PARENTS AS TEACHERS BY @emyekanem, 09/10/2021.

Forty years ago or more, it was understood that the responsibility of schools was to teach the three 'R's,- Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic. Even twenty years ago the role of schools in child raising was clearly defined as that of giving the pupil and students the academic tools for future success. But today, the story is very different. It appears that schools are expected to raise children and take charge of all the tasks involved in child upbringing and training and whenever a child goes contrary to expected norms, it is more common to hear, "I don't know what children are being taught in schools nowadays," than "I wonder what parents are doing to bring up their children right!"

It appears that, with the current trend of dual income families and everyone struggling to "keep up with the Joneses", the entire responsibility of training and teaching children everything they need to know has been pushed to the school while parents are very comfortable with their sole role in a child's life being of providing money for all wants. This situation is totally absurd and must be changed in the best interest of our children.

The truth is that we must go back to the old ways. Those ancient ways of doing things were actually the right way, especially, in this matter of child raising. The parents MUST go back and take on their God-given responsibility of being the child's first and best teacher. Let us examine the ways in which parents are expected to be teachers and what both the parents and child stand to gain when this is implemented or lose when it is not.

As any student of social studies will tell you, the home is the primary social group. This is just a fancy way of saying that every child is born into a home. ( While we are aware that there are a few unfortunate exceptions to this, for our purpose here, we will be dealing with children that are from a traditional family). Thus most "firsts" that the child will experience should be experienced at home. The design by God, who designed and created the home is for the child to be born into the home with parents who will take the time to nurture and groom the child in the admonition of the Lord. A situation where a baby is born and without the parents taking any time to begin the training of the child, he is sent off to school to be cared for by others , is contrary to the plan of the home by the designer of the home.

I know that I will probably offend quite a few parents who will get to read this , but truth must be told. I do not mean to preach a sermon here cos I don't even know how to. But if we are trying bro raise our children as God would have us do, then we must take some time to revisit His design and try to shape our home to suit that design. Parents, the time has come when we all must stop pushing our responsibilities of parenting unto others and step up to the bat. As can be seen all around us, decadence and indiscipline have become the order of the day. I make bold to say that the primary cause of this is the failure of parents to understand that God designed them to be the first teacher that their children have.

You may ask, "so are you saying that parents should not send children to school?" Of course not. That would be ridiculous. I am however saying that even before children are born, parents should plan for how they are going to fulfill their obligations of being their children's first teachers. If that means that working schedules and hours need to be adjusted, then so be it. If it means that one parent might need to change jobs, then that must be done. Whatever steps parents need to take to ensure that, before their children leave their care and enter the care of others, they have given them the basic foundation on which to build their lives and attitudes, must be boldly and courageously taken by parents.

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For avoidance of doubt, I will here outline a few things that no parent should allow someone else to teach their child:

• parts of the body and parts of the body that shouldn't be touched by anybody.
• anything about sex.
• common courtesy.
• greetings
• how to dress themselves
• how to feed themselves
• their mother tongue
• religion and worship of God
• how to beware of strangers
• who to receive gifts from, etc

If you, as a parent, allow your child to leave your care (i.e. leave you as the primary caregiver) without ensuring that these things outlined above are well taught by you, you may be taking a very great risk with your child's future. The time has come when parents must revisit the old ways and take back that which was good. We must realize that just because it is done like that in Europe, does not make it right for us. parents must refuse just to be money providers for their children and must take back their pride of place as a child's first (and indeed best!) teacher!

Anyone who has been blessed to actually have a parent who took the time to do what I advocate above will quickly concur with me that of all the gifts given them by their parents, none is as valuable and has lasting results as their time. Before I end, let me quickly state that this matter of parents being first and best teachers is not limited to when the children are babies or toddlers. As long as the child is in your house, it is your duty as his parents to continue to make out quality time to ensure that you remain his or her favourite teacher. If we take time to implement these, we will surely see a great change in the way our children behave and before long our society will show signs of returning to those good old days!

Thank you very much for staying with me to the end