Parents! Be close to your children, the world they live in is different from the world we were raised in several decades ago. Parenting comes with a responsibility of not just raising men and women in the society but raising a generation of youth that possess virtuous character, empathetic and committed global citizens. In recent days, the COVID-19 pandemic have adversely effected the normal school calendar. Unusually, children will be spending more time at home after school closures and recess while the 8 th grade and Fourth form will be sitting for their national examinations. Thus, parents are required to adjust their roles and take more time to counsel and interact with their children.
A key question in parenting is how to nurture healthy relationships, good morals and high discipline levels among the children. Secondly, how safe as parent can we control and support our children in relation to obeying the COVID-19 safety measures such as social distancing, wearing of masks, hand washing or sanitizing. A famous maxim in parenting is that ‘children are
watching’ and hence it requires parents to be good role models. Ideally, families are the bedrock of society and they are equally important in teaching and modeling virtues to the children. Psychologists argues that parents contribute to children’s moral development by providing an emotional environment and culture within the family that fosters the development and nurturing of virtues such as compassion, empathy, respect, humility, hard work and integrity among others.
During school holiday, parents and guardians are so called to accept and adopt parenting practices which can help to instill discipline and good morals to the children. Evidently, adolescent youth tend to be the most difficult persons to handle during the turning point of their lives from childhood to adulthood. Adolescents are faced with developmental conflict experiences attached to psychosocial crisis which could have a positive or negative outcome for personality development. At this stage of life, parents should be close to their children and be able to understand their needs according to gender and developmental stage.
The adolescent stage is lethal to both genders. The adolescent behaviors are influenced by factors such as negative peer pressure, lack of parental supervision, lack of school attendance, family dysfunction and gender norms. For instance, the negative peer pressure can easily Influence the young people into risky behaviors such as drug abuse, sexual orientation, violence and crime amongst other. Therefore, if the adolescent behavior is not successfully addressed at the developmental stage, the child’s future is likely or may completely take a diverted role.
In conclusion, parenting is not about physical beating, insulting and critiquing a child on his/her physical appearance, aptitude or competence. Parenting requires constructively engaging the child in one on one talk; building healthy relationship with the child; listening and understanding/ providing the child’s needs; appreciating the child; making a schedule of daily routine of work to keep the child busy; identifying and nurturing the child’s talent; and lastly set the best foot on the path for responsibly and accountable upbringing of the child for a successful future.