In July this year (2013), I will be 43 years old. My 13 year old son will clock 14 in May. Between the two of us there is a healthy 29 year age difference. Little wonder that more than a few eyebrows get raised when people hear him always call me by my first name! This article explains why I believe demystifying authority figures in the eyes of our kids can prepare them to become powerful influencers and agents of positive change in society.

“Tayo, look what she’s done to my books!” my son once exclaimed, as he discovered his little sister had spilled water on his school bag. We were visiting at their grandparents, and a relative who was present immediately asked “They call you by name? Why do you let them do that?”

I always argue that times have changed greatly. Adults are becoming less reliable role models. And so children must be empowered to challenge erring adults. Otherwise society retrogresses. Some see my point, but refuse to accept my approach.

Traditional Culture In Societies Evolve – But Respect for Elders Is Still Valued/Required

In Africa, a younger person dare not call an older person (especially 10 or more years older) by name. Indeed many decades back, an age difference of two years between male siblings made it imperative for the younger person to call the older one “brother” – out of “respect”.

Today, the strictness with which such requirements are enforced is generally less. But the need to show respect remains important across cultures worldwide. A young person who wishes to be regarded favourably therefore knows better than to call an older person by name.

To Preserve “Respect for Elders”, Why Not Also Preserve Value Placed On Honesty & Integrity?

People belonging to my parents’ generation often say that in their time, if someone suddenly acquired riches elders would call him to explain its source. If his answers were not satisfactory, it could lead to great shame and embarrassment for his entire lineage. Stealing and dishonesty were not tolerated. Elders did not look the other way when convenient. They spoke truth without bothering whose Ox was gored.

But today a child would notice the opposite happening. He is told that stealing or cheating is bad. But sometimes he will see those who teach him that same rule doing the exact opposite. Sometimes they get caught and punished. In certain societies however, they seem to always get away with it. Sad, but true. A child in such a society may even see those who insist on being honest and upright ending up at the mercy of those doing wrong!

I believe that if elders (or leaders/public office holders) want respect from younger people (or followers/citizens) based on culture or tradition, they should also be willing to preserve the culture or tradition of rewarding honesty and punishing dishonesty.

The truth is however that elders in certain societies are driven by selfish motives – not a desire to do what is in the best interests of those they lead.

Societies That Make Progress Often Have Members Willing To Question Authority (Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s Example)

Societies that make progress are often those in which people are willing to question persons in authority who are not doing the right things. And they teach their children to do the same. The child who is not taught to be critical of the way things are being done, will get messed up by society.

In contrast, societies that fail to progress significantly are those in which not enough people are willing to challenge those in authority doing wrong. A young person who has been taught to be submissive or subservient, and to fear authority, will rarely be willing to challenge erring leaders.

He may also find that younger persons regard him the same way he views those older than him. If he happens to like it, you cannot reasonably expect him to fight the system!

Some traditional African cultures have this problem. In Yoruba land we have a saying that “Agbalagba o ki npa iro – which means “Adults do not tell lies”. That in itself is a BIG lie as you know. And yet, it’s sometimes ALL that keeps many young people in my part of the world from openly questioning an older person they are reasonably sure is doing wrong! This was one of many reasons I decided I would make my kids always call me by name and challenge me (see my reference to Fela Anikulapo Kuti and his kids below).

To Ensure Societal Progress We Need To Demystify Authority Figures!

Parents have to prepare their kids with the right mindset to question an erring older person or someone in a position of authority. Get the child to look beyond the trappings of office or power, and see the person there as the human being he is – not a perfect or infallible being.

A possible strategy would be to make the child call YOU by name (But only you. He need not call other adults by name). Then encourage her to respectfully – but fearlessly – engage you intellectually, on various issues, and to challenge you when she does not agree with a view you express, or a line of action you embark upon.

Fela Anikulapo Kuti made this a rule for his kids. Seun Kuti noted in a Channels TV (Lagos) interview some years ago, that if he or his siblings called Fela “Daddy”, they would not get their allowance.

