Millennial parents tipped on grooming resilient children

One of the challenges millennials are grappling with is parenting. Today, both men and women go to work, run businesses, and pursue their careers, leaving them with inadequate time to execute their parenting duties.

In most households, parenting roles have been delegated to househelp. But how can parents be intentional about parenting and raise holistic children who can withstand the pressures of life? While there is no magic wand to achieving this, just like anything else, parenting takes work.

Foundations

Susan Nalwoga, a clinical psychologist and counsellor at British School of Kampala, says there are things parents ought to pay attention to when grooming children to avoid having to figure out how to fix wrongs in the future.

“There are three major foundations we need to pay attention to; academics, hygiene, standards, character and personality,” Nalwoga explains.

“Children have an independent mind that picks traits first from their mother, then their father and surroundings. Because mothers have a big influence on their children’s mind right from the womb, their thoughts, feelings and actions are all reflected in the lives of their children,” she adds.

Robert Kabushenga, the former chief executive officer of Vision Group, who has been a father for 19 years shared parenting tips during a Mama Tendo webinar on parenting.  Kabushenga says the problem is parents outsource help for their children in form of househelp, drivers and allow these to replace them, thus losing the connection with their children which lessens the impact they would have had on them.

Loss of connections

“Children tend to lean towards the party they spend more time with and this is the driver that takes them to school, the househelp that tucks them in bed or phones and TV sets,” he adds.

“Paying school fees in the best schools does not mean your children will automatically get the qualities you desire to see in them. Try to be the first person they see after school.  Being too busy for your children will make you too insignificant in their lives life,” says Kabushenga.

Nalwoga says children’s reactions are a summation of what they have been exposed to. She says parents can only understand the feelings of their children by observing how they react to situations.

She says modern parents should not focus on opening up accounts or getting the best gadgets for their children when they do not understand them.

“When parents are never present, they do not know what goes on in their children’s lives; if they have eaten well, done their homework or even taken a shower. These seem to be minor things but overtime, they build discipline and character,” she adds.

 While some parents are physically present, Nalwoga says many spend all their time on gadgets. “Many parents keep abreast of all current affairs but do not care to know their child’s teacher’s name. Some do not know how their children perform in class,” Kabushenga says available parents model their children’s behaviour adding that they learn by seeing rather than following commands. “That is why some habits such as beating your spouse in the presence of your children are unacceptable for they affect the cognitive and psychological being of the child,” he says.

Grooming also calls for balanced living unlike the compensation trap some parents have fallen into.  Just because you were away from home for seven days does not mean you should take them for a shopping spree. Otherwise, in future, a man will do the same to her as a way to cover up for his bad habits and she will accept it.

Extremes are detrimental

“Most parents compensate for their own deprivations by allowing children to watch TV for long hours because they did not watch television while growing up. Extremes are detrimental and everything ought to be done in moderation to raise a balanced child,” Kabushenga shares.

Some other parents have resorted to helicopter parenting- one that does not allow children to think for themselves. For example, a parent takes their child for a soccer game and they want to be the coach and will make a big fuss when their child gets an injury.

“Create an environment of competitiveness for them to resolve their issues as well as do things for themselves. For instance, when hungry, children should be able to go to the kitchen and pick what to eat rather than you bringing it to them. Doing everything for children and failure to empower them to make personal decisions makes them fail to thrive at work, in their marriages and navigating life,” Kabushenga says.

He says a child’s  misconduct may be a reflection of their parents’ failures and a basis for devising ways to correct the mess without being spiteful.

On issues of finance, one of the profound ways to introduce money is for children to see a parent work for it rather than just take them for shopping. “While the latter will never understand the value of money, the former will learn that money is earned and thus never waste it.

My mother, at a very young age, taught me we did not have much and had to live within our means. Apart from taming me, it was a springboard to work hard and never go back to some of the things I did not like about that life,” Kabushenga shares.