25th November, 2014
By Modupe Eka
Last time we discussed parenting our children according to their God design that is parenting them according to their personality as oppose to our own script. We discussed how we often assume that what is ‘best’ means that our children should live their lives according to the scrip that has worked for us.
Without realizing it, we try to create carbon copies of ourselves. We examined all dangers that arise from such assumption and better ways to parent our children; we looked into our roles and responsibilities as parents and how to create a happy healthy family. Today we shall be looking at raising happy, healthy, self-confident children.
The most important and enduring relationship that you can ever enter into begins when you bring a child into the world, and the most important single role of parenting is to love and nurture your child, build in them high feeling of self-esteem and self confidence.
The growing child develops a healthy personality in the direct proportion to the quality and quantity of the love he or she receives from primarily the parents. Many times parents do not love enough to fulfil the child’s emotional needs.
The first reason for not loving your child enough is that parents do not love themselves because of low-self esteem and destructive criticism in their own childhood. As the saying goes you cannot give what you do not have. Another reason is that many parents believe that their children exist to satisfy their expectations; they look upon their children as a form of property and treat them as such.
Personality and behaviour problems with children can usually be traced back to their parent’s attitude. Children need love like flowers need rain and sunshine, children fail to grow and thrive mentally and emotionally because of love withheld by parents.
Lack of love real or imagined, has consequences in the mental and emotional health of the growing child. The key to raising supper kids is to give them an unbroken flow of unconditional love and acceptance laid on a solid foundation of their personality/individuality.
As parents it is key for us to discover our children’s unique behavioural styles, the more you understand yourself and your child the better you will be able to adapt the way you relate to them and this will assist to be more successful at helping them become who God created them to be.
While we aim to let our children be themselves, we must establish healthy boundaries that we choose for parenting relationship. Healthy boundaries are like fences, when we stay inside them, we are free to explore, interact and grow into adulthood. If we can engineer an environment which causes our children to respond in positive ways we will create a happy healthy relationship, a win-win situation.
Parenting is all about you, it is a legal and social responsibility. Children can also take our discovery report for kids, with the information you generate for you and your child you can learn your similarities and differences. Then you can adapt your style to suit your child’s style when relating and teaching your child.
Next time we will look at the D,I,S,C. model of human behaviour and use it to define tips for the different personality behaviours. See you at the Top.
•Modupe Eka is a consultant, trainer of the D.I.S.C model of human behavior, a graduate of English language, with teaching background, she is a Public speaker and by practice a counsellor and an expert in relationship and communication she runs seminars and workshop for cooperate and private institutions on topics as sexual health, parent/child relationship and cooperate/ effective team building. She has organized and runs various youth empowerment programs. Together with her team they have done extensive work with many Redeemed Christian Church of God parishes within the Lagos environs.
For contact and enquires [email protected]. [email protected] 08023426953