Parenting and Parenthood
The term parenthood is usually used to refer the state of being a father or mother through birth or legal adoption of an offspring. Thus, if a couple that lives together through the socially approved means, gives birth to a baby boy or girl that automatically gives the persons; that is, the spouses involved the right to claim parenthood of the said child. In the like manner, a person who follows the legally laid down rules for adopting a child becomes a parent of the said offspring so long as the generally acceptable rules are followed to the letter.
The word parenting, on the other hand, is used to refer to the ability or skills used in the nursing, caring, upbringing and catering for all the needs of the child under a person’s care. That is to say, parenting is the act and art of looking of looking after an offspring as a parent. Hence, parenthood can be applied to any parent, but not all parents do the actual parenting. This brings us to the recent problem the world is facing relating to the deteriorating state of parenting or the inability of parents to exercise maximum control and discipline on their children. Rampant cases of school children using sophisticated weaponry to kill their fellow students abound; cases of rape, arson, binge and other disturbing forms of contrary behavior have become daily news. The question every reasonably sensible parent should be asking is what can be done to salvage the situation?
General Roles of Parents / What Can Make me a Responsible Parent.
Every responsible parent is supposed to show true love and concern for the welfare of the children. By love here I mean to remain married and live in harmony with your marriage partner. This ensures the child’s emotional stability and over all personality. Similarly, one should always try to sit with the children, hear them out; make them feel wanted and important by responding to the reasonable demands they may have. So, by giving them quality time in which you listen and talk over their problems with them; stand in constant vigil - monitoring them in everything they do whether related to school or home, the children would feel your presence, become less shy, overdependence and become aware that they are accountable and part of a united lovely family. Note that unsupervised children could easily become rowdy brats, spoilt urchins or contrary and uncontrollable kids. But as you hear their complaints and problems, some kids may want share yours in return. In this case do not open up to them or befriend them in the usual sense of friendship, that is, do not share with them your own personal fears, concerns, failures and problems like you would your friend. Remember that children can sometimes get clever and spot weaknesses in you and; guess what, you would be surprised at the way they would exploit them. Hence, never forget your status as a parent and demonstrate in your dealings with them. AS you strive to make them see things your do not get carried away as to let them draw wrong conclusion about your abilities and limitations. Do no ever allow them get the impression that you are infallible. Accept gladly any wrong you may have done and you can be surprised at what impact this may have on them. Always give them parental admonishments on issues you feel right; do not impose decisions on them just lead them to see the reason in things you have suggested or advised them on highlighting the weaknesses in the decisions they may have taken.
A responsible parent is always trying to serve as role model to the children at all time. This means that a parent should display such noble qualities as honesty, trustworthiness, faithfulness, cleanliness, consideration, friendliness, condescension, humility and above all, respect for others. Never say or promise what you can not to console a child – a seemingly harmless lie in your sight may undermine your status as a parent; nor let their demands exceed limit or go beyond your means – always set limit and stand firm whenever a decision is made; always be true in your dealings with them- you may never know when and how you may be found out and what effect that may have on your relationship with them. Remember children always look upon parents as role models or epitome of goodness so much so that any deliberate deviation from the truth may have far reaching consequences.
A good parent is responsible for the feeding, clothing, provision of shelter and education, medical care for the children. So it is part of the duties of a parent to ensure that all the material and educational needs of the children are provided adequately. If children are not supplied adequately their basic needs this may either be exposed them to killer diseases due malnutrition, hunger, famine etc or be bereft of sound education. Little wonder, parents who do plan properly for the number of children they can successfully and adequately take care of leave their children at the mercy of destitution, penury, and abject poverty. This accounts for the high juvenile crime and alarming infant mortality rate in these areas. Also, in areas one would fail to see children in these areas living in slums, becoming teenage mothers, thus becoming full time thieves, cheats, pickpockets and so on.
What Affects Good Parenting / Factors Affecting Parenting
Children upbringing has been bedeviled with many problems so much so that now one wonders whether parents are really performing the parental roles their being parents demand of them. Instances of these pit falls are manifested in the way children conduct themselves everywhere. Often, their behaviors clearly demonstrate to casual observers either the degree of over protectiveness they enjoy or complete deprivation of tangible parental care they fall victim of. Either case would naturally lead to abnormal behaviors like lying, aggression, immorality, mental retardation and other forms of socially maladjusted behavioral patterns – a situation that testifies to all that parents are no longer in control or do not hold the magic key of parental control over things.
In an article published in a Readers Digest(Nov., 1998) on Seven Commandments of Parenting, John Dorschner, says, “A 1997 survey of 2000 adults showed two-thirds thought teenagers were ‘rude,’ ‘irresponsible,’ ‘wild,’ and ‘spoiled.’ This shows that the deteriorating state of children’s behavior started a long time ago. The question is: what are those factors that interfere with effective parenting nowadays that these problem become prevalent. Some of these factors are discussed below.
