Since Miron was born, one principle has guided my parenting:

the way to teach is through personal example.

Not a lecture, an instruction or the right words at the right moment, but an adult’s truthful and honest presence beside a child.

Over time I understood that a child inherits how we live when we are not playing the role of educator, rather than what we say about ourselves.

How we keep our word. How we lose. How we speak about money. How we respond to mistakes. How we choose between what is easy and what is right. How we treat our bodies. How we apologise, argue, accept responsibility and rise after a fall. How we look towards a future that offers no guarantees.

It took fatherhood for me to understand that inheritance does not begin at the notary’s office.

It begins over breakfast, in the car, during training and in a conversation after a mistake. In the silence when an adult could explain but chooses to dismiss a question. In a promise made and forgotten. In how an adult handles money, exhaustion, fear, time and their own life.

A child reads the family’s structure faster than adults can draw up a parenting programme.

I saw this beyond my own home.

A mother brought her daughter to our children’s courses. The girl changed: she began saving, talking about insurance and paying closer attention to money. A year later, her mother said: “Everything has gone back to how it was.”

I asked: “And you?”

She lowered her eyes.

At that moment it was clear: a child does not change if the family does not change. A course provides knowledge. The environment shapes behaviour.

This brought me back to my own principle as a father. If I want my son to respect the path, I must walk it myself. If I want him to keep his word, I must keep mine. If I want him not to hide from difficulty, I cannot hide from it in my own life.

A parent may say the right things. But the child lives beside the parent’s example, not beside a lecture.

The child sees how an adult becomes tired, chooses, makes mistakes and returns. How they speak about money, relate to their work, experience fear and carry themselves. How they treat people who have no power, speak about those who are weaker and fulfil promises made to themselves rather than to the child.

A child inherits an adult’s way of being present, rather than their words.

If an adult wants to pass capital on to a child, they must first ask: what form of life am I passing on every day when I think I am simply living?

Which example does the child see, beyond the lessons I have given, the courses I have paid for and the school I have chosen?

Family capital begins before assets are transferred. It begins when a child first sees how an adult lives with responsibility.