Understanding the times good for parenting
Children playing during school holiday. Teachers have always utilised the holiday to develop themselves outside the classroom but the thought of their students losing moral and academic gains is depressing.
Learners begin a 10-day recess this week, the briefest school holiday ever, ending the 2020 academic year commencing the 2021 calendar. Interestingly, while its brevity is a blessing to parents, teachers are experiencing a cocktail of emotions.
To guidance and counselling departments, it is a break from the activity-packed industry that schools usually become upon the return of students from long holidays — which are often a season for learners to ‘unlearn’ the moral and academic ideals imparted on them throughout the term.
Teachers have always utilised the holiday to develop themselves outside the classroom but the thought of their students losing moral and academic gains is depressing. Usually, at the lapse of long vacations, learners report back to their respective institutions to re-learn basic etiquette and hard work and put together their torn morals.
There are two questions that beg for answers: Why do children lose the moral and academic ethics instilled to them by teachers while under their parents? Have the parents failed in their role?
Those who attempt to answer this question have often had their voices drowned in the din of blame game. Undeniably though, most parents experience serious challenges. Admitting that is the first step to a lasting solution to them. Indeed, parenting teenagers does not only require time but also tack. One may spend all the time they wish to with their children yet fail to make an impact on them.
Teenage pregnancy
A clear demonstration of failed parenting, or rather ignorance in parenting techniques, is the teenage pregnancy statistics given by the Education ministry last year. Amid the Covid-19 pandemic-inspired containment measures, the country recorded the highest number of teenage pregnancy cases yet all children were under their parents.
To reverse this nerve-wracking trend and possibly salvage what remains of our youth, there is a need to adopt a hands-on parenting approach. A clear understanding of the person of your teenager and the circumstances they are growing in is critical. It enables parents to outgrow the techniques of yore, when the cane was the solution to every discipline problem, and become more innovative.
Corrective measures should not only be executed with love but the parent must also demonstrate understanding of their children’s unique challenges. That is paramount to guidance, which today’s teenager requires. But the most important thing a parents can do is trust God that their intuition becomes prompt and reaction to a mistake committed by the teenager does not catastrophise it. That would only make their children more rebellious.
Doomsaying bears grave spiritual implications in a child’s life. The negative things invoked while rebuking a child for wrongdoing have a tendency of eventually occurring. It is often understood to be the power in a parent’s tongue.
Dr Mwirigi, a chief principal, is a dairy farmer, author and motivational speaker. [email protected].
