Lately, a lot of teens wrongdoings ranging from sex tapes to cultism have surfaced on the Internet and have attracted a wide spread of criticism from the society. Many blame the parents while some blame it on the peer group influence and school authorities.
The diverse opinion of people are not far-fetched from the truth, which remains that all the mention groups have some parts to play in child’s upbringing. But the main responsibility and blame should go to the parents. Why?
Families are the building blocks of the community and society at large. The basic task of raising a child starts with the parents in the family.
It is in the family that children are taught to behave not in the school. They learn how to pray in the family not in church. In the family they are taught the norms and values of the family, community and society, the school is there to water to those norms and values.
The brain of a child is an open book, it records and assimilates everything the child is exposed to even as a baby. Every act and words babies are exposed to are recorded sub-consciously. More reason why parents should be careful what they say to or before their kids.
As a parent, do not be in a haste to send out your kid to creche. Stay with them, home school them to a certain level. Teach the male how to be a man and the female, the pride of being a woman.
A child who left for school at 7:30am, dismisses around 2pm and enters another class (extramural classes) which last till 4pm, mostly 5 – 6pm, comes back late, eat, does his/her assignment and off to bed. Little or time to inculcate values in them.
With these excessive and exhausting lessons classes are ways parents shy away from their duties and pushing it over to the school. You cannot control the Influence of the peers because you have little or no time for your child.
Parents should spend more time with their kids, as a parent, as a friend, as a teacher, by so doing you get to know everything your child does and passes through. This probably gives you a guideline to teach and guide him.
A child well trained at home hardly indulges in any immoral or unlawful act. Just like the Bible rightly points out in proverb 22:6, “Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old, he will never depart from it”.
You cannot train a hyena and expect to have a lion king in the society.
Recent incidents of Bowen College and Chrisland school have showed how badly children are raised at home. Let the parents accept responsibility and stop playing the blame game. The school only nurtures what you planted.
The schools on the other hand is not exempted as they are the secondary parents to the child and should do everything within their powers to set standard to raise children the society will be proud of.
