I was watching an HBO Documentary called The Latino List for the first time last night. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a collection of interviews of prominent Hispanics in the United States. The interview of José Moreno Hernández stuck with me after the show was finished. Hernández is of Mexican descent and an astronaut and engineer. He spoke of working in the fields with his family 7 days a week when he was a child. José’s father would ask him and his siblings how they felt after finishing a hard day’s work. As you can imagine, they answered that they felt refreshed and empowered! No. Just kidding, they didn’t. They answered that they felt ‘tired, muddy, sweaty’. Their father responded that he was happy that that was their reaction, and explained ‘this is your future if you don’t study in school.’

After becoming an adult and achieving many dreams, Hernández goes on describe a conversation with his wife where he asks her ‘How are we going to put that drive in our kids…the same drive that you and I had?’

This is the question that caused me to ignore everything else that he said, and quite frankly, the rest of the show (nothing against the documentary of course). I began to think about this. How do we as parents instill within our children the desire to achieve more? The world is filled with distractions to the path we have in mind for our children to take. No matter what your race, economic status or where you live, there should always be that want to have your children succeed and go further than you as parents will go.

I started to examine what we do in our home to try and instill a desire to achieve more in our son. I came up with the following list of things that we do, and what I think I could do more of to see that goal come to fruition.

Expect More: Most parents expect their children to do some pretty basic things as a part of a family. These things are dependent on many factors like their age, their ability, etc. We may have an unconscious and basic expectation for our children to keep their room at a level above ‘War Zone’. What if we raise the expectation to the level of ‘Decent Working Order’? Our smaller children still want to please us (mostly). So, try raising the bar to something that they can achieve (like B’s if they are a C student), to something that will stretch them a little.

Teach More: Our kids are naturally curious. Have them follow you around during your weekend routine. Are you doing laundry? Show them how you do it. Are you going to read on a blanket in the sun outside? Take them and their book along. Take some time out to do some research on the internet when they ask about dolphins. Plan a project to plant a flower when they ask how things grow. Teaching your kids doesn’t have to be tedious and all ‘textbook’. It can be fun and enriching for you too.

Serve More: Engage in a charity. My son and I are going to be attending an MS Bike Ride charity next weekend. We’ll be there all day, working in the name of sweet service. Show your kids how lucky they are by serving others in your community.

Achieve More Yourself: The best way to teach is by doing. Set some personal goals that will be somewhat difficult to achieve in your own life, and then go for it! Talk to your children about what you’re doing, and explain the hard work you’re doing to get to those goals. Celebrate your success once you’re done, and your child will see how sweet achieving even tiny steps can be.

Evaluate More: Be conscious of what steps you are taking in showing your children how to stretch themselves. Re-evaluate every so often to see what is working, and what is not. Praise them for their successes. The achievements themselves should be their own rewards.

As busy as our world is we need to make a conscious choice to raise our children to want to be better. My largest responsibility is to raise a contributing member of society, and I will work towards that end. That’s the whole reason we became parents in the first place right? Oh it wasn’t? Oh! Well it’s the reason we continue raising them anyway.

Is this something that you have consciously thought about in the past? What other things can we try to put that drive in our kids?