WHY DO WE FAIL PARENTING LIFE HOOD.

The general principle is that these things will not just happen in the lives of our children.

They have to be taught. 

We had established that they will not be appropriately taught by schools or the society at large. Rather they must be taught by us, parents.

Successful teaching exercise

So if we know what to do, how come we are still not getting things right.

Having set goals, it is not enough to pay lip service to such goals. We must work to achieve them.

Are we on course? Because our goal is a marathon race and not a hundred yards dash, we must check regularly to be sure that both we the parents and our children are still on course. 

We need to review our action plans and our teaching project regularly, especially at major milestones, at major achievements and also when we experience disappointments.

As part of the review exercise we have identified several factors that aid the teaching projects and some that act as a deterrent to the project.

Some factors that aid the teaching project

Ø Knowledge & Creativity

                                                                                                             

We need to know each of our children and appreciate the fact that they all have their own distinct personalities therefore within a family of six children; each of these children could be significantly different from the others. Furthermore, different things are considered to be of greater importance at different ages. For instance when the children are younger it is more important to teach how to complete assignments and study hard. By the time this is well learnt, it becomes a habit that stays with them throughout life. As they grow older we should study our children and spend quality time thinking through how best to get them to buy into our theories and live them. Whilst acknowledging the place of authority and discipline, there is often a better way to work with teenagers, and laying down the law should be a last resort that is used sparingly to avoid rebellion. When teenagers understand why they need to do something, they will usually do it without being forced to and whether ‘big brother’ is watching or not.

Furthermore, some children are fantastic in some areas and terrible in others. For instance a child could be an excellent student but untidy and careless with his room and appearance, a young lady also could spend hours on her appearance and leave her room in an untidy state, one would need to concentrate on the area that needs improvement.  

The temperament of our children should be known by us and we should deal with them accordingly. Personality types cannot be exhausted here and therefore wider reading is suggested for any parent who does not know much about human temperament and personality types.

For the sake of simplicity, let us classify children into two broad groups-the rule breakers and the rule takers. As the words suggest a rule taker will naturally take to the rules hook, line and sinker. He or she is usually the timid and melancholic type who obeys without necessarily asking why. A rule breaker, on the other hand, is usually the bold and upbeat type, and has often exhibited such character from early childhood. He or she will automatically ask why, query every rule and is not likely to obey the rules unless they make sense to him or her.

A rule breaker will need careful handling if you expect him or her to obey rules. He or she needs to understand and buy into why the rules are necessary. A lot more creativity and sensitivity are required when teaching a rule breaker the rules. However rule takers who have obeyed rules all their lives may need careful handling when they begin to display their own initiative.

For instance, knowledge of the temperament of each child and creativity in teaching are particularly required to teach how to study hard, career orientation and goals, our native tongue, dating, and dress sense.

Generally where knowledge and creativity are not applied , the process of teaching our children may be tedious and frustrating.

Ø Resolve

One of our problems is that some of us are too hard working for our own good. There is a local proverb which when translated into English says, ‘it is the hard working parent that breeds the lazy child’!

It is easier to do the chores ourselves than to get the children to do it. We over- achieve in everyway with the children. In the alternative, many of us are not fighters and would rather take the easy way out of most situations, even where it involves the training of our children.

Getting the best out of our children is hard work. It takes determination to succeed at it. We must resolve to succeed. Children were given to us in trust and we have been given authority over them. When we resolve to implement some of the teachings we have learnt, we will encounter setbacks. Some children will display ‘attitude’ and all sorts of behavior to deter us from our goals. We must not be deterred! A note of caution must also be sounded here - sometimes in frustration we become heavy handed and lose the children along the way, we must not allow this to happen.

Resolve is specifically needed when teaching things like our native tongue, the reading culture, dress sense, finance and wealth creation, and caring for family.

By the grace of God we will not fail in our responsibilities and our children will turn out to be fine, upright and responsible adults!

Ø Time

One of the major causes of our failures is that we do not have the time to identify what we want in our children and communicate it to them. We seem never to find the time to teach it to our children, and eventually we just let them be!

Some of the things that we particularly need to make time to teach are our values, our family history and goals, our culture and how to cook etc. Indeed every item in our teaching curriculum requires time to teach, some more than others.

Having identified what we want, we should now be ready to make the time to teach them. Our teachings do not take place in a formal classroom environment and so we should make time to just chat with them and get our curriculum through to them. During school holidays we can take a few days leave and spend some time with them, not traveling, or fixing activity, just good old time!  We could occasionally arrange to go to work late so that we may spend time just being with them early in the morning.

