Parenting With A Difference 101: Please do not devour enterprise in your child

Changes are happening so rapidly in recent times. If you and I don’t pause, have a rethink, be willing to unlearn our ways and learn new ways of doing things. We will not survive the tsunami-like wind of change blowing. We have to dig in and make the foundations for ourselves and our families strong and firm or we would be blown away.

The technological changes, increasing automation, AI and so on is soon going to - if it is already not the case - make some of the prestigious professions we had and know irrelevant. For good reason I do not want to name any just yet, the signs are clear on the wall.

Our current school system is not structured to deal with this challenge as quickly and steadily as it should. Therefore parents and guardians have to supplement what their wards are getting from the school system.

By and large the curriculum and its implementation is not future proof, our children may end up in the pool of unemployment or underemployed. As things stand everybody being educated must polish up their ENTRPRENEURIAL SKILLS, deepen their GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS, learn BASIC LIFE SKILLS in addition to whatever skill they acquire. Indeed the aforementioned skills must be core of all learning.

Human being is innately entrepreneurial but the set of people who start to kill this spirit in them, in this specific case children are the parents and guardians which includes grandparents, uncles, aunts, teachers and so on often and dangerously unknowingly, by their actions.

What are these dangerous actions?

We all have to watch how we react to naughtiness of our children. A child pours his/her porridge on the carpet, spills food, breaks the glass/plate, when you are in the hurry to take him/her to school. What is the normal reaction? You get angry, spank or cane, right? You react like that because you term it disturbance, naughtiness and/or waste of time and that is intolerable.

Perhaps if you had viewed it as a mistake you would have been a little bit more measured in your reaction. It may be routine of him/her, that may well be away of screwing you up because you have become so predictable.

Doing normal things not produce extraordinary results. That enterpriser in your child is causing him/her to test the waters, to push the limit and you have to match it with patience, tact and finesse in your response.

Frightening your kids with creatures, we go like, ’l will let so, so and so catch you’. Or ‘ kakaii, kakalika, policeman, dog, goat come and catch him/her.’

You make fearful sounds at the child. You are instilling the fear of the creatures into the child. Only The Creator Almighty God must be feared and even that it shouldn’t be achieved through frightening the child. Fright hits at quality of courage which is an indispensable element all entrepreneurs must have in abundance.

Mistakes are part of human endeavour, we as adults make many them. So must children be allowed to make them too. Of course they must be guided and guarded, but under no circumstance should it be made to seem that mistakes are criminal. They must know that it is normal to make mistakes sometimes, what they should do regularly is to correct it. Correction is a must.

Your reaction when you glance through their work to their scores is crucial. No harsh criticism or flogging, encourage them to do better next time and if the correction hasn’t been done let him/her know corrections shouldn’t be toyed with under any situation.

If you don’t act right, you end up instilling the fear of mistakes him/her. They would hide their books from you or rip out pages on which they scored low marks or copy from friends to score high marks to please you.

The child should not fear to make mistakes in their class exercises or hide their mistakes as though it is a crime. One big quality of extraordinary achievers most of whom are enterprisers is their readiness to make mistakes and learn vital lessons from it. It has to be cultivated from infancy.

In sports like football and basketball the top scorers are mostly those who miss the most shoots too. The Ronaldos, Messis and Gyans missed more goals from attempts to score than they have scored that notwithstanding they top the scorers charts. Michael Jordan scored so many shoots, but that was because he did not fear to miss.

Entrepreneurs will tell you they have lost money, they have miss opportunities deals but they kept at it until they reached where they are today.

Adolescent because of their propensity to put up delinquent behaviour, act annoyingly, but once again you must exercise moderation your response. Words can break more than the bones of the person they hit. Ridiculing and insults because they unable to do some well or properly especially, those in the age of adolescence has the potential of lulling their confidence.

Your criticism must be constructive at all times. If you don’t know how to do it, unlearn easy one and learn how to do constructive criticism. Don’t destroy your God –given seeds with your own ‘poisonous’ words.

They need your support all the way especially when they grumpy and not acting right keep your cool, it’s a challenging period of life for them from emotional, hormonal, physiological, educational, physical, psychological and so on. They need your empathy so badly.

The will to try some new or different is shattered when they are made to feel idiotic. Most entrepreneurial ideas initially sounds and seems preposterous until they are brought into actualization.

Laisse faire approach in child-upbringing is very likely to lead the child into becoming either dull with no initiative or reckless. They need to be guided, the must not be left on his/her in the name of building them up to be confident and independent.

Even adults need mentorship and monitoring to move new levels in their endeavours. We need to mould these i.e children, precious asserts with future proof skills using patience, perseverance and persistence in our dealings.

I dedicate this week’s write up to our latest member of the family my beautiful HAJARA ABOTAR SHABAN, we thank Almighty God for making it possible you to join as at this time of ourselves. May He grant you His Choicest of Blessings in both worlds.

Rayhann Shaban

Parent – Child Relationship Coach

Lead Education

Advocate Development Networks [ADN]

[email protected]