The Importance Of My Family

As I grew up it was just my mother and I that lived in the same household. My father passed away from a massive heart attack when I was two years old and my two sisters are older than me by 22 and 15 years. My oldest sister, Jodi, was just finishing college when I was born and my other sister, Mary, moved out when she was 16 years old and in with her soon to be husband and their daughter. I grew up as an only child and my mother being an extremely quiet lady had a permissive parenting style; as we did not have many rules because my mother was a trusting individual. After my father’s death and my sister became a teenage mother, my mother struggled emotionally and was an uninvolved parent for about a year. My sister cared for me during this time,

Due to my father’s death and six years with a strict man, my family has become closer than expected. I grew up faster than most of my peers, but from there I have achieved more than most of my peers. My nieces and nephew see me as more of a sister than an aunt, but they respect me even if I have to discipline them. A major reason I wanted to get my private pilot license, graduate high school with a 4.0, and attended the Air Force Academy was to make my father proud of me and to show my nieces and nephew that they can achieve anything if they set their minds to it. Along with empathy and moral courage I am still developing my emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is being able to perceive emotions, use the emotions to facilitate thought, understand emotions, and being able to manage emotions (Salovey, 2008). Due to my upbringing, I can easily develop interpersonal relationships with others and I am constantly aware of my body language because people base first impressions off of that. My family structure influences my leadership every day. Growing up as an only child, I was quiet, but always thinking and questioning. In my element I try to be authoritative, holding them to the standards and asking that they put forth their best effort in everything, but still have them know they can talk to me about anything. My past does not define me, but it did build the foundation of why I am motivated to make a difference and to be a trusted