mentality and hope to affect the same crowd. You can only affect the crowd by having the crowd watch you. This means you have to develop your style, uniqueness, and strength independent of the crowd.
Abraham Lincoln observed this as true. America had had presidents before him and none had fought against slavery. Nevertheless, he chose to stand out. He saw their belief as a bandwagon that he needed to get off from and he jumped out of it. He faced the strong challenge of having to return to the crowd as he saw himself in this battle all alone. However, his believe in his idea gave him strength to stand against the band.
Children want to associate with their peers. The strongest influence on them is their friends. They want to have what their friends have, dress the same way and accorded the same glory as their peers. Children love feeling among the crowd. They love to know they are associating with people. It is this quality in children, parents have to seize on to be the strongest influence in their children’s lives.
Parents have to create the bandwagon effect over their wards. They need the fill their emotions with their thought and plans and influence their thoughts with positive things that will make them stand even when the wind of other bands try to draw them away. Abraham Lincoln observed this of son. He would have loved to help his ward but he was limited by time due to his political pursuit but he had trust in his son’s teacher to carry out this great order.
Teachers have a great responsibility to pull their wards away from negative influences from people around them. They must watch out for pupils who show negative traits that could attract the attention of other students and warn students against been carried away by the negative influences of the pupils. Teachers need to help students develop qualities that will help them develop self-confidence in what they believe.
Parents have to watch their wards and what they watch, who they keep as friend and what influences them. They have to stand as guard creating rules and developing punishments for which the breakage of this rules will lead. While parents should not cage their wards, they have a responsibility to provide the enabling environment where they can make positive influence on their wards.
There is a need to be cautious in the kinds of persons that affect our lives and especially our kids who often do not have the ability to make choices except they are rightly guided. Parents have to advice their wards on ways they could make friends and look out for friends who can positive affect their lives. Parents should try as much as possible to attract the friends of their wards towards them so that they could know them and positively affect their lives too.
At school, children need learn that they could make their independent decisions away from what the general people are. They should be encouraged to stand out rather than accept mediocrity. Children need to believe in themselves. They should know that the fact that many are following one path does not mean that is the only or that the popular path is the best path. They should be encouraged to tread independent path towards achieving their goals as they can only receive acclaim if they choose to be different. They should recognize that they could afford to stay off the shadow of the crowd and get into limelight than accepting what others say about them. Children should learn to realize that it is not what others say about them that matters but what they say about themselves. If they do believe they can, then they will against the drags of the crowd.
You do not have to jump “on the bandwagon” every time. You do not have to believe what everybody says. “Everybody” is not the standard even if they are the majority. There are a thousand and one routes to achieving real success. If you join the crowd, you cannot influence the crowd. You have to create your path and let others follow you too.