Parenting: The everyday moments shaping your child's future

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At a café in Ngong town, Alice Njoroge juggles work and motherhood. As customers stream in, her two-year-old son, Maina, sits quietly in a corner watching cartoons on a phone.

"Just five minutes," she whispers as she serves a client. The silence is convenient, but experts warn it can come at a cost.

Child psychologist George Oganda says the first five years are critical for brain development, with everyday interactions shaping a child's sense of security.

"When a child calls your name or reaches out, they are asking: Are you there? Do you see me?" says family coach Lisa Wanjiru. How parents respond through touch, words and attention helps shape how children relate to the world.

Violet Syombua, mother of three-year-old Abby Mueni, recalls being told she was spoiling her child by picking him up too often. "When I respond quickly, he calms down faster, and so do I," she says.

Wanjiru describes this as secure attachment—not perfect parenting, but consistently seeing, holding and soothing a child.

"It is the first language a child learns," she says, shaping how they handle stress, build relationships and see themselves.

Experts stress that young children cannot regulate emotions alone. They borrow calm from adults. When a parent lowers their voice, pauses, or holds instead of pushing away, they are teaching regulation - the quiet disruptor.

Screens, however, can slip in as substitutes. They offer silence but not connection. "What looks like calm on the outside may be disconnection on the inside," Wanjiru warns.

Oganda insists parenting in the early years rarely looks dramatic. No report cards, no medals. Just feeding, bathing, soothing, playing. Yet beneath the surface, a brain is learning how to think, an emotional system how to cope, a human being what it means to be safe and loved.

"Work and manners never killed a child. They only prepared them for life," says grandmother Lucy Kituyi from Kitale.

Often overlooked, fathers play a critical role from the very beginning. Oganda notes that bonding is not delayed until a child can talk. From birth, fathers influence emotional and social growth through touch, play, and presence.

Take Peter Mwangi, a boda boda rider in Limuru. His evenings are spent tossing his toddler in the air, singing off-key lullabies, and inventing games with bottle tops. "It's the only time I feel like I'm not just working to survive," he says.

These small rituals, experts say, are not trivial. They are the architecture of resilience.

Screens are seductive. They buy parents time, offer quiet, and sometimes even educational content. But experts caution that overuse, especially under age two, can crowd out the very interactions children need most.

"It's not about demonising technology. It's about awareness. Connection matters more than content. Watching together, talking about what's on screen, that's where learning happens," says Wanjiru.

According to the expert, play is not optional; it is the laboratory of childhood. Through stacking cups, hide and seek, or singing songs, children learn problem-solving, creativity, and social skills.

In Kibera, six-year-old Amina Abdullah builds castles from discarded cartons. Her mother, Halima, joins in, pretending to be a queen. "We don't have toys, but we have imagination," Halima says.

Experts affirm that play does not require expense. It requires presence.

Whether a child is at home or in daycare, what matters most is responsiveness and warmth, and supervision alone is not enough, as children thrive when caregivers engage, not just watch.

Wainainah Kiganya, a counselling psychologist, says that young children cannot manage big emotions alone. "They learn by watching adults. When parents name emotions - 'You're upset' - and offer comfort, children begin to internalise those responses," he says.

It is not grand gestures but repeated everyday interactions, a laugh shared, a cry answered, that shape character.

"The first five years are not school rehearsal; they are rehearsal for life. Parents are shaping their children whether they realise it or not, and the question is not if, but how," concludes Oganda.