Self-Devpt. Nuggets™

When children are with their parents they go through a lot of experiences. Some are positive and others are not. In the course of those experiences, they learn different things – some good, some not so good, and then some, bad. You, as a parent can resolve to make those experiences beneficial to the kids, most – if not all – the time.

Sadly today, the experiences that kids go through are not in any way planned or structured. The result is that the learning, insight and “education” they acquire tend not to be planned or structured either.

In the villages, especially back in the old days, adults/parents were a lot more deliberate in the ways they chose to expose children to specific experiences.

There was often a specific/desired outcome in mind, most times when a young boy or girl or young man/woman was asked to do something. Books like Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart in which Okonkwo’s rise to adult (man) hood is described provide examples to support the foregoing assertion.

If you want your child to quickly find direction/purpose for him/herself in life, you need to help facilitate the process.

You can do this better than the teacher – because your child is more likely to trust you more. The teacher(s) can help consolidate on your efforts while the child is in school, but you would be the main “player”, helping steer the child towards eventual self-discovery.

That is the way it should be – you working with your child to chart his/her future, while the teacher (through close interaction with you) helps keep the child focused on the journey to self-discovery.

A child that benefits from this kind of “training”, will gradually evolve into an independent minded, self-motivated and focused adult.

She would be easier to teach because the natural interest in a future goal would have been stirred, so that the need to study/learn would be obvious to her.

The experiences that children go through in their developmental years often have a strong and lasting impact on them in their adult lives. Any parent who wants those experiences to be positive ones for his/her kids, will have to get personally involved in providing those experiences – and/or helping the children deal with the results of having them. It cannot be any other way.

Newcomers to a company typically have to undergo “induction”/training in different departments to facilitate their settling into their new jobs/roles in the company.

They are made to go through this, despite having been found to possess the needed qualifications and experience for their jobs. This is because the management recognizes that for them to function efficiently (to the benefit of the company), they will be better off being “helped” to achieve familiarity with existing procedures/systems faster.

Among other benefits, these newcomers will thus be expected to make fewer, avoidable errors in the early stages of performing their new duties.

This foregoing analogy describes what parents would be doing for their kids by “inducting” them early on into the ways of the world.

Parents should be able to bring their “expertise” in worldly affairs to bear on the “training” of their children.

Do you love your children? Do you want to give them the best possible preparation to succeed in their adult lives in society?

If YES, take the above ideas to heart, and apply them, from today, in relating with your kids.

You will be glad you did.