YOUR CHILD & YOU

YOUR CHILD & YOU

I indeed welcome you to Tales by Olola. A blog where we unlearn, and learn needed facts on purposeful lives. I remain your loyal host Olabusola Olorunnowo, do enjoy your every second.

In the course of this research, I realized that some researchers are of the school of thoughts that parents should be friends to their children while some others state their contrary views. To the first school of thought, you should not be a friend to your child, rather you should only be your child’s parent. Maeve Horan opines that “your child needs you to be her mother, not her best friend” and it is to this respect that Dr Stephen Poutter ,The Mother Factor, says  “best friends don’t lay down limits. They egg you on”. Sarah D. on the contrary, Says” “Be the cheerleader not the coach”.  She encourages been your child’s best friend and that it has limitless benefits, which includes understanding your child. 

However, the supreme irony in all these is that while most parents love or attempt to be best friends to their children they lose their place of authority and the right to discipline and when authority is displaced, then parenting is faulty.  In the same vein, when you are the coach and the instructor you may be taken for a master at whose voice the house goes quiet and this method might hinder you from knowing your child. Hence the purpose of this discourse: balancing the act of been your child’s friend and your child’s parent.

      As a mother you represent so many things to your child. This is due to the fact that, circumstances require that you be there always for your child hence, the need have firsthand information as regards your child growth. You are a doctor, a teacher, a friend, a coach, a lawyer, Model, a presenter, a    driver, a musician, a dancer, speaker, and much more. Your main duty is to nurture, thus you will be doing yourself a lot of injustice if you leave the nurturing and training of your child to house keepers, lesson teachers, the driver, your friends or any other persons.
            

2.       One key role of parenting that children expect is for parents to be better listeners. It is quite understandable that you may have busy schedules, but be that as it may, the onions is on you to take a pause and try to listen.

• You can spice up your coach method of parenting with been a bit of a cheerleader and not just dictating and instructive coach. The coach instructs while the cheerleader participate in the act. While the coach parent is inspiring the child the cheerleader parent is inspiring the child as well as engaging in some activities with the child to direct and carry the child along.

• Help your child figure out who he/she is. Some of our children are early starters while others are (slow) steady beginners. The early starters often act out of impulse. They are thinking very fast about who they want to be and what they want out of life, although they may tend to change this desires as they grow up and as they are exposed.  While the steady beginners are the “easy go lucky”, they take their time to do everything and at most times they lag behind, although they often succeed eventually, hence the need for the push. As parent you need to help your child understand that the world is big and that their choices are endless.

• Television is fast becoming a major source of negative impact on our children. Let us draw up strength from the famous Neurosurgeon, Ben Carson's Mum, by monitoring what our children watch on Television. Ben Carson's Mum despite her illiteracy, had often times sent her two boys to the Library or ensured they were watching educative channels. You will agree with me that , not all cartoons are good for children. Some cartoon characters only build the wild and weird nature of some children. Try not to use Television to distract your children when you want to get busy with yourself, friends, visitors, your spouse , house chores and so on. Instead you can give them a chapter of a book to summarize, a task, Arithmetic, and other brain tasking activities rather than leave them in their room to feed their minds with intellectual or spiritually unworthy contents.  Children should know there is time to watch and stop watching the Television, There should also be proper guidance in their use of play stations and other I.T devices that cause distraction.

•     Try not to mock your children when they fail. For instance, never Say “I told you so’, especially when you have potentially given prior warnings as regards that issue. As parents we need to be cautious of not intentionally hurting our children when they disobey us. The truth is when you provoke your child for whatever reason, you will only build bitterness in them. It is advisable not to play the game of revenge with our children. Discipline them promptly as a against dishing out punishment to show we have control.
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•       Mothers are employed to make out time to go out on a date with your daughter. While Fathers should also build a man to man relationship with boys so as to know them better and also to build their persons.  Call it whatever you choose but ensure both of you are out on a day trip or some hours outing. Go shopping with them so you can learn what they fancy. Take time to travel with your children.

Travelling and outings help exposes them to the bigger world. Travelling is part of education: it widens their horizon there by provoking some questions that will further enlighten them. The essence of this outings, trips and dates is to know who your child is and also to answer their questions about life and the world at large.

• Compliment your daughters. This is very crucial as we raise the young lady and gentle man. As mothers and fathers alike we need to pass sincere compliment about our daughter’s looks, sons as well. This help to build confidence in them. They feel great because Mum or Dad has said so. It is pathetic that some young teenagers have fallen victim of sexual harassment due to a young man's consistent compliments.

When someone tells her she looks good, almost all the time then soon she won’t want to disappoint that person. She would gradually and consciously want to look better the next time she is seeing him and before long attraction is built. Hug your child as well: hugging is soothing. As Africans, our parents thought us to greet in the traditional way which is good. However, hugging our children at times goes a long way to show we care, we love them and also to encourage them. For instance, when they are in danger, after they must have crossed a landmark goes a long way to them and much more. 

• Know your child's friends and why they chose such as their friends. With love and good analysis, you can help them choose their friends based on morals, good values and intelligence. However, try not to chase away or warn your child against moving with a particular child. If you chase away their bad friends, there is tendency of them relocating their meeting point to where you will never see them. One of the ways of dealing with a situation of this nature is to caution and nurture that bad friend. Let him/ her know the why what they are doing is wrong. Then you can take time to explain to your child the benefit and dangers of such behaviour. This action would help your child to correct and educate other children with such behaviour and if such refuses to change, your child would come home one day and say, Mum, "So So person is no longer my friend". 

Above all teach your child to love, honour God and to have the fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom.

Thank you for your time.

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REF: Sarahdriscoll.com
            Huffington Post
            Maeve Horan Mail on line
            Day Star Christian Center Teaching