Breaking the cycle: One final note on generational curses…

Praise the Lord Saints.

Parents please go to www.blackexcel.org, www.fastweb.com and www.fafsa.ed.gov and sit your high schooler down and make them research these websites and pick out 20-50 different scholarships to apply for and apply for a Pell Grant.

Black Excel is a website that furnishes information on scholarships available to black students only and currently there’s over 500 plus to date.

Fast Web is a website that links you to available scholarships based off the information you furnished once you set up your account.

FAFSA of course is the Pell Grant itself. FREE money to go to college based solely on your family’s income.  It’s a headache but well worth it in the end. Be patient and complete everything even if you have to resubmit. It keeps money in the parents’ pockets and puts money in the children’s bank accounts.

Say thank you to our current and soon to be former governor for cutting the Bright Future’s Scholarships in half!  That really hurt a lot of deserving kids that worked hard to get them only to have it almost not be worth the efforts.

It is so frustrating to me to hear parents always say, “Well they’re grown now and they’re gonna have to make their own mistakes and take their own paths,” or “We made mistakes and they’re going have to learn from theirs too.”  That’s asinine, asi-ten, asi-eleven, …!

That’s backwards and will lead to you having to dig them out of the hole you dug for them by not setting up detours along the way to prevent this in the first place.  You are the parent, the leader, the guide!  The one who was supposed to be practicing wisdom, rightly applied knowledge learned from experience.

God opened the door for each of us to have His Spirit to lead and guide us into all truth.  How is it that we think that we are supposed to teach our kids the opposite?

First of all they are NOT grown, they are young adults! Get out the house, get a job, get a Duke Energy account in their name, a water bill in their name, and pay some bills for about six to 12 months, and then we can talk about being grown.

Secondly, what’s going to happen when the school says they still owe money or they can’t get their books or enroll in classes after they have already left?  You guessed it, you are going to have to beg, borrow and rob Peter to pay Paul to make sure they don’t have to come back and be embarrassed and drive you even crazier than you currently are.

Finally and most importantly, here’s the thing mom and dad, if you would have sat down with them and made them fill out those forms for scholarships, set up the accounts on FastWeb, filed that FAFSA on time, made them do that community service for the Bright Future’s scholarship, you wouldn’t be in that predicament in the first place.

I went back and forth with my two that are currently in college for months up until it was time to prepare to decide where they would go.  I let them debate with me how they were sick and tired of this terrible city and wanted to get away as soon as they could. But, you had better believe that after the smoke cleared, if they didn’t have a full ride, they went to SPC, then after they saw how it felt to have thousands in their own bank accounts and realized that college wasn’t as hard as they were told by their guidance counselors and AP teachers, it was a much smoother transition for them and less stressful on our pockets.

While some were irresponsible with their new money buying all manner of things, some parents put their feet down and limited their spending teaching them fiscal responsibility.

Some schools tell you ahead of time about these very important steps and others put it all on the students claiming they are responsible enough to have told the parents and of course they miss out.

This is one to save even if your kids are not in high school. These websites will still be up and will only increase as time passes.

My email is pastorrobharrison@ gmail.com if you want or need additional information. I check my email daily and if you need my cell number, please respond via my email and I will call you.

Till next week,

God Bless – Dr. Rob