INCULCATING GOOD VALUES IN YOUR CHILDREN

          

It is a fact that our environment is polluted with a lot of negative influence that can influence children wrongly.  Our media has not helped matters as well. Home movie written by people with wrong mindset are always there on our television. Musical videos showcasing lascivious scenes are rife sowing seeds of wrong influence to our children.  Nevertheless, wise parents can raise quality children with quality lives. To me, all wisdom is from God and knowledge came from man. The only true source of wisdom is God. Living by the principles stipulated by God in the word of God, the bible will definitely help. Parents that are initiated to biblical standard are surely to succeed in inculcating good values in their children.

The home environment can really be of good influence to children if parent can go extra mile in preserving and promoting good behaviour. Children are influenced for good or bad by their environment. To really impact good conduct and values into your children the following factors will be of immense help.

1. Create a home that is ruled by love. Love is not love until it is shared. You should run your home in such a way that love prevails. Sincere love should be shared between mother and father and to the children. Bonding between parents and children should be given room. The love should reflect giving intense interest in your children’s way of life. If you want to change the world you must first change yourself. Your daily living as parents should reflect love. Say thanks when you receive favour from people. Say sorry when you step on peoples toes. Have respect for people and their opinion. Do not allow greed into your family. Try to live with open mind. Owe no grudge for anything. Forgive those that offend you. Just be nice to people all the time. Love is sincere when you share it with every one around you not for your spouse alone. Be kind even more than you should be.

If you want your children to respect people around them, you should be one who respects people. Whatever you want your kids to do, do it first and they will learn by example. People who cannot change themselves cannot change others.   

2. Teach your children how to put God first in everything.

Your passion for God inspires your children for God. Live with the consciousness of pleasing God and you will influence your children to live that way. Your reverence for God rob off on them .Children are influenced by what they see and hear in their environment. If you walk with God by your attitude they will be influenced to do the same. Your life will teach them the potency of prayer and living by the will of God. Practice praying together daily and they will live that way all their lives. Teach them that the bible is the most important book in the world by how you hold unto it. If you attach great importance to the bible, you will influence your children to attach importance to it. Let your prayer point be lifted from the bible whenever you pray with them. Teach them how to claim promises from the bible by discovering the verses that gives them promises and let them know the verses.

3. Set and maintain routines in your home:

Teach your children etiquette. Train them to do domestics chores. Teach them time management by making out time for work, studies, prayer, exercise, watching movies or television Programmes, playing music e.t.c. .Programme their time for them and that will keep them busy. Time for rest should not be ignored. Time out for fun and get together should also be there for then. Life is fun if you learn not to waste time. Many children childhood are wasted. They used the time that is supposed to be invested into learning for playing. Many children in secondary today do not complete their school work load before their WAEC. This is because their times were not well managed. They wasted their time on things that never add any value to their lives. Time is like money, the way you spend it determines the value you will get from it. It is the duty of parents to make sure they avoid this waste of time. Time is an ultra valuable resource to mankind. It is free. All the most valuable resource to mankind is free. Other examples are the air we breathe. Without air we cannot live. Water is one. The brain is another valuable resource. Many waste these resources because they were never taught how to maximize them for success. Success is free. People just waste it and become poor and irrelevant to their society. Children should be nurtured to maximize their time doing things that add value to their lives. Time for reading can never be enough. There are a lot to learn. More time should be allotted to studies. You must teach them. Remember we learn every thing we do. If you want your children to know more, teach them to learn more. If they learn better, they will know better and if they know better, they will do better.

4. Exercise your authority: Discipline your child when necessary. Do not be harsh all the time so that they will know when you are serious. Learn to maintain a cordial relationship between you and your children and equally learn to correct them when they misbehave.Define rules and state clearly the things you don’t want in your home and be strict about your instructions. Devise a means to punish defaulters. Maintain a strict or rather modest force to make sure you have total control. Remember, they will leave your home one day, so within the period they are with you; they should be under your control and influence. Don’t forget that you need to strike a balance. There should modesty in you approach. Your aim is to raise them with wisdom. You must check their opinion and know when they are exhibiting a wise demeanour and allow them exercise their opinion. The rule here should not be hard and fast. The balance must be there.

5. Be wise enough to acknowledge their emotion and see how you can be of help. Always be sensitive to the emotion of your children. Dictate when they are happy and angry. Try to figure out when they are in trauma. Care to know what disturbs them and see how you can help with your counsel. Counsel them about relationship and sex before they learn it by experience or from friend outside. Your care and sincere counsel will make them get attached to you than anyone else outside the home. The mother or father can take up this aspect of training. It depends on who between the father and the mother that created better bonding. There is a need for bonding. You must start it before they get to adolescence stage. When you are the first person they ask question about their body change during the early puberty stage it means you have achieved bonding with your children.

6. Emphasize on the principles of character: Discuss the need for greetings, respect showing appreciation, humanity, alms giving, civic work, serving in the church etc. educating your children to be involved in work without immediate reward builds their character. Caution them when they disrespect anybody in your presence. Watch their attitude to others. Make sure they are not unnecessarily hostile to people. Ability to relate well with people is a treasure. That is human relation skill.  It is one important skill that should not be ignored in life. it is the core of leadership skill.

Emphasize on bad social habits like fighting, eating while walking on the road, talking while eating, dropping dirt on the road, urinating on the corner of the road etc. and advise them to do the right things. Children can learn if you teach them. Tell them why they should not do those things. Our environment reflects doing things wrong. Our leaders who are our fathers who are supposed to be the major source of influence have failed. They fight in the house of assembly, loot public fund, corruption in every corner but you can make your children make the difference. It is not everybody in Nigeria that is corrupt. The issue is that majority are on the wrong side. You can make the difference in your home. You can raise your children with a better value. You can raise godly children. The truth is that they will do better in life if they have better values.    

     

 

By: Comrade Arinze Okwara
Founder: MOCET