Fela wanted to demystify adults and adulthood for his kids.

Why? Because he realised it was the adults who demanded respect (from young people like his kids) that he was constantly questioning over bad leadership, and corruption – which he called “Authority Stealing” in one of his songs.

Without helping his kids break away from tradition in that respect, he knew they could be coerced to accept bad conduct of wayward persons in authority.

But he wanted them to follow his example of courageously challenging wrong doing, and to demand better behaviour from leaders on behalf of the majority in society. Judging from the roles his sons – Femi (multiple Grammy award nominee) and Seun – have since been playing in society, as champions of the interests of the masses, Fela can be said to have succeeded to a great extent in this regard.

You don’t have to go as far as having your kids call you by name, if you don’t want to. However, it is crucial that you empower them to challenge persons in authority to change their ways, if/when they err.

When we are brave enough to teach a child to question authority, even ours, we insulate ourselves from those who would use their authority to work against each of us.” – Seth Godin

True Riches/Success Come Via Effective Real World Relevant Parenting

I’m not rich…yet. But I will be – it’s one of a number of goals I’ve set for myself. However, while I work towards that goal, another goal I’m even more passionate about achieving is doing my best to prepare my kids for an authentically succesful adulthood (Emphasis on authenticity).

Infact I believe successfully preparing my kids to excel in life is a better way to succeed, and if I had to give one up, it would be the goal of getting rich.

To me, parents will be truly rich if they equip their kids with the knowledge, skills and mental attitude to excel in society, regardless of the limitations of their socio-economic circumstances or environment.

But Successful Parenting Is Easier Envisioned Than Actualized

Doing the above is however easier said than done. The “job” of parenting is no respecter of educational degrees or professional certifications.

To succeed, your intentions and plans will need to be diligently put into action year after year, until your kids go out on their own into the real world, and achieve authentic success.

If you’ve ever had to manage/raise children, you’ll know keeping the foregoing going require a rare mix of courage and peristence. Children will test your patience, especially in their teens.

Most of us have had to pass through all kinds of experiences before our kids were born. Sometimes we assume we’ve seen it all.

But when our kids arrive, we suddenly discover we need to acquire new knowledge and a completely new set of skills!

Parenting is a totally different kettle of fish from any experience most of us have ever had – with the exception, of course, of some of us who may have gained some hands-on experience caring for kids out of interest, or as a vocation.

But even that is rarely enough to make someone a competent parent.

You Will Not Always Have Satisfactory Answers For Her – No Matter How Hard You Try

Guiding and nurturing another human being to find her place in the world you already operate in takes a lot.

There are physical, emotional and psychological dimensions to consider in a childs development. None of them can be treated as less important than the others.

While the child is in her formative years, you will not always have the answers, and yet the child will always expect you to.

What’s more, as she grows older and gets more curious, she’ll begin to question things more and more. Including everything you do tell her – especially about life, and how best to live it, and succeed.

For instance, she could ask:

How come the neighbors kids have so many toys to play with and I dont? Why cant you get me stuff like that? Why dont we seem to have enough money to go on fancy trips and holidays my friends at school tell me their parents take them on all the time?

Teach Her The Value of Delayed Gratification

To please her, do what you can with what you have.

However,  if you lack the means to do it without incurring negative outcomes, you need to tell her. Maybe mortgage payments and some other investments you’re making for the future, currently prevent you from indulging in such immediate pleasures. Or maybe you’re just not earning enough to allow for such expenses at the moment.

Whatever the reason, tell her as simply as possible. Explain the implied benefit to be had from practicing delayed gratification.

My experience indicates this is quite easy to teach to kids, and once they get started on it, youll be surprised at how quickly they’ll use it to make progress. And they’ll regard it as fun!

For instance, ever since I began rewarding each of my kids with a 100% interest on money they saved, at the end of each month, I’ve noticed they’ve all become quite serious about not spending any money given to them by grandparents, and other relatives.

