Group tasks parents on positive parenting Attitude.

By Lazarus Zakaa, Abuja

The Convener, Parents Summit Africa, Mrs. Vivian Okoye has charged families to imbibe positive parenting attitude to their children in-order to build a better and responsible nation.

Speaking at the annual free Summit in Abuja on the theme, “Equipping You to Raise Children Who Are Wholesome, Resilient and Nation Builders’’ in Abuja, Mrs. Okoye said that parenting style is important, because it predicts how children perform in the domains of social competence, psychosocial development, academic performance and problem behaviour.

Convener, Parents Summit Africa, Mrs. Vivian Okoye

While stressing that the Summit was organized with the aim to equip parents with the knowledge and skills needed to take on the responsibility of parenting the 21st century children, Mrs. Okoye said that bad parenting was responsible for most of the challenges confronting the nation today.

‘’The true Nigerian parenting style includes tough love, discipline, instilling a sense of responsibility, diligence at home chores’’, she said.

She however lamented that the Nigerian parenting style has evolved adding that the parenting style today seems to be more lenient. ‘’everything has changed. Even the educational style has changed.

‘’we have all heard of the stories of the aunties or neighbours who would beat a child for misbehavior and when the parent was informed, the parent would also be sure to add their own “beating” for good measure.

‘’Children are no longer expected to go the rote style of learning/instructions, or only expected to speak when spoken to and the disappearance of corporal punishment back in our days being flogged at school was expected, being taunted by teachers if you were too “slow” was normal and being disciplined in front of your class was normal.
‘’If you didn’t want these to happen to you, you simply ensured you behaved yourself. Today all these methods of discipline are seen as humiliating and degrading.

‘’The problems we face as a society is because we have failed at the individual levels and at the family levels. In our own capacity, we can do more to change the narrative.

“My advice is that parenting starts from you so you have to actually become the kind of person you want your child to become, not just saying or asking. The children are looking at what you are doing and your attitude. No Child deserve to be exposed to things that he cannot handle,” she added.

Earlier, Kingsley Bangwell co founder, Parents Summit Africa advise parents who leave their children in the care of maids to strike a balance by giving adequate time to them on order to know them better.

Kingsley Bangwell co founder, Parents Summit Africa

‘’As we celebrate our independence anniversary, it is important to point out the fact that family play a lead role in every society. The family plays a large extent in defining how every society emerged. The quality of family, parenting, the kind of values that were transmitted at the family level defines the quality and ethical fiber of every society.
‘’That is why we set aside a day like this to look at very important successor of the society which is the family. To see how is family contributing to nation building so that the key stakeholders at the family level that is the man, woman will furthermore review, how they have been parenting because eventually, the impact of their parenting role is felt by the larger society.

Middle: Convener, Parents Summit Africa, Mrs. Vivian Okoye
Middle: Convener, Parents Summit Africa, Mrs. Vivian Okoye

‘’Our society today is defined by a lot of negative value, you open the news what you are hearing is either a fraud has been uncover by this government agency or there is insecurity or there is kidnapping or there is bombing and all of that.

‘’And like i always say all of these people have families so what happened at the family level, what are the virtues that were imbibed to those people because if they had imbibed the right values, we will have a better society’’, he added.

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