Parents - children relationship
Perhaps the best way to approach the question of parenting is to examine what forms of relationships exist between the parents and their children. By this I mean who makes and takes decision in this important aspect of human life. What effects have these on the emotional, social, psychological as well as the intellectual state of these children?
Consultative Relationship
Most parents believe that children should given a fair say in decision making and taking on issues that affect them directly. The proponents of this theory argue that most of the juvenile related misdemeanors occur due to the failure by parents to involve their children in the decision making processes. Hence, children felt their freedom threatened, their rights to make choice violated and consequently revolted or rebelled to exercise this perceived right and put a stop to adult monopoly. To avert this, parents, for instance, should be consulting their children before choosing school, toys for the child; should only admonish children over the type of friends and the love partners they move with.
This type of relationship is not bad in itself. Its problem usually lies in timing and nature of application. To be exact, consultative relationship may not be useful to infants and even some preteens whose mental faculty may be too young to appreciate the complex intricacies and subtleties of life. Similarly, some issues are so sensitive or thorny that consultative relationship may only make matters worse. Hence, it has to be limited to certain situations and time.
Dictatorial Relationship
The relationship that exists between some parents and their children can only be described as dictatorial. These parents believe that they have the divine right to choose for their children everything from the food they eat down to their marriage partners right from the birth date to their death irrespective of these decisions conflict with their choice or views: that children are too small and their minds immature or not ready for the task of decision makings: that the psychologically unbalanced children we have are the bye products of wrong applications of parental strategies: that man is gregarious and cannot be left alone to make or take important decisions without guide.
In the family of subscribers to this theory, there is every chance of producing one of the following set of children. First, there are children who are shy, dependant, frightened and despondent who may always be reliant on others for the most basic things of life. These children may be social liabilities, lazy and hopeless even after their parents’ death. And second, may be frustrated, unhappy, irate, rebellious and contrary children who listen to no one but their own voices; with avid hatred for all and unnatural zeal to fight back the society they perceived as the enemy that has treated them unfairly.
Laissez-faire
There are parents who are either too weak to control their naughty children or excessively love them that they fear to offend them by talking to them. The products of this type of relationship are worse than the dictatorial ones. For one thing, they have the free license to do what they feel like as no one cares to stop or correct them as they do so; consequently, the resort to all forms of violent acts or behavior. Also, these children lack proper manners, morals and worst of all faith in everyone as they perceive everyone weakling and the society as a place to what one wishes.
Economic Factors
The second broad category of things that affect good parenting is the economy. Under economy some relevant issues to consider are poverty, overindulgence/ wealth. These are the usual parameters that make or mar responsible parenting to occur. Let’s briefly to each in turn and examine its effect on our children’ proper upbringing.
Poverty
Most children from poverty stricken homes are more likely to fall victims of vices like stealing, robbery, burglary, thuggery; or worst still, find themselves left at the mercy of different aspects of child abuse or problems like hawking, trafficking, early marriage, child labor, drug abuse, drop out and so on. All these are the resultant factors of failure to meet the basic needs of the children by parents due to poverty.
Getting a well-balanced diet by the mother of the child during pregnancy not only ensures safe delivery; but also, birth of children with high I Q. That is, children who would be highly intelligent. Poverty, on the other hand, makes it difficult for parents to have the food that contains the required diet for healthy mother let alone children. When admitted to school, the children from poor family hardly get the parental support in terms of reading materials and other necessary learning aids.
Wealthy/Overindulgence
It is common to see nowadays that parents try to show love to their children by everything. According to these types of parents, the best way to exercise total control over the affairs of your child is through provision of the child’s needs. While provision of important things like toys, books, computer etc may be good to the child as these make learning simple and easy, getting carried away or extreme may send the wrong signal to the child. An overindulgent child may think he does not need anything as his parents have already shown him that whatever he is doing can only serve supplementary to what they can provide. Similarly, such children can easily become wayward, uncontrolled, spendthrifts and cheats. They would never attach much value to studies nor would they care to learn the correct societal values as they feel too independent and confident.
Wealth if reasonably utilized can make children bright and lovable as it can afford its possessor luxury and materials need for proper parental support and guidance.
Educational factors
Education is the most powerful tool in executing responsible parenting in any situation, culture or society. Without doubt, well-educated parents, with appropriate level of literacy, wisdom and experience, have advantages over the illiterate and ignorant ones as they may have access to different materials on human or child psychology and parenting at their disposal to study and get better prepared or equipped to handle the ever changing and increasingly challenging myriad cases of behavioral disorders. Likewise, children who come from highly educated backgrounds are bound to more disciplined, intelligent and they may excel in most academic endeavors far better than their disadvantaged colleagues from down trodden, poverty stricken families as the former may have pre-school training or knowledge of most of the curricular and extracurricular activities. On top of that, the academicians and the rich used to create a very conducive atmosphere for effective learning in the homes through provision of most recent teaching and learning gadgets at home. Some even go extra mile to employ the services of private coaches to continue training their children after school.