Make Her Work to Earn Any Extra That She Gets

In fact, even if you could afford it, historical evidence shows that it is smarter to get a child to develop a healthy respect for money.

To achieve that, make her realize it has to be earned before it can be spent. So when she starts asking for extras such as more toys or fancy holiday trips offer her an opportunity to earn them.

My soon-to-be-12 year old son once asked me for money to buy an item he said a classmate of his owned, an which he liked. I told him he could save up for it by washing my car every fortnight for a fee of N50. (The item cost N100 or N150 I think). I wasn!t surprised to see him apply himself diligently to that task until he’d earned the needed amount.

Important Note: This Is Not An Attempt To BragI’ve just shared what I’ve done with my kids, to give you ideas of what’s possible.

My purpose for giving the above examples is basically to share what seems to have worked for me, in the hope that you may find it useful for your purposes.

But What If She Questions Your Competence To Tell Her About Money?

Sometimes it could be that you simply do not have the means to accommodate such additional luxuries, because you do not currently earn enough.

The child may accept this, but depending on the environment she’s exposed to, and the friends she keeps, it could influence her decision about how much attention she should pay YOU – particularly when you give her advice about what to do to make money for instance.

Lets face it, we all know the parable about the naked guy who offers you his shirt.

Would you easily accept financial advice from someone who seems to be struggling to make ends meet?

Your kid may face that challenge at some point in life. Letting you give her advice about what to do may be viewed against the background of how well she sees you doing.

And if you’re struggling financially, she could tell herself:

“I want something better. My parents don’t have the money making aspect of life well worked out yet. Maybe Kelly’s dad will have to usable advice on finances that I can explore”.

Robert Kiyoaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad bestseller book’s story effectively illustrates the point I’m making here. While he recognized his real dad’s academic prowess, Robert’s questioning mind led him to get financial education and coaching from his “other dad”.

What Can You Do

I believe the truth is that we can only try to do what we can for our kids. Sometimes we won’t have all aspects of life locked down.

There are likely to be areas where we will be better off letting someone else help our kids.

And as parents, if we truly love our kids we’ll be wise to quickly identify such persons and facilitate the process of bring them into our children’s lives as early as possible.

Sometimes it will be their teacher(s) in school, or a gifted or talented friend. And at other times it could be a relative of yours or even a friend, business associate, former classmate, indeed anyone you can reasonably trust to help your child acquire needed knowledge and skills to fill in any gaps in her learning.

If you love your kids and want them to flourish in life, you must be ready to do the above and whatever else is in their best interests.

It may surprise you that at the end of the day, when they achieved the success you so selflessly prepared them for, they will tell all who ask that YOU made them succeed.

That’s exactly what the world famous Ben Carson said about his uneducated single parent mother, regarding the amazing role she played in making him the genius in brain surgery that we all know him to be.

We send our kids to school because we want them to get an education. Judging from our own experiences, a good education will – among other benefits – equip them with the ability to independently discern what is useful from the sea of solicited & unsolicited advice they will be exposed to as they grow up. This article explains how you can also help them understand that no human being is all knowing: so they can avoid getting misled in school, or in life!

Why A Good Foundation In Education Is Important

A teenage girl who has attended sex education classes is likely to be more alert to the potential dangers (e.g Sexually Transmitted Infections) and likely consequences (unwanted pregnancy) of engaging in unprotected pre marital sex.

That awareness will make her opt for protected sex, if at all she chooses to have pre marital sex. And if the means for having protected sex (e.g condom) is unavailable, she’ll know enough to say no, even when her partner pressures her or tries to sweet talk her into giving in.

Once a good educational foundation is laid for a child, she’s likely to actively pursue avenues to build on it to improve herself.

With diligence she will eventually arrive a level of intellectual competence close to, or possibly above that of her parents and/or other adults.

Some Parents Apparently Don’t Want That!

