A sense of responsibility and patriotism are two important things that, as a parent, you would want to instill in your children.
Unfortunately, these things – the latter especially – are quite hard to teach young children, especially since these are non-concrete concepts that only get more complicated the older you grow.
Responsibility is simple enough – there are plenty of parenting tips out there on how to teach your child the concept.
Often enough, simply being a good example for your child is enough to teach them how to be responsible.
As any child expert can tell you, children learn from observation, and those little eyes and ears are always paying attention.
Trying to teach patriotism, however, is so much harder. For starters, it is a concept that is isn’t quite as concrete to a child as responsibility is, and thus harder to teach.
You can teach a child to take responsibility for, say, their own belongings.
By contrast, there isn’t an item your child can interact with that can be connected to or used as a metaphor for patriotism.
Not to mention it isn’t quite as relevant to them – when it comes to international topics, all young children are aware of is that some of their friends are from other countries, and that is perfectly fine.
In the end, all you can do as a parent is instill a strong love for one’s country in your child the best you can, and hope that it guides them well in all that they do.
Looking at these two boys, however, does give us hope.
Nate and Isaac from Middleburg are two Floridian boys who are Coppergate Elementary School’s appointed safety patrols.
One of their tasks is something very important – every day, they are to lower down and put away the American flag once school was dismissed.
Of course, with the flagpole being outside, you would be forgiven for assuming these boys would have taken a day off when the rain starts pouring down hard.
If you had thought so, however, it is time to be surprised.
Although they were completely drenched by the big rainstorm that was passing through their town, they still decided to perform the task that was given to them.
The school staff could only watch in awe as these 11-year-old boys patiently and calmly braved the wind and rain brought down the flag and folded it the requisite 113 times.
Then Nate proceeded to protect the flag with his body as they head back inside the school, where it was retired for the rest of the day.
As it turns out, Nate’s parents once served in the military, which has clearly influenced his honor and respect for the American flag.
According to what he told FOX 30, this, in turn, got him and Isaac to want to do their country and flag proud the best they could as well.
The school then praised the two for their respect, sense of responsibility, devotion to their duty, and their obvious love of their country.
