The Effects of Inflation

Children are like balloons. Fill a balloon with the right element, and up it rises. Fill it with the wrong element, and you’ll find it going lower and lower until it’s aimlessly bobbing along the dirt, being kicked around and trampled. Like balloons, we fill our children up with various elements as well. Fill them with the right stuff : self-esteem; a positive self-image; a high self-worth; love. Where do you think they’ll go? That’s right—they’re going up! Just try to stop them if they’re filled with the right stuff! On the other hand, take the right stuff out of them. Put in the wrong stuff , the stuff that weighs them down—negativity; guilt; self-doubt; feelings of inferiority (as we discussed in the previous section). Just picture the consequences of that in your head for a minute. Can children ever rise up and move on if we don’t fill them with the right stuff? And more importantly, how do we know what we’re giving them IS the right stuff? Think about the many children you know not just your own children, but kids in your neighborhood, your relatives’ kids, your child’s friends—and consider this: Every parent thinks he is giving his kid the right stuff. Every parent thinks his kid is getting just what he needs. Yet so many kids are struggling with discipline, school, socialization, bad habits or troubled relationships with their parents. If every parent is giving his kid “the right stuff,” then why are millions of parents and kids having so many problems that could be avoided by “the right stuff?”