1 week Ago By AKINROPO AKINOLA
The quality of the messages in the instructions we communicate to children plays more important roles than the instructions in shaping their development and the behavior we hope to model in them. With their impressionable mind, children absorb and internalize the values, beliefs, and attitudes conveyed through the quality of these messages; whether verbal or nonverbal. The clarity and the consistency of the positive tones deployed will help build their confidence, self-esteem, and understanding of the world view around them.
The instruction we pass notwithstanding, parents must be mindful of what they say and how they say it; as these messages can have a lasting impact on their growth and perception of themselves and others, so the most important thing we can do is to ensure children get the right messages and what those right messages are. With respect to every parent, I know that raising children in this time and age does not get easier, because parents have other more pressing priorities in caring for their children, namely among; how to navigate economic and social challenges, how to navigate family dynamics, parents emotional well-being, and heath care challenges. These challenges notwithstanding, before parents know it, these children have fully grown up, and these other priorities keep growing by the day with little or no time for quality engagement because we have inadvertently made it situational as against a culture of intentional engagement.
Without deliberate consideration of what messages we want to communicate to children, the result, at best, the messages we send will be random and largely missed by them. And at worst, we would have successfully sent entirely wrong set of messages to them. The question now is; how do we figure out what the right messages are? Let us share this short interesting survey: I once asked six to 13 years old children about what they wanted from their parents.
See how the results were ranked; 1. They wanted more attention and for the parents to be more available, 2. They wanted to be loved, 3.
They wanted more one-on-one engagement with each of their parents where they could be free to ask questions without any judgment or harassment, 4. They were not scared of rules and regulations even they sometimes resist 5. They wanted to be protected in more loving ways so they’d feel safe in a world of uncertainties.
(I asked them how do they want this shown? they responded they wouldn’t mind spontaneous expression show of protection, like parents checking them up in the night while on bed and read a few story lines with them 6. They did not like been yelled at by their parents 7. They wanted their parents to be more fun and engaging With these discoveries confirmed the scripture, out of the mouth of the babies and nursing infants you have ordained strength Let us take this further by asking you to share your own experiences as children assuming you were one of the above children in the survey with these formations.
– What was the emotional tone of the message your parents raised you with? – What values were expressed in your family? For instance, faith, love, empathy, relationship, or entertainment – What beliefs, tradition, culture or attitude were evident in your family? For instance, male child, girl child, religion – What recreational activities or social experiences did your family share? – What healthy messages did you receive as a child that you want to pass across to your children? – What unhealthy messages did you receive as a child that you don’t want to pass to your children? – What messages will you like to instill in your children? These are some of the qualities of a good message. I encourage you to explore messages that may be different from mine as stated above because I believe our values, cultures and tradition which are the sources of messages are different but the core of this is we want the messages in our instruction to the children to be clear and pure. Your goal is to establish an agreed-upon set of messages and create henceforth a powerful and cohesive system that will increase the chances of your children getting the messages that you want them to get.
How do you want everyone in the home addressed? Make it engaging. Engaging messages get through to the children. I conclude the episode of Beyond situational instruction to a culture of intentional engagement by letting you know that one of the important benefits of bringing this to the front burner is that it will help your household resolve conflict before they arise.
Imagine a home with clear, simple, and loving messages is a home that nurtures family unity and cohesiveness, such family has migrated from situational instructions to a culture of intentional engagement Let us do more as adults around the precious children to make our messages get through..
