Have you ever wondered why your child who was so obedient yesterday begins to want his/her own way today? Have you ever wondered how on earth your child got those horns growing on his/her head? If so you may need to re-view your parenting strategies.
We most often pass the responsibility of child rearing to others and blame each other. We expect our spouse and the teachers in school to inculcate all the values in our children while we sit back and relax. We make the grievous mistake of being wrong role models to our children or leaving them with wrong role models (TV included) when they are younger and then we begin to set rules when or children reach teen-age. This late inception of rules, has often proven to be futile and there is a risk of it backfiring on us.
We need to train our children when they are young. My late mother used to tell us, “Suffer now enjoy later. Enjoy now suffer later.” It is entirely up to us to choose an option. We can either role model the right behaviour, discipline our children early and relax later or relax now and work extremely hard at disciplining our children later (in other words suffer later).
Children who were not disciplined at an early stage and children who had wrong role-models will feel like natives on an isolated island surrounded by a dense forest with a complicated map in their hands. The directions on the map will seem alien and incomprehensible to them. All they know is how to manoeuvre through the dense foliage by the examples shown by their fathers and forefathers. Likewise when all of a sudden a set of rules is thrust upon them, they will freak out. They won’t understand why they can’t do this or that or say this or that, when that was how they were taught to do and say things. They begin to feel lost and become even more confused. They then begin to disobey and eventually rebel. Therefore it is pointless to blame them.
We as parents must exercise caution and employ wisdom in child rearing. Children brought up in this manner will turn out to be mature and successful adults. It is written in the bible in Proverbs 22:6.”Train a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not turn away from it.” We must remember that a child emulates 90% of what he/she sees. Let us therefore sow early in tears and reap a rich harvest with joy.
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