Osagie-Oboh seeks enhanced family values amongst children

In a bid to ensure that family values and systems impact society, a parenting and family coach, Oluwatoyin Osagie-Oboh, has called for reorientation in families to drive change.

At a workshop organised by Jewels Leading Lights Academy tagged ‘Digital Parenting: Cyber Security and Online Safety for Families’ as part of its activities to commemorate the 2023 International Families Day with theme ‘Families and New Technology’, Osagie-Oboh said there was need for the government to establish parenting education centres particularly in rural areas for reorientation of families.

She said that due to economic hardship, most kids were raising themselves in the most improper manner.

“The income earning level of people has really dropped; everything is going up and status is not improving. We need to pay attention to creating skills as this is affecting the family.
“When income drops, the access to quality education drops. So a lot of children in the suburbs are raising themselves; the parents don’t know what to do. They are not informed and we have immorality ravaging our children. Don’t forget that these are the children that will be involved in policy making in the future,” she said.

On the use of technology, Osagie-Oboh, who is also the Director of Jewels Leading Lights Academy, urged parents not to shut their kids out completely but rather empower them to make positive use of digital tools, stressing that making children understand the right from the wrong would help build them to be self-disciplined.

“Your child should be able to shut down a content and say this is not for me, this is not my family value and be able to make his or her choices, because what we want is a technologically knowledgeable child and not a novice, because then the repercussions will be that they will not be able to compete in their world,” Osagie-Oboh added.

She further urged parents to make concerted efforts to spend quality time with their children, place family values that will direct their children’s lives and not only concentrate on providing material needs.

“One of the sacrifices for family is time, which to a child is love. Sometimes we think providing all the material things is going to be enough but if we are absent it is never the same,” she added.

She further stressed the need for men to be involved in child parenting, urging women to model parenting to their husbands by cajoling them to it.

According to her, men are not trained to take part in chores and parenting but could be taught.

“Naturally men are not inclined to be involved in the family works because that was what was modelled to them. So, as a mother you will have to model that to your husband; you market it not by complaining, nagging and fighting. That will push him away,” she warned.