‘Direct your children onto the right path and when they are old, they will not depart from it.’ Proverbs 22:6
Even though I don’t have a smidgen intention to alter this scripture or any single biblical word since I am well informed of the consequences as per Revelation 22:18b, the truth that will set you free is the practical knowledge that in the present day and age children
are departing from the right path regardless of a great upbringing. However, the fact that the 21st century children are veering off from the right trajectory of life shouldn’t foster parents and guardians to abrogate their first priority towards their children; that is, effective parenting.
Establishing a good, valuable and robust childhood foundation during the formative years of your children is extremely imperative. If you feed your children’s subconscious minds with a fundamental of great propitious memories, you accord them a Point of
Reference in their future years which will times without number enable them to come back to their senses whenever they veer off from the morality of life. The only reason to why the biblical prodigal son came back to his senses was because his father had given him a great Point of Reference during his upbringing. Your failure as a parent or guardian to inculcate morals and ethics in your children during their formative years is a way of denying them their fundamental parental right and exposing them to the cruel world without any integrity armor whatsoever. It’s also denying them a worthwhile Point of Reference to extricate them from a detrimental lifestyle (s) whenever a need is at hand. I totally understand that you are an assiduous person and a conscientious hard working parent, that you spend the whole day in meetings, chasing the dollar or driving around seeing obstinate clients and putting out fires. When the day comes to a close, you are too exhausted to even think about the children who made you qualify to become a parent. In this day and age when most parents if not all have been infected with TB (Too
Busy) becoming IDPs, (Internally Displaced Parents) children will continue to make poor choices for lack of guidance and mentorship in all areas of life. This is an extremely negative effect which might pass to the future generations if parents don’t reconnect with their children and uphold their responsibility of spending quality time with them, which is the best way to feed children’s emotional needs. Every parent should well understand that children are entitled to moments of quality time with a parent. (s) In other words, spending quality time with your children is their right not a privilege.
For those parents who still believe that parenting is all about provision of the three God mandated basic needs; food, clothing and shelter plus the two government enforced ones namely; healthcare and education, you must have missed the recent parenting memo which demands every parent to spend quality time and establish a good rapport with his or her children. Spending quality time with your children is the greatest way of exercising the most important human senses which are; see, hear and touch. That’s why quality time should entail visiting new sceneries, verbal phrases to affirm and reaffirm your love and physical hugs to confirm and reconfirm your fondness. If your children will not relate with you, there are higher chances of relating with the wrong people or worse still, relating to alcohol, drugs and other indecorous lifestyles.
Parenting is both a difficult and a laborious job which lays bare all your strengths and weaknesses, all your vulnerabilities and your pre-conceived notions of what you always thought it would be. Nevertheless, since you run around with a very expensive title, there is a dire need to preserve it with all means possible and through thick and thin. It’s also very imperative to understand that parenting is a holistic responsibility that should be undertaken with total acumen without missing a bit or implying erroneous assumptions.
Most parents don’t take enough time if any to better understand their children. It’s very important for parents to understand that; no parent-children connection that can take place without effective communication. Effective communication should thus be the
paramount thing between these two parties with a total knowledge that; effective communication is only complete when understanding is derived. Every time the understanding between these two parties fail; things starts to run haywire and that’s when the blame game sets in. Blame game was, is, but with the application of effective
communication yielding to complete understanding, I am totally hopeful that blame game will not persist to be the major word of conflict between or among any type of human relationship not to rule out parent-children relationship. The word; ‘blame’ in many cases is a product of negligence or ignorance which promotes acts of irresponsibility. When
that registers in your mind, I am sure you won’t hesitate to agree with me that;
irresponsibility is the abandonment of conscious and ignorance of accountability.
Although many people like justifying their negligence and ignorance, both of these two vices are indefensible. The only way to break the blame game tradition is by teaming up and ensuring that every team member fully understands and performs his or her duties and responsibilities to the fullness of his or her ability. When all is said and done, I truly believe that we will come up with a generation of totally responsible children and young adults who will later become dependable for a better tomorrow. ‘Unity is strength ‘and ‘united we stand and divided we fall.’ Besides these two English adages that we apply in our every day’s life, the bible puts an accentuation through these words; ‘Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.’ Matthew 18:19 In other words; mutual agreement does not only help to facilitate a mutual relationship of give take and take give, it also validates its authenticity through articulate reciprocity (I need you as much as you need me) or through ubuntu. (I am because we are)
Parents; we have to develop a mutual relationship with our children if we are totally desperate of overcoming this present generation of troubled children. The bible puts it this way; ’How then can two walk without an agreement? ‘Amos 3:3 Noting that there is an obligation to connect with our children in order to surmount life challenges, there is also
a dire need to establish a social capital with them, always bearing in mind that; Parents’ inspirations enhances teens’ aspirations.
