Parents get tips on nurturing in homes
What you need to know:
- Two trainers were ready to teach them several topics on how to effectively parent their children to become problem solvers in life, a role that had been left to only the school teachers.
On a sunny Saturday afternoon of June 7, nearly 30 parents converged in a classroom at Talemwa Junior School in Mukono District.
Two trainers were ready to teach them several topics on how to effectively parent their children to become problem solvers in life, a role that had been left to only the school teachers.
During the training, the parents came up with a scenario of lack of sugar at home and yet the children needed to take tea.
One trainer, Mr Frank Kukuza, asked the participating parents on what options they would take in such a scenario. The options they had included, asking their children to take tea without sugar, take tea without sugar but accompany it with sweet potatoes and to go to the shop and get sugar on credit.
“I would ask my children to take tea without sugar but with sweet potatoes as the accompaniment as their will make the tea taking enjoyable.
I have taken this choice because it will teach my children to be creative with what they have in trying to solve life challenges,” Ms Ritah Nayanzi, a mother of four, said. Another parent, Mr Paul Kimera, came up with another scenario, where his child asked him for a bicycle.
Instead of buying a bicycle, Mr Kimera said he made his son work to learn the concept of money.
“I bought him chicken. He reared it and from chicken, he bought goats, then later pigs and it’s from the pigs that my son was able to get enough money to buy a bicycle. So I just didn't want to give this child things on a silver platter. I wanted to show him that you have to work for money,”Mr Kimera noted.
The father of six added: “I gave him a chicken such that he could learn how to rear children from there he could buy a pig that would multiply, then buy a cow and from a cow, it would now be possible to buy a bicycle.
So I just didn't want to give this child things on a silver platter, I wanted to show him that you have to work for money.”
Another shared experience was by a parent from a town setting of Mukono area (Kusatuu), only identified as Sarah who said some of the children in urban centres don’t want to do hard labour because they claim that they are “planned kids” who should have soft life.
Parents listen to Mr Frank Kukuza, a trainer (left), during one of the sessions on life skills at Talemwa Junior School in Mukono District. PHOTO/ANTHONY WESAKA
“Those planned children who say they can’t do anything like rearing rabbits, making bricks, can face difficulty in real life in the future,” she said. Mr Kukuza, the trainer, urged the parents to engage their children about what is happening near them and around the world and how to survive and thrive.
“Teach them (children) about the economics of life, for example, if you are to get Shs1,000, it means another person lost it,”he said.
Dr Mary Goretti Nakabugo, the executive director of Uwezo, said Uganda, just like other East African countries, is moving away from the traditional content-based approach curriculum to a competency-based curriculum in which they emphasise life skills and values.
It’s upon this background that Dr Nakabugo said Uwezo is engaging parents in six districts to deepen their awareness on the importance of life skills and to become better parents.
“We are working collaboratively through this campaign for ten weeks, and we will share and learn about what works best in parental and community engagement in nurturing skills,” she said.
The six districts are Kampala, Tororo, Sheema, Oyam, Kanungu, and Mukono. Dr Grace Baguma, the National Curriculum Development Centre director, urged parents to actively get involved in the lives of their children.
“Children pick what we do; that is what we call the hidden curriculum. So let’s encourage the parents to have time for their children, to be available, to guide and train the unwritten curriculum, which is oral and forms the character we want to see in the young ones,” Dr Baguma said during the introductory engagement by the AliVe parental/community initiative in Kampala last month.
She hit out at the highly educated Ugandans who have even attained the highest level of PhD but can’t keep their environment clean because they were not taught life skills in their earlier years.
Life skills are fundamental abilities needed to navigate challenges effectively.
