Parenting plays important role in development of children and their future. Broken homes and poor parenting have remained a serious burden to families, communities and society at large.
Broken families or families where parents neglect their primary responsibilities can have many adverse effects on child’s development including social, emotional and educational functioning which can truncate foundation for strong overall development of every child.
Parental and family responsibilities to children do not end with provision of basic needs of shelter, food and clothing. Children look up to their parents to define and orientate them on values and boundaries of life and the consequences if one crosses such boundaries. When parents fail to provide these needed guiding principles, such children will be left to fend for themselves and could easily become victims of negative peer group influence and other available agents of socialization.
Positive parenting requires nurturing, support, and guidance to help children develop into confident and independent individuals, while bad parenting can lead children to struggle with emotional and behavioural issues, have trouble forming healthy relationships , and may have difficulty succeeding in school and in the future.
These could result to psychological conflict, low self esteem and lack of self confidence which could also lead to anxiety, depression and mental health issues. This could further develop into paralyzing emotion that becomes deeply embedded in the psyche and sense of self.
Again, children with poor or negative parenting often suffer relationship crisis not only as children but also at adulthood and old age. Some of them are always aggressive and find it difficult to maintain healthy relationships even in their homes and among relatives. That is why some children once they attain adulthood, will pack out of their family house even when there is enough accommodation for everybody and rent accommodation sometimes close to the family compound and will sever relationship with parents and family members. Many of them find it difficult to remain in marriage which has increased the burden of single parenting and its attendant consequences.
People of poor parenting are sometimes source of disunity, rancour and acrimony not only in their families but also in the organisations and associations they belong to as they strive to make themselves to be noticed and hardly respect constituted authority because they lack ethical and social values that guide relationships in the larger society because of fear of unknown, negative self perception and feeling of inadequacy. Others often fall back to substance abuse including addiction to alcohol and other intoxicants which further erodes their sense of reasoning and tilt them more towards negative lifestyle of greed, debauchery, exploitative tendencies and avarice.
Unfortunately many parents and families because of unbridled quest for material wealth to cope with increasing socio-economic pressure, have totally shifted parenting responsibilities to house helps who in most cases have no moral values or any value at all to offer to children under their care.
Again, some parents in a bid to demonstrate their love for their children end up over pampering and creating psychological problems. Over pampered children create social problems as they are always aggressive and lack sense of responsibility because they believe that others should do things for them and that they should have access to everything, even things that do not belong to them.
Today, some parents give their underage children unguided access to smartphones thereby exposing them to unrestricted use of social media and access to unsuitable content.
Parenting is an ongoing and challenging platform process which requires patience, honesty and hard work. There is need for parents to be positive role models to their children because children often learn more from what their parents do than what they say. Parents should also make conscious efforts to listen to the thoughts and feelings of their children but not necessarily agreeing with them always. There is equally need to enforce strict discipline when necessary but without anger or resentment.
It is important to stress that showing love and affection to a child should not be encouraging him or her to toe a path of self destruction and disrupt the child’s opportunity to attain full potential through hard work, dedication and perseverance.
Written by PAUL EZEOKE
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