Schools shut, no learning due to coronavirus: A call of tasks on parents

The home is a great component of the society. Even though nowadays, in a typical time children spend most hours of day developing to be acceptable members of the society by the school osmosis; nevertheless, parental influence on children is above all and  incomparable. Hence, parents need to work together in order to achieve their shared aim, by taking responsibilities, on their own children in this trying time. Neither of them should be reluctant to take some parental responsibilities in the home.

Child upbringing requires great and concerted efforts. It requires getting ready for headaches through correcting and sometimes rebuking the children when there is noticeable deviance. Parents who tend to avoid headaches now, and turn a deaf ear to this call of duty should be ready of plenty of headaches when the children grow up. To this effect, parents should use this opportunity of lockdown to instill their children with morals, values, customs and norms, and assess and keep an eagle eye on their behaviours.

On the other hand, we cannot expect the children to develop and grow decently if during their impressionable years they were exposed to incessant quarrels, fears, jealousies, mischievousness, worries and hate. Parents, in this period, ought to be careful of letting differences in their marriage affairs interrupt the psyche development of their children, and soiling the children’s virgin intellects with some ugly behaviours.

Parents are expected to remain not only as parents but also as facilitators, counselors and spiritual heroes. It becomes incumbent upon the parents to cater for timetabling the activities in which their children should engage. It should be understood that enough time, maximum attention, and patience should be given to the children, most especially those with aphasia, dyslexia, dysgraphia or other forms of learning disabilities if we do not want them to become underachievers. The timetable should not only cater for their academic need but also for their emotional and spiritual needs.

In as much as the timetable is designed to cater for all these needs, methodology is imperative for effectiveness and a telling result in the end. Getting children involved, using examples which they can relate to and making learning fun to them hasten their understanding of the lesson contents and make them want to learn more and, by default, love learning.

“All work and no play makes jack a dull boy” is a popular English proverb, which has some significant effect on pedagogy. Just as learning is important to human development, so does play to brain. Play helps children grow emotionally. It is through play children develop new vocabulary, cognitive skills, physical abilities and social skills. However, in the course of surfing the internet to play some games, read some news or watch videos, children can be exposed to pornographic displays or any form of indecency, which can influence their behavior. Here, parents should monitor the kind of things their children are being exposed to and the amount of time being spent on screens per day because of its side effects on the sight.

To this end, sometimes children act up. And when this happens, parents need to think carefully about the language choices they make while correcting the children. Avoid criticizing your children always. Describe your children behaviours as bad, when need be, but do not label your children as bad. Teach them the word of God. See good things in them and praise them when they deserve so. Use this opportunity to remould your children. Remember that raising a child is like making a track for water to follow with a finger in the garden, even if the track goes astray, the water will follow it and not the water will be blamed in the end, but the finger.