Where Children Fly

Building Character with Inspirational Parenting

Were you the one I saw at the mall with the T-shirt WHO ARE THESE KIDS AND WHY ARE THEY CALLING ME DADDY?! Youre a dad or mom or a cross juggler or a grandparent or a teacher. Youre looking at this book because you love a child or it just popped up. I wrote this book because I love children. I also wrote Where Children Fly because I wanted to be parentally inspiring. Everyone says parenting is so important, but many of us just pray we dont go insane trying to potty train or get through the teenage hormones. We hardly consider what we do as inspirational. So much of what we do in loving children is out of what we were given, not what we really want them to be. Parenting is a very overwhelming, demanding work of the heart. We finally feel weve got the knack of changing their diaper when those cute little mood swings begin. We manage to get them to school and we find the issues changing whether we are ready or not. After all, are we really all that grown up ourselves?! Once in a while, we look back (to the way we were raised) or around (to our peers raising children) and then up with a silent serious plea the heavens have heard before. God, help me! You think you want a smart, cute, rich, funny kind of child, but all those things are, well, just opinions as a general rule. Weve got beauty pagentry, SAT, rock stars and others to decipher our perspectives. Theres really a great deal more to those of us who want children with respectable manners, compassion, vision, and parental pride. I see you looking at me saying, I cant even get them to pick up their toys and Im suppose to create the next amazing humanitarian? Before you walk away, consider the possibility. Not long ago my husband and I were at a local eatery. In walked an elderly woman in an old brown coat, followed by four stair-step brothers, maybe age ten to sixteen. They found a table. One helped Grandma with her coat and cane. An older one brought her a plate. As they flanked her sides and talked, I noticed the youngest one took a bite, then, without missing a beat, leaned over and cut her meat in bite size pieces. We never saw a parent, just Grandma and her grandsons. I assumed, because even if they werent sons, they were GRAND indeed. I wanted to tell them how proud I was of them, but my tears would have scared them silly. It was, I am certain, quite a natural thing for them to do. I want to see generations of this kind of precious afterglow and so I have come to this writing I call INSPIRATIONAL PARENTING. Inspiration comes first by example. I know that seems obvious but believe me, I counsel many a child who lost their way because there was no example. Im not writing Where Children Fly as a course from my archives of perfection or from my trials and experiments. I began to think about how inspiring God speaks of me and how it sets my standard for successful living. I realized that maybe we had forgotten that just to live is holy, to breathe is divinity, to inspire is to create eternal beauty. I hope this book will inspire you. If you have, by godly destiny, been placed in the life of a child, it is because you can make a difference in their life. Its not about teaching children to do as much as it is teaching them to be. God is a 24/7 inspirationally available parent. Armed and amazing is my call to you who are weary. Thinking of all this inspiration makes you wonder if Ive lost my mind and wasted your time. I dont want to scare you, but the best parents are real people who inspire others by the life they lead. They are not always the richest or poorest, the well or ill, the educated or not. They are people who open their hearts wide and grow out of bounds. I love children. I love their stories. I love to see them believe their Dad turned on the sun and Mom can make any boo-boo better with a single kiss. We forget how powerful inspiration can be. We tend to think in the ordinary, practical and t