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Highway to success, Charles Dube
LAST week we gave advice from experts on how students could use holiday time productively. You could have realised that almost all that was book advice. Hardened traditionalists would have been surprised by what appeared to be soft advice where there is talk about students having adequate sleep. Traditionally, a child should always be seen working. Before the massive rural urban drift students were expected to head home straight immediately after closing schools. There was no need for them to pass by town as they were expected home immediately to assist with household chores.
Maybe it was because parents saw urban areas as places of employment while all what they could call theirs was out in the rural areas. Boys were sent out to herd cattle while girls assisted their mothers in the home. The December holidays were for tilling the land hence school children meant extra labour at home. Many parents did not understand when students spent a lot of time in town when there was a lot of work at home.
Nowadays things have changed, people have been urbanised. Extended family concept has been abandoned. It appears as though rural homes are for the aged. Many children do not have an idea of their rural homes. Therefore students are not keen to visit their relatives in the rural areas and partake in activities like ploughing. You cannot tell the students to go home and till the land. They can only welcome modern forms of entertainment as suggested in last week’s issue.
Schools closed this past week and parents welcomed all their children home. It would be far fetched to assume that all was well as some students got a roasting for not performing well at school in this previous term. While it is expected for parents to give their children a tongue lashing for below par performances, there should be caution here. It is improper for them to vent frustrations for failing to access money from banks on their children. Parents should not make high demands from their children.
There is a tendency by parents of always expecting children to do the right things from the perspective of the former. They tend to forget that people are different hence they should not expect their children to perform like them if they excelled in everything they did. However, from another angle parents are justified to express dissatisfaction with poor work. Times are hard and money is hard to come by, so no one is prepared to see his efforts go to waste.
But, whatever the case might be they should avoid negative comments which could have an everlasting damage to the sound relationship with their children. Some comments appear positive yet children do not feel motivated by what they hear from their parents. For example, parents could be heard saying, “You are intelligent, but you are not making the most of it, or if you worked hard you would fulfil your potential.” Such statements do not inspire students to improve according to experts.
The explanation given for such a response is because students feel as if their parents care more about their performance than what they are as a person. They feel as if their parents would consider them more “complete” if only they achieve more. This causes resentment which hinders them from even wanting to change their behaviour. Parents are concerned about the behaviour of their children hence they want them to change for the better. Those children showing laziness are made to work extra hard in the belief that they would be corrected yet this could work negatively.
Remember that traditional children have no say in the home. Parents have the final word in whatever decisions are made.
Parents should never make the mistake of talking down to their children as this is ineffective. Avoid saying the following which your children will perceive as condescending: “I know what’s best for you. You will understand when you are older. You are just a child and you do not know anything.” This approach should be used sparingly. The best thing a parent can do is to ask for his child’s opinion and seek to understand his perspective. This will build mutual respect hence improve, parent –child relationship.
But, this approach will be hard to be implemented especially to die hard traditionalists who believe there is nothing good one can learn from a child. Such a view hurts parent-child relationships to a great extent. There is a problem with most parents today. Partly because of economic challenges parents have found it difficult to avail themselves to their children. Work commitments have seen them away from home for many hours.
In extreme cases some have headed to the diaspora leaving behind many children headed families. This has led to decadency among students. Parents in faraway lands send a lot of money to their children left behind. The money sent becomes too much for the children and they engage in negative activities. Money cannot replace the parent’s love to the child. Children feel neglected due to the parents’ absence.
While there are suggested ways to correct this through parents availing themselves to the children through having meals together as a family and taking interest in your child’s games or hobbies, it is quite impossible with those in the diaspora. It is also wrong to continually criticise or nag your child. Annoying or irritating with persistent fault-finding or giving a child a hard time is uncalled for and causes great damage to parent-child relationships.
Parents as you spend quality time with your children avoid engaging in negative ways that will damage your relationships with your children.
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Online Reporter