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Recapturing Ronald Reagan's Shining City on a Hill in the Summer of Freedom
By Kevin Fobbs
June 13, 2005
Page 2 of 4
1. Parents should set aside a special part of the day once a week with their children and truly discuss what freedom, what cherishing the values of family and faith mean in real life examples. Try to relate the examples to when you were a child. Use one or two examples and use those examples as the theme for the week. For example: Turn off the television set and share with your child an experience about perseverance. How did you overcome something as a youth, and tie it into a value a Revolutionary War hero may have used to overcome some adversity. Perhaps you have a member of your family who was a soldier who survived the military conflict. What were the values that kept him focused on winning and surviving? Ask your child what they would do in a similar situation and why? You may even consider role playing. Make it a family fun game. At the end tie it in why perseverance was important to President Reagan to stand up to the challenges that he spoke about, as president.


2. Celebrate the Culture of Life with your Children and emphasize once a week in home discussions why our founding fathers chose to build our nation upon the foundation of One Nation Under God, and why the family values that Reagan stood for, that our founding fathers cherished and some died for, are still central to our religious faith and our national principles today. For example, use examples from your life that your child may understand. A grand parent who has taken ill, a young friend or neighbor who is handicapped, or a young baby who is in a neonatal unit in the hospital provide good examples about valuing life. Emphasize by example how dangerous it can be to begin to select who will live or die based upon a person's personal appearance or tasks they cannot perform due to illness, or age.
Again, it is a good idea to role play, maybe include this as part of the church or place or worship where your child may be attending summer school religion classes, or better yet, start a role-playing club on your block or in neighborhood. Remind your child in the playful skits about the central theme by using key examples from our nation's past. For example, heroes who used faith in God to overcome health challenges like Helen Keller who was both deaf and blind. Under today's death culture standards, many courts would have ruled that she would be a candidate for "legal" state murder, because her "quality of life" was not what the state, i.e. liberal judges would have deemed fitting to still be kept alive.
3. Neighborhood organizations should plan trips to historic settings around the region as well as taking day trips to local civic and community organizations that are making a difference in the lives of the residents of their community. In addition, your block club could create a weekly game for the kids to first define what exactly is a "Shining City on the Hill". Rotate the summer morning game between houses on the block that way everyone plays and every parent is involved in some way as well. Ask them who lives in this city and what are the people like? Why not get the PTA parents involved as well. The children should be encouraged to volunteer at least twice during the summer with a program that provides services to the needy. This equips the child with the ability to develop Christian compassion, which is a key element in the social character of our nation
>> Continued -- Page 1 2 3 4

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