We live in a highly disfunctional society and this is no thanks to disfunctional individuals that constitute a large percentage of the human populace. One may begin to wonder why is this so, but a quick reminder of the family being the functional unit of the society will let us know that parenting and child upbringing within the family remains the main culprit.
We, as parents must be deliberate in bringing up our children. We must infuse our own values in them at tender ages when they are still malleable before they get to the stage of raging hormones and peer pressure. Many parents are guilty of leaving their children's upbringing on autopilots. Research has affirmed that, many of the times, such children often grow and turn out to be disfunctional adults.
Just this last week, a mother noticed something different about her son. He said something rather unusual and right away, she knew that something is wrong and the only place to point to was his school. The following day, she visited her son's school and laid a complaint to the school head. Upon further investigation, they discovered that the son made a new friend with a boy that has been known to be problematic to the entire school. To cut the story short, they found a way of cutting short their friendship because the attitude does not align with the values of the mother.
Modern day parents believe that parenting is about being busy 24/7 all in the name of trying to fend for families and then throwing money at problems when they arise in the family. Many children have been dumped in boarding House at a very tender age because their parents are busy. From elementary education through the university, their children hardly spend 5 years with them at home and even the little time these children spend at home, the parents are largely unavailable.
Hence, such parents remain strangers to their children. I mean, can anyone proudly say that they Brough up such children? I guess no. You might not see anything wrong in outsourcing parenting. However, no one should act surprised when children whose parentings were outsourced grow to become disfunctional adults.
My experience working as a teaching and research assistant in a higher learning institution here in Nigeria has taught me a couple of lessons. Parents come to the department because of the wards and when we tell them this is how your children are, most of them do not believe us. Some even go as far as swearing that such cannot be their children, they know what and what their children can do.
However, more than 95% of the cases, their children attended boarding schools and such parents cannot boldly say they have spend up to 5 years actively bringing up their children. If a child is 20 years old but has spend more than 1e years out of those 20 years away from you as a parent, can any parent boldly say they know such children as their children? I guess no.
In conclusion, as parents, even if what we stand for is an antithesis to what the society considers as morally right, we would still need to infuse such ideology into our children. We should make deliberate effort to train them ourselves.
Just a piece of advice for all mothers and parents in general.
Than you all for reading.
