You take it for granted, but your kids don’t have a clue about it – even though they WILL have to deal with the reality in future.

I’m talking about everything you have to do, to provide for them and/or to pursue your goals in life.

That includes the STREET SMARTNESS to move around in YOUR society, without getting lost, losing money or possessions…or worse, falling victim to fraudsters, scammers and the like.

You know how to do all that today, having grown up in society learning from your mistakes and those of others. But do your kids have the same competence?

Can you confidently let them go out of your home, ALONE, without worrying about them till they return?

If you said NO, then this article suggests what you can do to equip them to develop the competence that will give you THAT peace of mind!

Remember what it was like when you went on your first “trip” away from home without your parents? How nervous and/or scared were you?

Right. I doubt any of us found it easy.

Yet most of us rarely consider that our kids will one day have to find their own way in the real world.

Evidence of this is seen in the way we let them move around in chauffeured cars, or hired taxis etc. We think of what is involved too simplistically, from our perspectives as adults who have already mastered the process – and fail to put ourselves in the shoes of our kids.

They do not have the benefit of access to our reservoir of YEARS of experience based insights to tap from for decision making!

This is why I write my articles on Best Practice Parenting – to warn parents who may not be aware – of the need to take deliberate conscious steps to give their kids real world relevant exposure to, and experience of various aspects of life that they will eventually have to deal with.

As usual I practice what I preach. Like I always say, no matter how successful you become in life, the success you achieve as a parent will ALWAYS be the most important success of all. Fail as a parent, then you’ve failed as a person – this is my belief.

In this article I share photos from an outing I deliberately took my kids on…for the New Year celebration…on Saturday 2nd January 2016

It was meant to give them yet another dimension of real world relevant education I’ve been taking them through in their Personal Achievement Coaching.

We’d talked about going to the beach for weeks before then. But each time something always happened to make us shelve the idea.

However, my 2 daughters, who had no conscious recollection of all the previous family outings we’d had on the beach (because they had been too young back then) remained insistent.

That morning, after initially telling them I needed to rest, I finally gave in and we began cleaning up the house.

One big concern had been what to do about the 4 remaining Cockerels (from the 9 delivered to us as part-payment by a client who signed up for my Sales and Marketing Coaching program on New Year’s day), which needed to be delivered to buyers.

Eventually we found a way to pack them into one of the rooms in a large wooden box.

Then we cooked a large quantity of jollof rice, with cubed meat, and soon got on our way.

1. Do your kids know how to move around by local transportation?

None of the kids had ever ridden on the famous Lagos BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) buses. So when I announced we would be going to Victoria Island and back via the BRTs, they were excited.

I felt it was important to let them compare traveling via BRT with going in private car as well as the rickety local transport buses.

Apart from discovering that the BRTs were more spacious, more comfortable, and FASTER, the kids were shocked to find (when buying their tickets) that the BRTs were 50% cheaper!

For instance, the local CMS bus conductor we spoke with on our way to the BRT terminal had told us the fee was N300 per head. We ended up paying only N150 [NB: Official exchange rate is N200 to $1 USD, but black market is about N270 to $1 USD]

This was an important lesson I hammered into their heads i.e. the fact that the benefits superior comfort and speed do NOT necessarily have to come at a higher cost!

Indeed, as most people who work on the Island will confirm, many car owners find it makes more sense to go via BRT and leave their cars at home. Not only do they expend less money, they also save precious energy and time too from driving their own cars in the troublesome Lagos traffic – which NEVER affects the BRTs, since the latter have their own lanes!

Below: It’s NOT easy to take steady shots while in a fast moving BRT bus…so I ended up with several blurred images. What I offer below are the best I could salvage from the lot.  I must say though that I really missed my Blackberry 9015 Pearl camera. In this kind of situation, it NEVER failed me!

2. We got off the BRT at the popular CMS bus stop, and I found myself forced to give in to the need to ease myself in a public toilet, that was (mercifully) located just at the edge of the jetty.

Er…we tried HARD to ignore the “messy” environs during our short stop over here – I was to their right, after easing myself. We spent some time watching people get on the speed boats behind us get transported to the rig. One of the boat’s engines stalled just before we left, and another was dispatched to help out.

I took that opportunity to tell my kids about my trip across the Atlantic Ocean in 1999, on my way back from Cameroon’s Douala. It was past midnight and our motor boat engine propeller got caught in a mass of water hyacinth right in the middle of the sea. It took the boat man over 1 hour to get it free, before we could continue our 12 hour journey to Oron in Nigeria. During that time, I said all sorts of prayers…lol! Click here to read the full story.

