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Today’s parents are too soft

Parenteen
 Parents with their children Photo:Courtesy

Someone once said, “A child educated only in school is an uneducated child.” How I wish some parents could read and understand this statement or, better yet, put it into action.

The other day, students from a high school disappeared from school only to appear six days later with the sorry excuse that they were being mistreated at school. Apparently, to them, discipline is mistreatment. Why would a student run away from school and disappear for six days because of ‘mistreatment’?

If indeed they were being mistreated and wanted to break free, I believe their first destination would have been their homes. Not somewhere in the ‘streets’, as they claim, for six days. Who does that anyway? Their cries might have been genuine but how they handled the situation is what raises eyebrows.

At first, I thought that maybe they chose to go missing in action because their parents are harsh but shock on me! All I saw was sweet soft-spoken parents who sided with their children even when it was clear one plus one was not adding up to two! What happened to our parents?

Sometimes I see cases in schools unfold these days and I am left wondering which schools parents go to these days. Maybe, just maybe, they have left everything to the teachers.

Woe unto you if you are such a parent. The one who has left all the responsibilities to the teachers assuming that all they have to do is sit pretty back at home and wait for a perfect breed of a child who will be the envy of the society.

If my parents were to resurrect this minute and see the kind of unwanted support other parents give to their children these days, it’s no doubt they would fall right back into their graves and die a second death! The case of the high school students who disappeared has reminded me of the many cases I have recently witnessed.

Some parents have given teachers a stern warning not to lay their hands on their children no matter what! This also applies to their domestic assistants. They are advised to strictly leave the disciplinary action to them.

So if a spoilt brat pours food all over the house knowingly, as a domestic assistant, you are required to clean the house, softly warn the child and wait for the parent to discipline them once they get back from work.

Guess how they are disciplined in such cases? They are told if they do it again, they will not go for skating, bungee jumping or whatever when they want to. How on earth do you discipline a toddler eight hours after he/she did wrong? Will they even know why they are being denied the goodies? I believe for discipline to be effective, it must be done almost immediately a wrong is committed.

Those high school runaways should have been dealt with immediately they got to the media house. They know all too well where they had been for the six days. I can bet it wasn’t on the streets and they were not sharing one packet of ‘Njiva’ as they claimed.

The winds of change are blowing seriously! If a parent can now embrace and whisper sweet words into the ears of a spoilt brat after they do wrong, then the wind has blown away everything on its path. Children must learn to live this life as it comes. This is Kenya and nothing comes easy.

When you see something wrong, use the right channel to communicate. Parents must also learn to help in the upbringing of their children and not leave everything to the teachers. The teachers can only do so much. Look after a tree and it will look after you.

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