Some people who today are parents were sent to graduate school by parent(s) with little or no education.

When they graduated, they generally found their education conferred a unique advantage on them.

Among other benefits, they became thought leaders in their homes and societies, whose opinions were respected and contributions valued.

Now, ironically, there are some people who had educationally accomplished parents send them to school.

But they soon discovered that their academic accomplishments were not enough to make their parent(s) accept them as being intellectually competent!

One example. I once overheard a 70 year old retired consultant tell his 38 year old son (who is himself a practicing consulting professional) as follows:

“You can never know more than I do on any subject, because I came to this world before you!”

The son was understandably shocked to hear that, as was I.

And he replied:

“But Dad, why did you bother making me go through the hassle of getting a degree, if you knew you would not be willing to accept that I can actually be equally or more knowledgeable about issues, especially in my areas of interest or specialisation?”

The old man retorted “The fact that you’ve obtained a degree does not mean you can know more than me!”

The son shook his head sadly and threw up his hands in exasperation.

Demonstrate To Your Child That No One Needs a Monopoly of Wisdom!

I once read a quote that said “you can learn how not to be a bad boss by studying one”.

My experiences and observations from my 7 year sojourn in paid employment tell me that statement is true.

The above mentioned father and son exchange proved quite instructive for me. Indeed, It made a very great impact on me.

I learnt a powerful lesson from it, about how to succeed as a parent by refusing to claim a monopoly over knowledge or wisdom.
the ability to independently discern what is useful from the sea of advice they will be exposed to as they grow up.

And to ensure I do not fail, I’ve drummed it into my kids’ heads that no human being, least of all me, their father has a monopoly of wisdom on any subject.

To make such a claim amounts to being recklessly arrogant and irresponsible with one’s utterances. Even worse, impressionable children who witness such acts may be misled into thinking that is the right way to think and speak. And they could end up upsetting others they relate with.

I strongly believe one of the greatest gifts kids can be given, is the understanding that they do not need to prove perpetually that they are smart, by claiming to know more than everyone else.

We can help our kids develop this understanding by acting as responsible role models on a daily basis, and letting them know the value they will derive from emulating us.

What would it take to have one’s child grow up and become a sports superstar, like Michael Jordan or a famous personality like Larry King? History has shown that it is possible to deliberately coach children, from a very early age, to develop their unique skills and talents towards excelling as adults. The Williams sisters in tennis and the Jackson 5 are two examples that readily come to mind. And it is also worth noting that at least one parent provided the driving force and the direction for the children to follow until they arrived.

Help Your Child Choose The Right Life Goal

As a parent I dream daily of seeing my children actualize their full potentials as adults, to become the best they can be. They may or may not become famous, but I’d like them to live their lives in a manner that will enable them command the respect and admiration of those they relate with.

But just thinking or dreaming won’t do any good. Reading the stories of the growing up years of the Williams sisters for instance, it’s clear that their father played a great part in preparing them to mount the world professional women’s tennis stage and begin to dominate it. Years of back breaking hard work were invested until they were ready.

You don’t of course need to set a goal as grand as winning Wimbeldon titles for your kids. But you do need to work with them to identify challenging ones they would like to achieve.

To do this successfully, you must have spent quality time with each one, to know what interests her or gets her juices flowing.

Make Sure You Help Them Push Their Dreams, and NOT Yours

Parents can sometimes let their emotions cloud their judgement where the child has to decide what she wants to be in life. That’s why some individuals become adults and then suddenly undertake a radical career change to pursue alternatives they are more comfortable with.

The above is a major reason why trying to live out our fantasies through our kids will not work. Neither will attempting to use them to correct mistakes we feel we’ve made in the past.

The best thing to do is to carefully nurture the creative talents and abilities we identify in each of our kids, and show them how to improve over time.

Be Patient!

Coaching one’s kids to develop their unique talents and abilities can however be easier said than done.

That’s because it can literally take years before the work done begins to yield results – depending on the specific area of endeavour.

