Lions From Lambs

Rob Malone is an Irish-born American. He is a schoolteacher, speaker, philosopher, strategist and writer.

  • Children Must Know They Are Important

    We have a duty to make sure children feel like celebrities. This is not a call to fill them with an unjustified sense of entitlement, but they must know that they are important in our lives. 

    In the rapid-paced world in which we live, it’s easy to allow children in our lives to be lost in the background as little people whom we take care of, but this is a mistake. Although they are unable to fend for themselves, at the moment, children will very quickly grow into the adults who will lead the world. Their childhood experience will greatly determine the kind of leaders they become.

    This is not a choice between treating them like “rockstars” and instilling them with a sense of accountability. We can still hold children accountable for their decisions, as long as they know we absolutely care for them and that our day is better, because they are in our lives. 

    We want to build their inner confidence organically, and the only way to do that is through experiences. Inner confidence is controlled by our subconscious brain, which relies on the data it receives to make decisions and program our personality. A seemingly insignificant joke or slight of a child can result in a devastating issue of self-consciousness, under the wrong circumstances.

    From birth to about the age of ten is your window of opportunity when raising a child. Once children become teenagers, the world has a far greater influence on them. Their peer group becomes the major influence, far exceeding a parent or even a teacher. 

    It is essential to build a strong bond of trust before they hit the teenage years. If they have a strong foundation with you, they will be able to avoid – or at least reduce – falling victim to the traps that afflict so many kids. Even if they aren’t able to completely sidestep the landmines of adolescence, if you’ve done your job successfully, they will come to you when things get too heavy.

    If you are able to nurture children with positive words and feelings – at the same time allowing them the freedom to make mistakes and know it won’t uproot their world – they will naturally grow a powerful sense of self-confidence. Raising a self-confident child is one of the major pre-determiners of resistance to peer pressure, bullying, and depression.

    We cannot change the world into which we will send our kids, but we can make them strong enough to face it. We simply must raise strong and secure kids who< when necessary, will have the confidence to say that powerful word “no!” 

    This world is a mess, and the children of today are the only hope we have of fixing it. Whether or not they are able to – rests on the job we do now!

  • On the Vital Need for Education

    Children must be given a clear, challenging, and non-biased education if they are to have any hope of success. 

    Education, like everything else in our country, has become infected with politics. Everywhere one turns, the chants can be heard screaming from the peanut gallery. 

    Whether it is arguments over what classifies as science to what books should be banned, everyone has an opinion. Unfortunately those opinions drown out the only thing that really matters in education – the preparation of students to be competitive in an unpredictable world.

    Education should never have become an opportunity to load political or social beliefs on a captive audience. And students are a truly captive audience. From their first day of Kindergarten, children trust us to provide them with the best education we can that will in turn allow them to grow up and be strong and capable in the world. They trust us because they have no choice.

    It is an evolutionary duty for each generation to instill skills in the next that will prepare them to take the torch and run with it. In the western world, we are failing that duty.

    Countries like China, Japan, and Singapore prioritize the education of their children, intertwining it into the everyday lives of families. Students’ education is paramount in those countries and every step is taken – especially in the primary years – to ensure that children have access to everything they need to be successful at school.

    Raising a human being is a full-time undertaking, regardless of one’s personal circumstances. Although a child will typically spend seven and a half to nine hours a day at school, that time is not sufficient to instill all the characteristics and skills that are necessary for excellence. 

    There must be synchronization between school and home. Families must be involved with their child’s studies, helping with homework, reviewing graded work, and discussing relevant topics at the dinner table. 

    (Oh, you don’t gather as a family for dinner? Well, it’s time to start!) 

    Consistent communication with a child’s teacher is also vital to success. The teacher spends the most time with the child during the day. A child whose teacher and family maintain healthy communication is well protected from the pitfalls that so many children encounter.

    Teachers can spot behavior in a child that could be a precursor to harmful outcomes and can help a family head off those patterns before they go too far. Teachers can also spot challenges a child may be facing with regard to how their individual brain processes and stores information. Interventions in this area are key to the student achieving success in later scholastic years.

    On a more straightforward note, teachers can guide parents as to how to best help their child study at home. Teachers want your child to succeed. Without having been one, it is understandably difficult to fully comprehend how attached (most) teachers become to their students. They really are invested in securing the best possible outcome for the children.

    Our children are going to enter an unprecedented world full of technology-driven customer service and absolutely ruthless competition for resources. It will take every resource we have to prepare them for it. (If this sounds dystopian to you, you’re right!) We must see the situation as it is, and this is the reality of the situation. 

    The future is coming, and other nations have gone all-in on preparing their children to compete and succeed in it. If we are to fulfill our natural evolutionary promise to our children, we had better step on the gas…and time’s almost up!

  • On the Importance of Raising Lions

    The world is tough, and it’s not going to get any easier. Every adult knows this, but children don’t. We don’t necessarily need to tell them about all the terrible things that are out there – they’ll discover those things in their own time. 

    We do, however, have a duty to raise children into strong young adults, equipped with the skills and centering that will allow them to face those difficulties when they inevitably arise.

    It is not simply the dangers in the world that raise the stakes of raising children.

    By the time current elementary students leave high school and set out into their first stage of adulthood, they will not have the same leverage that those of us who are adults now had. The fast food and grocery store jobs that were a refuge for us simply won’t be there to let them have a year or two of breathing room after 13 years of school. 

    Major retail and hospitality corporations – the very companies where non college graduates seek post secondary employment – are exploring new methods of delivering their products or services.

    Amazon has piloted drone delivery of certain packages and Uber has launched driverless cars in Las Vegas, with plans to expand to Los Angeles and beyond after 2023.

    My hometown of Fort Worth boasts the first fully automated McDonalds, completely run by robots. This location was opened as a test run to explore the possibility of expanding the model companywide – which will inevitably lead to an industry-wide revolution. 

    We have a solemn duty to prepare our children for this daunting reality into which they will enter within only a decade. 

    We must shift our perspective surrounding our children, from their development being simply an addition to our lives, to being the priority and central pillar of our lives. We owe them this. We brought them into the world and we owe each and every one of them the best preparation and opportunity to fulfill their individual purpose.

    This is not to say we should encourage children to grow up into self-centered monsters who dominate and destroy everything in their path – only that they should have the capacity to do so. While much of their preparation for life must be focused on competitive skills, we must also teach them empathy, compassion, restraint, and many other virtues. 

    Strength combined with moral restraint is the highest virtue. We don’t want to raise children into adults who are weak and afraid, because that will leave them at the mercy of those who aren’t. There is a balance in life that must be maintained in order for society to flourish.

    There will always be jackals at the gates, and if society is comprised only of sheep, the jackals will destroy it. But a society of lions will always keep the jackals at bay.

  • “Raising children is an uncertain thing; success is reached only after a life of battle and worry.”

    – Democritus