Introduction
Parenting is a vital tool in the training of every child, if handled very well with the help of God, brings forth the result of wonderful children and if neglected, the result will be nothing to write home about. Parenting has its primary place in the family. It is perfectly obtained in the family. There are now many ways parents train their children which contribute to the present situation of neo-paganism. It is now of an important role for this article to explain family, duties of parents in the training of children, poor parenting and how poor parenting can be a cause of neo-paganism. Continue Reading..,......
Family
The Catechism of the Catholic Church on a clear note states, “The Christian Family constitutes a specific revelation and realization of ecclesial communion, and for this reason it can and should be called a domestic church” (CCC 2204). “The family is a community in which, from childhood, one can learn moral values, begin to honour God and make good use of freedom. Family life is an initiation into life in society” (CCC2207). In extension, family is the first church, first school, first market, first social club and so on that children belong to and attend in life. If that is the case, then the training a child receives at home creates a greater impact on the child’s life. Oxford Dictionary says that family is, “A group consisting of one or two parents and their children. A group consisting of one or two parents, their children and close relations. All the people who are related to each other including those who are now dead.”
Duties of Parents in the Training of Children
The joy and the duty of a conjugal love cannot be reduced only to the procreation of children, the training of children in morals and spiritual formation is added to the obligations. This role of parents educating their children has not found an adequate substitute.
Love: The first duty of parents towards their children is to love them. Nature inculcates this clearly, and it is customary to describe parents who lack this affection as unnatural. This love makes parents to see their children as gifts from God and God’s children. This love drives parents to always see the good in their children and do everything possible to bring forth the best in their children. This love manifests in some ways and one of the ways is that it is of a great benefit and act of love for parents to call their children from time to time to advice them. This advice must not come only when an offence is committed, rather it should form part of the family program.
Trust and Understanding: A child is naturally inclined to trusting the parents. Since children trust their parents, it will be a wonderful thing for the parents to reciprocate this trust of the children and also trust and understand them. If there is a mutual understanding and trust between parents and children, home training will always yield positive result. If there is a parent-child trust and understanding between children and parents, children will open up to their parents in their challenges and seek necessary help, but when there is none, they will seek for that outside the home and may get deformed instead of formed.
Practical Witnessing: It was Pope Paul IV who said that modern man listens more to witnesses than preachers and even if he listens to preachers, it is because they first of all are witnesses. If parents are training their children to be better people in life, they should also live a better life so that their children will learn from them. Practical examples stick more to the memory than words. Parents should show the good they want from their children in their own lives.
Provision of Basic Needs of the Children: Most times some parents deny their children the opportunity of getting their basic needs from them in the name of training and that will lead some children to do anything, go anywhere to get what they need. These basic needs are the needs of parental love and care, parental availability, adequate food, shelter, school training, clothing and so on.
Prayer: After teaching the apostles about prayers, they said to Jesus, “we ought to pray always and never lose heart” (Luke 18:1). In our lives, we need to always pray because, if the Lord does not build a house, the labourers work in vain and if the Lord does not watch over the city, in vain does the watchman keep vigil (Psalm 127:1), we should always fall back to God in prayers to help us in the training of our children.
Poor Parenting
Poor parenting can be seen as failures in the duties or obligations of the parents to their children. It can also be the inability to provide the necessary training needed by a child from the parents. This poor parenting can manifest in some ways. They are:
Lack of Availability: Many of our contemporary parents are so much busy and occupied in the search for livelihood and forgetting the essence of the live they are working for. Because of the busy nature of some parents, children are now left in the hands of school teachers and housemaids to do the primary function of parents in the family and some of these teachers and housemaids may not be interested in forming the lives of these children entrusted to them, rather, they are interested in the remunerations that come from it.
Denial of Freedom: Locking up children in the house denying them freedom to make friends is a serious lack in the parenting of children. Children should have freedom to make friends and also visit their friends, only watchful and careful look should be applied (not monitoring to find faults but to give lovely corrections). If the freedom is denied, once the person sees an opportunity, the person will utilize and misuse it and that will cause more harm than good.
Lack of Appreciation: Some children are living in almost perpetual hatred for either parents or even the two because their actions have never been appreciated and they have never been thanked. Ordinary “Weldon or thank you or I am sorry” can go a long way to make our children better in the society but some parents lack it because they claim monopoly of power. Do not be fault seekers but lovely teachers. Do not always blame them; also encourage them even in their failures so that they will make effort to rise above them than always condemning them.
Lack of Interest in the Lives of Children: Some parents do not pay attention to the lives their children are living. Most parents are no longer determining the schools their children attend, what they watch, where they go etc. Children are now allowed to do whatever they like and whatever the way they like it.
How Poor Parenting can be a Cause of Neo-Paganism
Having highlighted areas where there can be poor parenting, we can see how they can contribute to the present situation of increase in neo-paganism. Many young people are now going back to paganism their parents left to embrace Christianity. In a summary form, unavailability of parents can lead the children to joining groups that they should not join and learning what they would have avoided because their parents are not available to direct them. Lack of love many push some children to think that the fake things they see among their peers in the society is the love they need and join them to pursue a course that they do not know. Freedom with responsibility is always advised to enhance healthy training. If children are denied of their basic freedom, they may see every opportunity as a true one and will like to utilize it; this in turn may lead them back to paganism. Peers are always good in appreciating their fellow in whatever he or she has done. If appreciation is lacked in the family, children may think that the ones they get from peers are the best and they will put in whatever they have to get it and fall back to paganism. In all, lack of interest in the lives our children live is a serious lack in the training of every child. If the interest is not there, there will be no corrections, advice, checks and balances of the lives of the children and these help in the increment in the number of young people going back to paganism.
Conclusion
It is not that we have exhausted all but with these, we can see where our problems lie. St. Thomas Aquinas made us to understand that virtue lies in the middle. We should remember that leaving children untrained will spoil them; likewise over training them will destroy them. A child should not be ignored when attentions should be given and attentions should also be reduced when they are not needed. We should not pamper children to spoil them and we should not be too strict on them. Let us know the vitality of home training and apply every possible measure to get the best of it. Home training forms the foundation of life for every child and we should make that foundation to be strong. Leaving our children untrained or training them badly or training them poorly will only gain us harvest of bad society and serious increase in neo-paganism.
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