What’s more, if you’ve ever had to coach a child in a real world situation, you’ll know that unless she’s really interested, it can get quite frustrating.

But that’s not even the main problem.

The major challenge is that kids tend to have short attention spans and rapidly shifting interests.

So today, they could be excited about one subject or activity, and then one week later they’d have moved on to something else. Only with time will they gradually discover where their passions truly lie.

Final Words

Your role will be to guide your kids through the above mentioned process.

How well you do so will likely determine the results they get. If you do badly, they’ll probably end up as confused and dissatisfied young adults.

Nothing focusses the mind better than clarity of purpose.

Which is why once a child achieves a firm understanding of what she should be doing to actualize her full potential, she may never need help in that area again.

So, that’s the stage you need to get your child to in life. Once there, it will be up to her to make the most of the opportunites that appear, or that she creates!

Proper upbringing of children across the world’s societies generally involves teaching them to uphold good values like truth, honesty and integrity. It also involves telling them the importance of putting family first, as well as being comfortable doing housekeeping chores.

Yes. You read that last part right: It is my experience based opinion that one of the wisest things you can do is to get your kids familiar with doing housekeeping activities.

I benefitted tremendously from that kind of home training, so I know it works.

What’s more, my eldest child who clocks 14 years in a few months also knows because I told him.

He is followed by 4 siblings : 2 boys aged eleven and nine, as well as 2 girls aged six and three respectively. They are all daily coached (the eldest three especially) by their mother and myself, whenever the opportunity arises, to carryout a wide variety of housekeeping chores.

Examples of what they are taught include, but are not limited to: washing their own clothes, sweeping the floor, cutting grass in the garden, fetching water from deep wells, even cooking.

Apart from empowering both male and female kids to be able to competently manage their own homes when they start living alone, such training will also prepare them to care for you, as their parent, in your later years, if/when the need to do so arises.

For the Sake of a Child’s Proper Upbringing, Hired Helpers Must Be Discouraged from Being At Her Beck and Call

We’ve seen it happen many times. The over indulged child whose parents raised to believe the world owes her a life of comfort and ease.

So she goes through life barking orders at hired hands who ordinarily are sometimes old enough to be her parents.

If by the time she leaves her parents’ home, her mentality remains the same, but she cannot find the means to sustain her priviledged lifestyle, she would end up resenting having to accept the sobering reality that life will not be a bed of roses.

It is at this point that frail minded kids sometimes derail into reckless living.

In contrast, kids who have been routinely tasked with character forming and skill building housekeeping chores are often likely to be able to dig deep when faced with a similar situation, till they achieve the goals they want.

The above often happens because the very act of regularly doing house work instills discipline, mental stamina, and a strong sense of responsibility in kids. That’s why I say it is potentially character forming.

When kids who have been raised that way have their own kids, they often ensure the latter get training similar to what they were given as kids.

Well Trained Kids Will Care for You In Your Later Years

Growing old can be a challenging experience for many adults, especially for those who led active lifestyles throughout the period of their youth.

For them, spending time sitting around doing little or nothing will rarely be an acceptable option. People like that may rebuff attempts to treat them like fragile or delicate beings. Not even when their own offspring make the offer.

I know one soon-to-be-eighty year old man who behaves exactly as described above

But his now grown up kids, being well trained, understand him and wisely avoid making offers he will reject. Instead when visiting, they focus on getting other chores or tasks done for him.

I happen to be one of them.

When we were younger and still living with him, he would sometimes send us out to help relatives and neighbours with various tasks and chores.

This happened due to the latter not having kids. Or in some cases their kids had not been taught to do such work.

Those experiences helped us appreciate the great value of the training and discipline he (and our mother) had instilled in us.

The above is why I believe the least I can do is to give my own kids similar training.

I suggest you make out time to do the same thing for your kids. It’s a good way to boost their chances of success in the real world.

If we really love them, deciding to do this will be easy.

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