Stephanie chidi Osugo
HELP ! I’M A PARENT
Most people never had the luxury of planning how they were going to become a parent. Very few people planned on having children but never gave thought to the process of parenting, others had parenting forced on them and most of us are swimming hard in this sea and hoping to make it to the shore.
Truth is there is no one who is perfect at this. All parents have in one way or time or other looked at themselves and realized that they come short in this journey. So since we are all learning, let me share with you a little of what I have gathered.
What is parenting?
It is a process of providing care, protection and supports the physical, emotional, social, spiritual and cognitive development of a child from infancy to adulthood. The day you became a parent, your life changed forever. You can never not be a parent again! So brace up and soldier on.
Parenting requires information, knowledge, patience and sacrifice. It is a labor of love and it continues till you die. Parenting is hard work.
PSALM 127: 3-5
LO, Children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
“AS CHILDREN ARE GIFTS, SO ARE PARENTS”!
A popular proverb in Yoruba language, a tribe of people in Nigeria says, “If a child is good, he belongs to the father, but if the child is bad the child belongs to the mother is one that may not sit well with most modern day parent or in this century, however we continue to see this play out in our day. Although parenting is not gender specific, we discover that most parenting activities outlined in the definition above is usually carried out by the mothers.
According to Britannica, Parents play a significant role in shaping children’s environments and thus children’s exposure to other factors that influence development, such as peer relationships? For example, parents are much more likely than children to make decisions about the neighborhood in which the family lives in, the schools that children go to, and many of the activities in which children engage; in these ways parents expose children to certain peers and not others. Additionally, children are more likely to select friends who have similar interests and values, which are rooted primarily in early family experiences.
Even broad contextual factors, such as poverty and culture, are mediated by parents, who, in American psychologist Marc Bornstein’s words, are the “final common pathway to children’s development and stature, adjustment and success.”
The influence parents wield over their children cannot be overemphasized, at least before the teenage years when they do not want to have anything to do with you.
