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Growing up, especially for me and the kind of background I happen to come from, was some sort of a rollercoaster. My parents were not that well-to-do and so, I saw first class, what it meant to be poor and how helpless it could be for parents when they couldn’t provide basic things for their children. We were just three, me, my younger sister, and my immediate elder sister. Many times, we went to bed not having anything to eat and waking up in the morning with no hope of food coming from nowhere. This period I am referring to was in the early 90s. Of course, things weren’t as difficult as they appear to be now in the country, but my parents couldn’t just give us everything that we needed. It was from that period I knew that parenting is way beyond bringing children into this world. What makes anyone a parent is the associated responsibilities that it brings. Parenting can be easy; it could also be that difficult.
But the unfortunate challenge is the fact that many today run away from those responsibilities. The abdication of responsibilities is why the children of today are turning out the way we see them turn out. The world of work, the world of entertainment, the world of technology, the need to meet work deadlines, and put food on the table; among others, are the many reasons why we have absentee parents. The culture of value, the culture of good parenting, and the fear of God are no longer the order of the day. To become a successful parent in this modern day requires tact, deliberateness, and the need to give all that it takes, and that is why I am putting this article together to help you.
The dynamics in our world today demand more from the parent than they used to be four decades ago. I remember growing up in the 80s, it was not so much of a problem to pick up good values here and there. In school, we were taught good values, in the neighborhood, we were taught good values. The kind of environment I grew up in those days was not the type where a child could hide and commit evil. While you are even thinking about it, an elder somewhere is already reading and studying your moves, and they are quick to make you snap out of such immoral thoughts and thinking. Back then, everyone was responsible for raising the child of their neighbor. You can pick values everywhere you turn, whether in your uncle’s house, in your neighbor’s house, in your school, or even with your parent while you are at home with them. Society at the time was not as closed as we have today.
Nowadays people live in gated communities. No one knows what his neighbor is doing. But then it was not so much of a gated community. Everyone’s deed was in the open, and you can ‘literally’ smell what your neighbor is cooking and see if their children are turning wayward or not. Unlike now where the culture is “all man to himself.” And couldn’t this also be the reason why the rate of suicide is on the increase in our societies today? This would be a discourse for another time. But the point I am trying to convey is the fact that the society we had at the time isn’t the type we have in this contemporary times. And this, of course, makes parenting even more difficult.
In this modern-day that we live in, moral decadence, societal pressure, information and technology, and other associated factors are the reason why parenting should be taken seriously. There is no other time when parents should be involved in the lives of their children than now. A child that is not properly parented would seek that care from the wrong place. When children don’t have the attention of their parents, especially in their sensitive and vulnerable moments, they simply seek that attention elsewhere. This is why no matter how busy you may become as a parent; you should never rule out or abdicate the role of parenting to someone else. No one can fill the vacuum of a parent in the life of a child than the parent. As beautiful and helpful as nanny services may appear, they will never take the place of the parent in the life of a child.
So, what does modern-day parenting entails? The starting point to parenting well in this time and period that we find ourselves in the world is by parents being involved in the growth and development of their children. Parents must realize one truth in the fact that they must be intentional with their involvement in the growth and development of their children. Now, I am not talking about providing food and chocolates and all of those things so that it can aid their growth, no! It is beyond that. What I meant by involvement has to do with a physical presence, playing the role of a father figure and a mother figure indeed in the lives of your children. No matter how busy you may be, create time for your children to be involved in their physical growth and development.
You need to understand how your children think, you need to hear them speak, and you need to deliberately draw out the values they are imbibing or have imbibed from them, this will help you to know what they have been feeding on and where they have been feeding from. You need to know the source of your children’s inspiration, you need to find out what they watch on television, the kind of games they play, the kind of friends they keep, what they love to do in their alone moments, how they react to corrections, et cetera. All these things you cannot know if you are not physically present in the life of your children.
Now that you are physically present in the growth and development of your children, you need to model to them, good examples. You must realize that the first point of learning for any child, is at the home. Children take what they learned from the home into the larger society. And this is why parents must be the first role model for their children. If you then happen to model the wrong things to your children, what it means is that those children would go out there to exhibit what they have learned from either the father or the mother. So, for example, if the father is a bully, you can automatically bet that the children would become bullies as well. They would exhibit that trait in their schools and on their peers. I know some grown-up adults who behave in certain ways simply because they learned those things from their parents.
So, if you don’t want your children to grow up deformed in character and moral goods, then it begins with the parent showing them good examples for them to learn from. This of course doesn’t mean that a child learned every bad behavior from his or her parents. Chances are that they learn some things from outside the parents. And this is why parents must be watchful and pay close attention to their children. Analyze their behavior. Know where what is coming from and learn to nip every bad behavior in bud immediately. There is no other time that parenting is demanding other than this time we live in. Be intentional in your parenting so that your children won’t one day bring shame and dishonor to the name and the goodwill you have built over the years.
May the Lord help us all!
[Centre for New Dimension Leadership]
