Do Children pick up the behavior of their Parents? Read to know…
How well of an influence are you to your children? This article is meant for all parents out there and to other interested minds. You are all welcome!
On this website, I use real life stories and personal experiences in whatever I write. And, with the experience I have gathered through the interview I have had with people, they attribute most of their discipline to their parental upbringing.
Firstly, I want parents to understand that between the ages of 1-18years, your child’s character is still moulding and it is greatly influenced by the attitude they see you display at home and outdoors.
On this ground, I say YES! Children pick up either Negative or Positive behaviors of their parents. You do not expect to see a child who had a very rough upbringing to behave properly between the ages of 1-18years. The only condition where the child may begin to think for himself is when he is left alone to see life the way it is. I feel surprised when I see parents who always tell lies in front of their children and later they scold the children because they lied to them – hello! Things do not work that way. You are the first Leader your child knows and they look up to whatever you do.
As a parent, there are a lot of things you will sacrifice in order to give your children the best training you want of them and you must understand that you have to pass through some discomfort – that’s discipline. For instance, I always tell people that parent’s shouldn’t watch some kinds of video in front of their children no matter how interesting the home video may seem to be. In short, do not even tell the child to leave the parlor so that you will be comfortable to watch it. Do not attempt saying things like “Go to the room and sleep, this movie is not for your age” because this will give them the impression that you as the parent wants to do something bad but you do not want them to do the same. The best thing to do is to simply avoid watching the movie or you can watch it when your child has gone out of the house, either to school or to play with a friend.
More so, I am one of the children who picked up the Positive attitude from her parent. My first speeches were written for me by my dad; that was where it all began. I will have to memorize and memorize then present it to him before the D-day of the presentation. He taught me self-confidence and hardwork; he will always tell me that “Hardwork will never kill me”. Whenever I wake up in the middle of the night, my dad is always awake studying or writing his book. He was used to the habit of waking I and my siblings in the middle of the night to study. Till today, I haven’t departed from these behaviors as they are still burning fresh within my blood.
Now, on the Negative influence, I will share the story of my friend.
I had a childhood friend who stayed around my vicinity and was some classes ahead of me in primary school. Just as every normal child, he played and acted normally or not too badly between the ages of 5-7years. But as time went on and he became older, he got worse. He had a father who drinks and smokes in front of him, in short, when his father drinks, he calls his son and gives him a bottle of alcohol to drink along with him. The father will say “Nwatakiri cho imebi ga emebi” which translates to English as “A child that wants to spoil will spoil”.
This continued and years on, his son became a problem and headache to the family as he joined bad gangs, became a cultist and kept on drinking and smoking without control.
Certainly, the father contributed to what the son turned out to be.
It is a wrong notion to say that a child that wants to spoil will spoil, it is totally wrong. As a parent, your number one responsibility is to help in developing the character of your children. Remember, you have a 70% portion of blame for whatever character (Good or bad) your child puts up. So,begin now to make the necessary corrections.
There are so much more experience I will love to share with you, but, I am unable to write all of them here. Kindly keep up with the posts on this website for more encouragements and stories towards living positively.
Daalu rinne.
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