With all the uproar in Nigeria about #ChildNotBride in the last few days I have not stopped wondering about the plight of children in our world now. A lot of children have been parentified because adults are not taking the necessary responsibilities that come with having kids. So many people have children and just leave them to grow without guiding them through to adulthood. Do you know your kids? What impact are you making in their lives? You are not their landlord waiting to see them have their own houses too and then begin to take care of you. You are a parent.
In addition to producing or birthing the child, a parent is supposed to nurture and raise. I have decided to define the keywords which are nurture and raise.
According to www.thefreedictionary.com, to nurture is to nourish (feed), educate (train) and help grow or develop.
There are so many definitions of raise but I have picked two. To raise is to
(1) To move to a higher position (elevate)
(2) To increase in size, quantity, or worth
How many of us are actually doing this? It is not just enough to enroll our kids in school and then employ a nanny to be with them while we go about our own activities. We also need to get them prepared for the world.
Going through @deoluakinyemi’s #LureOfEasyMoney on twitter this morning makes me want to reiterate the fact that our kids are not too young to start learning about money. Experts say your child can understand lessons about money as soon as they can count. I absolutely agree with this because my younger son started learning about money from about 3 years. A toddler can understand that money is needed to buy things. They can understand that people earn money by working. They can be taught that sometimes they have to wait to get what they want; that’s delayed gratification. They can be taught to understand the difference between things we want and things we really need. These are tips that can help you lay a good foundation for your child with respect to money. Many of the ills in our society can be stopped if we teach the right values from as early as possible. I will appreciate it if you will join my campaign to teach every child the right values when it comes to money. I have a practical book that can help you and your children learn these. See https://gbonjubolasanni.wordpress.com/my-books/ for details on how you can pick a copy. Like my email signature says, “The building of the next generation starts with raising a strong child. We can make it happen one child at a time”. Let’s do it!
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- Are you a Parentified Child? (counselorssoapbox.com)