Across Slave Lake, parents are getting ready to buy notebooks, pencils, backpacks, lunch kits, and all the other supplies their children will need for another school year. Stores are filling their shelves with school supplies, but local organizations are also stepping in to help.

The Slave Lake Friendship Centre has started giving out free school supplies, while the Slave Lake Métis District is also providing supplies to Métis citizens and their children.

It is one of those things that shows the kind of community Slave Lake can be. Going back to school can be expensive, especially for families with several children, and even a little help can make a difference.

But school supplies are probably only one of the things on parents’ minds as September approaches.
Parents with young children may be thinking about getting them to school on time every morning and figuring out drop-offs, pick-ups and after-school schedules. Parents of teenagers may have completely different worries.

Are their children hanging out with the right people? Are they doing well in school? Are they staying out of trouble? Are they making good decisions?
Perhaps one of the biggest questions parents have is: “Will my kids make the right choices?”

Parents want their children to stay on the right path and eventually grow up to become the best versions of themselves. When children are young, they are expected to listen to their parents. Parents teach them what is right and wrong, tell them what they should and should not do, and try their best to guide them.

However, parents cannot make every decision for their children.
As children grow, they are shaped by many people around them. Parents have a major influence, but so do friends, teachers, coaches, relatives, classmates and the community in which they grow up.

Every interaction can teach a young person something.
That is why the people surrounding children matter so much.

Children and teenagers have minds of their own. They will make decisions every day, and not every decision will be the right one. Sometimes they will listen to the adults around them. Sometimes they won’t. Sometimes they will have to learn from their own mistakes.

Parents can guide them, teachers can encourage them, friends can influence them and communities can support them. In the end, however, young people will have to decide which lessons they carry with them.

So, as another school year begins, perhaps going back to school is about more than new notebooks, pencils, and backpacks.
It is another year of growing up, making choices, learning from mistakes, and being shaped by the people around them.
That is why having good people and a supportive community around young people can make such an important difference.