Chaos As Parents Create a Vacuum That Nobody Else Can Fill
- Category: Children
- Date 07-09-2003
- 1295 views
A parent is the first teacher of a child. A home is a child’s first school. It is the basic community from which a child learns language, behaviour and other traits.
Today, we have become so tipsy with the acclaimed children's rights that it has become difficult for us to notice the accidental tendencies which undermine the integrity of children and limit their potential to learn the positive traits of their elders.
In many cases, child abuse has been thought to be the visible infliction of injury upon a child even when both the victim and the culprit adult are unaware of the consequence. In an attempt to raise children under the modern lifestyle, parents and teachers have unfortunately exposed young children to terrible neglect which ought to be interrogated.
A parent is the first teacher of a child. A home is a child’s first school. The home is the basic community from which a child learns language, behaviour and other traits which then form a basis for a future character. The child's capacity for integral growth is greatly shaped by the earliest encounters within the family. This is where interactions with parents, siblings and other relatives occur.
The home experience is the beginning of the child's learning process, and this should continue uninterrupted until adulthood. Later in life, the growth and development of a child should be supplemented by the wider community that encompasses people from all walks of life.
Yet, the problem of child abuse is beyond the home and neighbourhood. In the local setting, those considered as legitimate ‘carers’ of children can easily become child abusers. Parents, teachers and other relevant adults tend to abandon their duties to the children as each party expects the other to do more from their side.
This writer has noted that even the most vocal child rights advocate spends much more time in office, workshops, meetings and other fora, making high-sounding pronouncements and pays less attention about their own children at home. It is sad that the people who are knowledgeable about proper child upbringing are the very ones in whose homes or societies child neglect flourishes.
Consider the current education system, for instance. Education is known to equip individuals with skills, attitudes and values necessary for the full development of the learner’s intellectual, social, emotional and physical potential, leading to the transformation of society.
Questions abound, nonetheless. How does a home prepare a child for the school? In return, how does the school prepare a child for the home?
A school term in Uganda covers three months. A year has three school terms. Therefore, the school takes 9 out of 12 months in a year. A school-going child spends most of the time (three quarters) of a year at school. On the average, the child spends only 12 of the 52 weeks at home with their own parents and about 40 weeks at school.
In many cases, both the teacher and the parent might expect either party to do more in shaping the child’s character. The schoolteacher understands that legally and biologically a child belongs to the parents. The onus is, consequently, on the parents to provide the best education. Perhaps, many parents realize this fact.
On the other hand, many parents imagine that children must devote most of their lives to schooling, right from very early in life. By the age of three, most of the children from so-called enlightened families are already in the formal school.
Reason? The parents are too busy to attend to their own children! They assume that meaningful social or moral discipline is a responsibility of the school.
Others want to spend so much money on their children as a way of proving how they care. They think that paying money for the upkeep of their toddlers is proof of responsibility and care.
Many parents and guardians even opt for boarding schools, so that their children do not remain a burden at home.
They should rather become a burden to the teacher who is trained and paid to face and handle troublesome children. It is, nonetheless, not lost on the teacher that, naturally, parents must shoulder the greater responsibility in bringing up their children since they are their own offspring.
It has been observed that during the school term, teachers look forward to a time when the troublesome learners would go on holidays and return to their parents who would inculcate discipline them. When the term ends, however, many children proceed to coaching sessions, thereby staying out of the parents’ attention completely. Yet the parents believe that the teacher is a perfect reservoir of knowledge and can give everything the learner needs.
It is believed that while at school, the children must submit to the authority of the teacher. It is interesting to note that, as the school term nears opening, a parent’s pain is not so much about missing the child as about parting with money to pay for the child’s school needs.
When all is said and done, the actual teacher is the child's parent, who is the very first person to introduce the child to any form of education. The parent is the best model for a child. Education develops progressively from the home to the community (neighbourhood) and to the school. This systematic progression should not be ignored.
From the day a child is born, parents have a vision for their offspring. As they send the child to school, they have clear wishes and prayers. They should not abandon their responsibilities of bringing up and creating a vacuum which no other individual can adequately fill.
By Venansio Ahabwe
Child-Link Magazine