Offer Your Child Success

School has started back I wanted to mention some of the things that I KNOW work for helping a child be successful in life. You can't do the work for them but you can point them in the right direction and help them make right decisions.

The two things that make a difference in success or failure in life boil down to a person's general knowledge and vocabulary. When I speak of general knowledge it's information that we learn from various sources about history, our world and other people. If you watch Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" you will understand what I mean. He stops people on the street that cannot even tell you how many states are in the U.S. and other ridiculous information that you would assume everyone would know.

Vocabulary is another very important part of life. When I was in business you would be surprised at how many resumes and application went straight into the garbage from people who could not create a clear sentence and spell correctly. And these were applications for barely more than minimum wage jobs. I would not even consider these ignoramuses.

Reading books, magazines, and newspapers provide this information after you are out of school. But while your kids are in school you need to be sure that they do all their reading assignments and reports. The ability to read and comprehend and then write down on paper ideas and thoughts about what you read are paramount in gaining a professional well-paying position in the future.

And lastly put your kids in the music program at school. I can see the many friends of my kids on Facebook that were in the band and the majority are in well-paid professional positions. I'll admit there are exceptions, but as a general rule those that are involved in the school music program have double the chance of graduating high school and continuing on to college and beyond.

The funny part is that I've told this to many, many people. And you know what? Very few pay attention. And most that continued to let their children do what the child wanted to do, now have grown children struggling to make the grade in a lowly community college and are usually working somewhere as a bar back to earn a living.

Success in life has a simple formula just like losing weight. We just can't seem to handle the simplicity.