Parents advised to Engage children in meaningful work
Children on holiday can spend some time doing house chores such as fetching water as opposed to loitering around villages. PHOTO BY FAISWAL KASIRYE
What you need to know:
Helping hand. St. Lawrence University’s Prof. Mukiibi says training children to work hard will make them reason beyond boarders
Parents have been urged to effectively plan for their school-going children who are now in vacation.
According to Prof Lawrence Mukiibi, the board chairman, St. Lawrence University, youth have become lazy as a result of poor upbringing.
“Many parents don’t expose their children to the life they went through during their (parents) childhood, which has led the children to rely on their parents for everything even at an age they would be leading their own life,” Prof. Mukiibi said on the sidelines of the fifth graduation ceremony of St. Lawrence University recently.
More than 500 students were awarded degrees and diplomas in various courses.
“I get angered when I hear parents making reckless statements, forgetting that it was the hardships they went through that led to what they have achieved today,” he said.
Consultant take
Roseline Ongorok, a counselling psychologist with Uganda Counselors’ Association says parents should occupy their children - who are at home for their Third Term holidays -with activities like house chores because this would help prevent children from crossing paths with wrongdoers who could lead them to evil acts.
“Alternatively, parents can keep children busy by taking them at their work places which could help them learn skills business management skills,” she says.
Training children to work hard, Prof. Mukiibi says, will make them reason beyond boarders.
“Don’t let your child spend the whole holiday just loitering around town, watching television or visiting relatives. Give them work to do, whether at home or at your work places. Take them for computer training, brick making, farming or train them how to clean the house,” Prof. Mukiibi said.
He also advised parents to limit the luxurious life they expose their children to as it ‘stops children from thinking about initiatives that can help them fend for their basic needs.’
Prof. Mukiibi said knowledge was the best startup capital that the graduates were equipped with which is more effective than monetary capital. “Be pragmatic, creative and put the skills that have been imparted in you to work,” he cautioned.
