtures a strong sense of positive identity.
• Creates a “resting place” for the soul.
• Demonstrates unconditional love.
Which characteristics would you like to build into the legacy you pass along to your children? Even if you don't hit
the exact mark, setting up the right target is an important first step.
The Social Legacy
In order to prosper, our children need to gain the insights and social skills necessary to cultivate healthy, stable
relationships. As children mature, they must learn to relate to family members, teachers, peers and friends.
Eventually they must learn to relate to coworkers and many other types of people such as salespeople, bankers,
mechanics and bosses.
Nowhere can appropriate social interaction and relationships be demonstrated more effectively than in the home.
At home you learned — and your children will learn — lessons about respect, courtesy, love and involvement. Our
modeling as parents plays a key role in passing on a strong social legacy.
Key building blocks of children's social legacy include:
• Respect, beginning with themselves and working out to other people.
• Responsibility, fostered by respect for themselves, that is cultivated by assigning children duties within the
family, making them accountable for their actions, and giving them room to make wrong choices once in a while.
• Unconditional love and acceptance by their parents, combined with conditional acceptance when the parents
discipline for bad behavior or actions.
• The setting of social boundaries concerning how to relate to God, authority, peers, the environment and siblings.
• Rules that are given within a loving relationship
The Spiritual Legacy
Parents who successfully pass along a spiritual legacy to their children model and reinforce the unseen realities of
the godly life. We must recognize that passing a spiritual legacy means more than encouraging our children to
attend church, as important as that is. The church is there to support parents in raising their children but it cannot
do the raising; only parents can.
The same principle applies to spiritual matters. Parents are primary in spiritual upbringing, not secondary. This is
especially true when considering that children, particularly young children, perceive God the way they perceive
their parents. If their parents are loving, affirming, forgiving and yet strong in what they believe, children will think
of God that way. He is someone who cares, who is principled and who loves them above all else.
The Legacy You Want to Give
We all have good and bad parts to the legacy we have inherited. The key is to move forward from here. For some,
taking a closer look at the legacy they've been given helps them assess the legacy they want to pass on. After
considering your past, here are some practical tips for the future:
Decide what you'll keep:
You probably have things you received that are wonderful and need to be kept and passed on. Other things may
need to be thrown out. Or, perhaps you have a weak legacy that needs strengthening.
Whatever you received, you can now intentionally pass along the good. This isn't always easy. If you saw hypocrisy
in your parents' lives, you may be tempted to throw everything out even though much of what your parents
modeled was good. Don't. That would be like burning down the house to get rid of some bugs.
Realize that there is a being who can redeem even the "bad stuff" in your legacy.
Unfortunately, many of us have parts of our legacy that are weak or even awful. Maybe one of your parents was an
alcoholic or abusive or didn't provide the nurturing you needed. In today's society, the stories of such families are
common. You may be asking, "How do I give something I didn't receive? Nobody modeled this stuff for me."
Hope is not lost. Consider the story of Josiah from the Old Testament in the Bible. His father and grandfather were
involved in many wicked things, including idol worship that threatened the entire nation. But after 8-year-old
Josiah became king of Judah, he reversed that trend. He sought God and purged Judah of idols, repaired the
temple and saved a nation.
Like Josiah, you can choose which things in your legacy are no good and throw them away. It's important to break
the cycle of hurt by leaving bad things behind and creating a new legacy. Legacies are not easily broken and always
benefit from His guidance.
Chart a new course as you begin a positive legacy for yourself and those you love. Research suggests that most
fathers will parent the way they were parented. That means only a minority of fathers will change their parenting
style — even if their parenting is wrong! Today, you can take positive steps to design a new heritage for yourself
and your family.
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Jill M. Sacopon
CIS Senior High School