Ø Friendship

Be down to earth, be their friend. Parents who have been found to have raised good kids have been very down to earth with their kids. Be down to earth with yours. 

Another note of caution must also be sounded here. I have encountered situations where children have been deeply resentful and bitter towards their parents. We must work hard at our relationships with our children. We cannot afford to allow feelings almost as deep as hatred to fester in our children. We should be sensitive and take appropriate action in time to avoid terrible feelings becoming so deep rooted that they cannot be uprooted. 

When I work with teenagers I sometimes have cause to ask them to write anonymously on the issues they have with their parents. I have been quite taken aback at the depth of ill feeling some children have against their parents.

Balance is imperative.

Discipline should have been established during the early years so that thereafter you can be friends.

We need to be friends with our children to teach such things as dating and even dress sense effectively.

Ø Patience

Change takes time. We must be patient and wait for that time to elapse without becoming the nagging parent. When we start to teach them to cook we must taste all sorts of funny dishes before we get perfection. We may even lose money when we have to pay for experiments that are not too successful! But we must be ready to encourage them through faltering starts.

Like time patience is required when teaching every item on our teaching curriculum.

Factors that militate against the teaching project

         Local / international television and the internet

We of course should remember that there are factors beyond our immediate or direct control militating against our successful teaching exercise as well.

You will recall the allure of the internet and cable television and the fact that our kids have subconsciously acquired American singers and actors as their role models.

Ø Peer pressure

In addition there is the local peer pressure where other kids who are even more misguided than our own are in control!

Without dwelling too much on this you should be able to get both the rule breaker and the rule taker to understand the need to follow and the benefits of following your rules!

When teaching our children things like dress sense, culture and morals and values, local and international pressure will definitely be working against us.

However with time, patience, creativity and resolve, we can succeed at teaching any of these things that we truly desire for our children.

Life teaching chart

In conclusion, dare I suggest that we create a life teaching chart for each of our children and begin regularly to evaluate our children’s progress in specific areas?

We should check what is causing us to be less than effective in any area and do our best to correct those inefficiencies. We may be surprised to find that when we handle things in this manner we will be more constructive and decisive and there will be a greater sense of achievement as each short term goal is achieved. We also will be more encouraged not to give up as we begin to see the children responding to our teaching and growing into great men and women.

CASE STUDY

MEET THE JONESES.

Chief B.B. Jones ‘BB’ or Big Boy Jones as he is more popularly called by his friends, is a well known shipping magnate. His wife Liza, has just been appointed an Executive director at her bank after several years of hard work.

Because of their schedules they seldom see each other during the week, though their various Personal Assistants make sure they speak to each other every day.

However they go out of their way to make sure they are all together for at least two weeks during school holidays. Often times this means they are in exotic places like the Bahamas or Miami. Sometimes they can just manage a week at their apartments in New York and London.

They have three children of whom Tunde is the eldest. He grew up before the ‘ships arrived’. He went to three secondary schools and had to take Joint Admissions Matriculation Board three times before he got into university to study Zoology. He graduated with a third class degree . His dad bought him a jeep in his first year at the university and money was never a problem for him whilst in school, as dad kept trying to make up for the ‘years of deprivation’. When he got through school dad got him a job with his friends in the industry. He complained bitterly that he was being badly treated and left the job. He convinced his father that he could run a first class bar successfully and ‘BB’ financed it. He currently is in Italy importing all the furniture for the bar.

Baby girl is the darling of ‘BB’s heart. She was particularly spoilt as a child because she looked like ‘BB’s mother, of blessed memory.

She was always very smart in school and she is currently in “Uni” in “Jand”. Dad does not know, but mom knows that she has moved in with her boyfriend O.J., who sells cars. He appears to be doing well as he has even bought Baby, girl a car, which only Tunde knows about. Though nobody knows much about O.J.’s background, there is no evidence that he went to school.

BBJ (short for BB junior) is the loveable baby of the home. Already overweight and in primary three, he has to have his room frequently redecorated because of his destructive tendencies, which manifest when he throws tantrums. His room is fully equipped with plasma screen television, DVD player, Play station portable (PSP), and Play station III  (PS III), game consoles and dual control DSTV so that he can watch cartoon network when adults want to watch CNN.

Though he has never been asked to repeat, his parents are usually called to the principal’s office at least four times a term for not doing homework and for fighting in the playground.

What are the issues and recommended solutions?

a)     Career and finance issues with Tunde.

b)    Life partner and family values issues with Baby girl.

c)     School and behavioral issues with BBJ.