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, with God’s help, 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. We cannot do God’s job, and He won’t do ours.
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.
Here are five things you do that predict whether your children will receive the spiritual legacy a Christian parent desires. Do you:
Acknowledge and reinforce spiritual realities? Do your children know, for example, that Jesus loves everyone? That God is personal, loving and will forgive us?
View God as a personal, caring being who is to be loved and respected?
Make spiritual activities a routine part of life?
Clarify timeless truth — what’s right and wrong?
Incorporate spiritual principles into everyday living
The Legacy You Want to Give:
Parents can evaluate how well they’re passing on a spiritual legacy to their children by answering these questions.
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 God 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. If you don’t know God, this is a good time to introduce yourself. 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.
Emotional Legacy Evaluation
Answer each question by circling the number that best reflects the legacy you have received from your parents. Then add up your score.
1. When you walked into your house, what was your feeling?
1.Dread
2.Tension
3.Chaos
4.Stability
5.Calm
6.Warmth
2. Which word best describes the tone of your home?
1.Hateful
2.Angry
3.Sad
4.Serious
5.Relaxed
6.Fun
3. What was the message of your family life?
1.You are worthless.
2.You are a burden.
3.You are okay.
4.You are respected.
5.You are important.
6.You are the greatest.
4. Which word best describes the “fragrance” of your home life?
1.Repulsive
2.Rotten
3.Unpleasant
4.Sterile
5.Fresh
6.Sweet
5. Which was most frequent in your home?
1.An intense fight
2.The silent treatment
3.Detached apathy
4.A strong disagreement
5.A kind word
6.An affectionate hug
Results:
Above 24 = Strong emotional legacy
19 – 24 = Healthy legacy
14 – 18 = Mixed legacy – good and bad elements
10 – 13 = Weak emotional legacy
Below 10 = Damaged emotional legacy
Social Legacy Evaluation
Answer each question by circling the number that best reflects the legacy you have received from your parents. Then add up your score.
1. Which words most closely resemble the social tone of your family?
1.Cruel and abusive
2.Cutting sarcasm
3.Chaotic and distant
4.Noncommunicative but stable
5.Secure with open communication
6.Loving and fun
2. What was the message of your home life with regard to relationships?
1.”Step on others to get your way.”
2.”Hurt them if they hurt you.”
3.”Demand your rights.”
4.”Mind your own business.”
5.”Treat others with respect.”
6.”Put others before yourself.”
3. How were rules set and enforced in your home?
1.Independent of relationship
2.In reaction to parental stress
3.Dictatorially
4.Inconsistently
5.Out of concern for my well-being
6.In the context of a loving relationship
4. Which word best characterizes the tone of communication in your home?
1.Shouting
2.Manipulation
3.Confusing
4.Clear
5.Constructive
6.Courteous
5. How did your family deal with wrong behavior?
1.Subtle reinforcement
2.Accepted in the name of love
3.Guilt trip
4.Severe punishment
5.Discussion
6.Loving, firm discipline
Results:
Above 24 = Strong social legacy
19 – 24 = Healthy legacy
14 – 18 = Mixed legacy — good and bad elements
10 – 13 = Weak social legacy
Below 10 = Damaged social legacy
Spiritual Legacy Evaluation
Answer each question by circling the number that best reflects the legacy you have received from your parents. Then add up your score.
1. To what degree were spiritual principles incorporated into daily family life?
1.Never
2.Rarely
3.Sometimes
4.Frequently
5.Almost always
6.Consistently
2. Which word captures the tone of how you learned to view/relate to God?
1.Absent
2.Adversarial
3.Fearful
4.Casual
5.Solemn
6.Intimate
3. How would you summarize your family’s level of participation in spiritual activities?
1.Nonexistent
2.Rare
3.Occasional
4.Regimental
5.Active
6.Enthusiastic
4. How were spiritual discussions applied in your home?
1.They weren’t
2.To control
3.To manipulate
4.To teach
5.To influence
6.To reinforce
5. What was the perspective in your home regarding moral absolutes?
1.If it feels good, do it!
2.There are no absolutes.
3.Let your heart guide you.
4.Dogmatic legalism
5. conservatism
6.Clear boundaries
Results:
Above 24 = Strong spiritual legacy
19 – 24 = Healthy legacy
14 – 18 = Mixed legacy — good and bad elements
10 – 13 = Weak spiritual legacy
Below 10 = Damaged spiritual legacy
