Last night as we drove to church, a car headed straight towards us in our lane, not stopping, not swerving …  just straight towards us. My husband swerved the car up onto the right shoulder and the oncoming vehicle raced past in the lane our car just drove. As soon as it passed, it went up the embankment behind us, without braking, careened across the road to go up over the curb on the opposite side of the road, and disappeared down into the ditch.

In an instant, all plans changed. My husband bolted down the embankment to help the driver and I grabbed my cell phone to call 9-1-1, and headed down behind him. An hour later, once the ambulance and fire department left, witness statements were given, we all three got back in the car and continued on our way to church.

One never knows what the next moment brings, do we?

Thankfully God spared our vehicle from being part of the impact of the oncoming vehicle and we were safe. But what one of the officers later told us about the dangers of helping people in an accident, startled me. He told of a recent incident where the injured was strung out on meth and lashed out violently at the one there to help. The officer explained when you approach a vehicle, you don’t know if they are armed or what danger waits when you open the door to help.

The thought had never entered my mind. What a different world we live in today.

In showing our daughter how sometimes things we want to do, like youth group, gets put on hold when we see someone in need, we also had to share with her the dangers.

As parents, our job is to teach kids how to live so when they become adults, they are equipped to stand in the world and live the life they are designed to live. Today’s dangers and pitfalls are far greater than when we were young, but it just means our job is that much more important. It’s our job to be there to love, support, encourage, protect, equip, and teach. How are we doing?

At times being my daughter’s homeschool teacher in addition to being mom creates a few challenges. I want more than anything to be her cheerleader, but as her teacher I still need to be constructive in her learning. Most of the time I juggle it alright, but other times it gets a little messy.

One of the greatest things I learned when we started homeschooling was how each of us processes information differently. I wished I discovered the information sooner! There is a gem of a book that I have listed in my Resource section called “The Way They Learn,” by Cynthia Tobias. Whether you homeschool or not, this book will help you discover your learning styles and I assure you it will help in your communication as a family.

My daughter and I’s minds work differently. I’m very concrete and sequential–there is step 1, 2, and 3 and they go in that order (most of the time). My daughter is also concrete but very random–even though fully aware of the steps, the order they fall is not so important because her way might work better and faster. I loved Algebra in school, she hates it. I can understand why … random and Algebra don’t mix.

But sometimes regardless of information, communication just fails! Right now in one class, we are working through library skills such as computer catalogs and indexes. One of the assignments provided a catalog entry and then asked a variety of questions about the supplied information. When I read one of my daughter’s answers, I knew she wasn’t being sarcastic; she just answered the question with her literal mind.

Question: How would you type the author’s name in the computer?

Her answer: With your hands

Isn’t communication like that sometimes? A complete miss. All I could do was laugh!

I love vacations. The chance to go somewhere just as a family and spend uninterrupted time together–fabulous! I’m such a researcher and planner, so each year (at least nine months in advance), we start planning where we want to go on our next vacation. After brainstorming ideas and gathering initial facts, we book the condo. Then I get to work researching everything there is to know about the place we are going.

For the following months, I share my findings with my family as I go along, and we talk about our favorites we each want to do. By the time we leave on vacation, I have a 3-ring binder of goodies about the destination, activities ideas, and helpful tips about the area.

Well, last year we booked our vacation for this year but I never got a chance to start researching. I dove into planning and starting our homeschool year and life took off. Fast forward to this week, my daughter asked me, “What sort of vehicle rental can we get to see the whole island?”

“I don’t know,” I said. She stared at me like I had been abducted by an alien.

“Do they have different currency there?”

“Uh … I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Nope. I haven’t started my research.”

“That’s not right,” she said with the alien abduction look glaring at me.

You see, we leave in just a couple short months and I haven’t begun–outside of a few discussions with my hubby about airfare. Even though my family gives me a hard time about my 3-ring binder, it’s obvious they’ve come to depend on it and miss that planning and dreaming of our vacation before we ever leave. I think I’d better start.

No matter where you go as a family this year–whether in the backyard, tropical, or mountainous–make it memorable!

YouTube. What a phenomenon–loaded with information and a platform for upcoming star-hopefuls. At times, I’ve used the site’s biology, historical, or inspirational videos for teaching purposes in our homeschooling day. I’ve listened to a few songs posted and I’ve followed a link or two from a friend to a must-see video. But what I read about recently in a newspaper article about the trend of new YouTube videos, shocked me. Self-injury.

I knew there were graphic videos of all varieties posted on YouTube that I would never wish to view, but I had no idea of this glamorization of an issue that commonly plagues so many young people. Over 5,000 such videos were found by one psychologist and from just 100 videos focused on, the viewer count exceeded 2 million. Sheer tragedy is all that came to mind.

I think of all society’s teens and young adults struggling to make it through this difficult journey called life … many searching for answers. They need information to help and encourage them to travel in a positive direction, not give them more avenues to throw their hands up in defeat.

I know as parents we can’t overturn society’s access to these hidden dangers in an internet hub, but we can make a difference in our own families. A few years ago we chose to limit the YouTube access for our teen. It was a mutual decision we made with our daughter as we all recognized the dangers of such a wide range of information–completely unfiltered and accessible.

It’s not about isolating our children from the realities of this world, but instead teaching them positive tools to cope in life without barraging them with destructive choices displayed on a computer screen. Our daughter isn’t naïve to the realities as we talk about them openly.

There are no cookie cutter answers, but as parents we need to be informed. We need to be the source of information for our children. Society is ready to offer them a variety of solutions to their problems. Are we ready to teach healthy parameters and positive alternatives? Let’s get informed and be proactive.

“Choice not chance determines your destiny,” boasted a marquee as I drove past. I couldn’t agree more!

So often we think we are floating through life as a result of the circumstances that come our way. Not so. I heard Jerry B. Jenkins say at a writer’s conference years back, that life is 5% what you experience and 95% of how you respond to it. Very true!

No matter what we experience in life, it’s our choice as to how we respond to the rollercoaster in our lives. Each choice as well as the accumulation of those choices determines the trajectory of our lives.

What direction is your destiny heading?