 

A few thoughts crossed my mind while I was in there e.g. where did the “flushed” stuff go?

The arrangement I saw there suggested it all went into the Lagoon…but I refuse(d) to believe that!

What do you think….???

Trust kids – by the time I came out, THAT was the first thing they asked me: “Tayo, where does all the poo poo go?“

My answer: “I haven’t the slightest clue!”…then we all burst out laughing, because we were ALL thinking the same thing….:-))

Is someone from Lagos state government reading this?

If YES, it would not be a bad idea if you guys check out that public toilet facility and ensure what’s happening there is not something that could cause a major health problem.

This is after all the “Centre of Excellence!”

3. When we arrived at the Bar Beach, I got a rude reminder of the fact that I’d not visited the beach or even the Island since BEFORE I relocated to Benin Republic in April 2012.

Indeed the last time I was on the beach, with the family was back in December 2011.

A LOT has changed since then, especially due to the efforts made by the government to control the flooding from the sea, which sometimes covered the roads and even swallowed the lower floors of buildings close tot he beach.

As a result, the beach we knew was no longer accessible, having been sealed off using a barrier setup by the construction company engaged to put in the reinforcements to check the waves and erect structures on various parts.

The kids were disappointed.

We were forced to join other families who had resigned themselves to playing on the narrow strip of concrete left accessible.

Left with no alternative, especially since we arrived there after 5p.m, we made the best of what there was to be had.

After they gobbled up the jollof rice (including half of mine!) the kids went for ice creams, drinks, horse riding (our smallest member VERY reluctantly!), till night fell.

The girls were the main agitators all through that outing: they wanted a horse ride, so I let them have it. Pity the photos of them actually riding away turned out blurred (Once again, I miss my Pearl 9105 camera).

They kept asking for one treat or the other, and I made a point of letting them have it, to the intermittent consternation of the boys :-))

Then we began strolling around the whole place, taking photos, chatting, just to get some variety. Like I said, we just had to make the best of what we had…lol!

 

NB: The beach was to our left…notice the fence

BELOW: Tayo Solagbade Junior – Protesting vigorously and with real terror in his eyes, as he was being put on the horse he’d just watched his sisters dismount from! He had the same reaction to the Cockerels we brought home until they were down to the last one, at which point he got bold enough actually touch it…!

The rest of the clan have a nickname they coined for him which I’m NOT at liberty to share here. Here he is after we finally got him to stay long enough on the horse to have his photo taken (phew!)

By 7.30p.m, the girls were still saying “let’s wait a little longer” when I reminded them the last BRT would leave by 8p.m – meaning we would have to take the local buses if we were late.

That got their attention: none of them wanted to go back in the small, rickety, cramped buses.

We hired a Keke Marwa (commercial tricycle) to take us back to the TBS (Tafawa Balewa Square) BRT terminal, and boarded a BRT back to our locality.

The kids were especially excited on mounting this return bus because it was one of the new ones, and the air conditioning as well as on board TV was still fully functional.

They were glued to the TV for most of the trip, as different content flashed across its screen – including music videos, promos, news, interview etc.

Any doubts I had that they understood the news reports in particular were however cleared when – after we got back home – I heard them tell their mom about the report about a lady who got her finger cut off by robbers who wanted her gold ring!

By the time we went to bed, I reflected on the day’s events, and noted with satisfaction that a lot of what we’d seen/done had prompted the kids to ask questions that provided ME a good opportunity to give them information & tell them TRUTHS.

A good example was the truth about how to move around safely in the real world of our society, and what to look for before asking for directions; who to ask for directions; where to ask for directions etc.

These may seem obvious to us as adults, but in a place like Lagos, our kids in their innocence will rarely realize asking questions in the wrong manner can make dubious characters focus on you as a potential victim or target!

My purpose is to let my kids have a DIRECT experience of, and exposure to what happens in society daily, in a way that will prepare them physically, psychologically and emotionally, to move around confidently, and successfully on their own.

School cannot teach them that.

Neither can reading of books.

They simply need to go out and DO IT.

What better way for them to do so, than with their own parent(s)!

PS: When we eventually relocate to Benin Republic’s Cotonou, we’ll be doing something similar, to get the kids familiar with moving around in THAT society.