The period of Early Childhood care and Education is the most essential part of nurturing a child into full adulthood. This crucial period is pertinent to achieving Education for All, a goal that has often been treated as an adult-literacy issue alone. To make education accessible to all, we must start at the early stage, and that involves largely the input of parents, who are the primary caregivers.
UNESCO curated a parenting handbook that covers community parenting, health and nutrition of the child, and even care for the child during pregnancy. The handbook may not be universal because of local laws and cultural differences, but the application of its recommendations is universal, because a child is a child everywhere.
Parenting is the process of raising and educating a child from birth to adulthood. Some rules make that experience more successful:
- Don’t clip your child’s wings. Children should be given the opportunity to explore and go beyond extreme monitoring. They should be groomed to be independent, from putting away toys themselves to making first attempts at assignments.
- Remember that discipline is not punishment. Discipline means teaching kids how to behave and helping them become competent and in control, not depriving them of their basic needs.
- Play with your children. Playing games or having fun with your children makes them feel loved and accepted, and builds a bond with them.
- Tell them the truth. You want your kids to be trustworthy and truthful; model that for them.
- Show love to your spouse in their presence. When you express love to their mum or dad in front of them, extending it to their own relationships won’t feel strange.
- Be positive in words and affirmations. Regular compliments and words of appreciation are very instrumental in motivating children.
- Say ‘no’ when necessary. Not every request is right at the time it’s made. Learn to say no when needed, and explain why.
- Give yourself a break. It’s not a bad idea to take time off from the stressful duty of parenting. You need to be in the right state of mind to give the best nurturing experience to your children.
This list is non-exhaustive, because every child and every family is different, so choose the ones you can relate to and be a better parent.
Dada Precious Tolulope