Parenting Tips at RC Kajjansi Fellowship
My visit to Kajjansi RC this Wednesday was quite fulfilling. The comment from our Babies was that the members of their mother Club, RC Kampala South, visit more frequently these days and they do feel the parental love. The fellowship was on parenting tips, so you can imagine the pride and joy at the above comment.
The Guest Speaker, Mrs Mary Asiimwe Butamanya, is the Vice President, Uganda Counseling Services and specializes in counseling married couples, teenagers and adolescents. She gave various tips on parenting.
The first tip was that parents must love each other. The slightest unease between parents is immediately sensed by Children and this brings about a sense of insecurity in them. When Daddy mistreats Mummy the boys resent him. When Mummy mistreats Daddy the girls resent her. Love between parents gives children a sense of confidence and self esteem. When Parents are friend of the Children they are more receptive to parental advice and will avoid peer pressure and all its wickedness.
While we may get away with being Dictators to our children of one to twelve years old, the old school style does not quite work out with the current generation of Children from 13 years old and above. While our generations were brought up in accordance with the Bible teaching (spare the rod, spoil the child), this does not quite work out with the current generation of teenagers and adolescents.
In counseling sessions Mrs Butamanya has heard from children who hate their parents and are always at logger heads because the parents have failed to understand them. She told a true story of a child who was pampered to ‘suffocating’ levels. The teenage child does not know how to make his bed, cook, wash his own clothes or even cross the road. The Child was taken to Malaysia for his Bachelors Degree. He used his fees to smoke, do drugs and exhibited all sorts of unbecoming behavior. Of course he returned back to Uganda without a degree. The parents were livid, shouted at him and exhibited such anger as never witnessed in the child’s life.
The Counselor gently laid the blame on the parents for not showing tough love at an earlier stage. We shower our children with everything we did not get in our childhood, and we do not teach them simple life skills like cleaning and a sense of responsibility. We are endangering our Children. She told of dangers to children in households where housework is the sole responsibility of the maid. This is a recipe for disaster for the Child. Picture this child in his or her own house without a clue how to keep it in order.
Her parting words were that children learn from action. We parents need to walk the talk.