Parents, please raise your kids yourselves
For one reason or another, parents might decide — or be forced — to let their child live with someone else. This could be the child’s grandparents, an uncle, aunt, sibling or other relative.
It is important to realise that a child who grows up away from his parents might develop lifelong psychological problems as a result of feeling abandoned.
The bond between parents and children begins from the cradle and continues through his formative years. His earliest socialisation also takes place at home, where he orientates himself with the family mores.
And it’s under the parents’ supervision that a child learns to tell between right and wrong, and also develops a sense of belonging and closeness with his family through playing with his siblings. Thus a child feels loved, unlike when he is “donated” to live with someone outside his nuclear family.
Consequently, parents should not delegate the responsibility of rearing their child to someone else, because this creates an emotional distance between them and the child.
The latter might feel unwanted, especially when his parents are not there on important occasions like parents’ day or his birthday.
In the past, it was normal for parents to send a young child to live with his grandparents. The old needed someone to help them, especially after their own children had left the nest.
To help the old folks, their parents would send one of their own children to help with the daily chores. But while this arrangement worked well in those days, it cannot work as well today.
Life has changed, and it’s not advisable for parents to delegate this responsibility to a third party. These days they are expected to be there themselves to mould the child’s character by giving him maximum emotional and social security while he’s still young.
Sociologists say that a child who grows up without emotional security is more likely to grow into an insecure adult than one who grows up in a secure, healthy environment.
The child also needs help with things like homework, and for the parents just to be there for him. Indeed, it’s in the area of education the parents have the greatest responsibility. Absentee parents might miss the opportunity to get fully involved in their child’s education.
When they miss parents’ day, for example, the child might feel unloved and start displaying deviant behaviour. A child who knows that his parents are there to advise and correct him feels secure and develops a close relationship with them.
A stage at which parental input is particularly important is adolescence. This is a turbulent period during which many teens grow rebellious, but one they can successfully navigate with appropriate parental guidance.
This is the stage during which the youngster’s values and those of his parents, teachers and other older people are diametrically opposed, so they are always at loggerheads.
During this stage, parents need to be on the lookout for any behavioural changes in their child so that they can guide him properly.
A child who grows up in the hands of a guardian might exhibit deviant behaviour, and the guardian might fail to enforce proper discipline.
Sociologist Norman Daymond says that, “Children have virtually no control over the physical and psychological environment into which they are born and in which they grow up. The child is a flexible instrument capable of being moulded physically and psychologically into one of numerous patterns.”
The experiences a child undergoes during his childhood determine his character, and it is under the care of his parents that he can develop the most positive characteristics.
The parents mould him into an upright person by giving him the necessary support as he grows up.
He needs parental love at this time because, as Daymond says, “Frequently, a physically neglected child who is loved is better situated in his own home than the cared-for-child in a foster home who is unloved.”
