Parents and bandits

According to research, children in an average home spend more hours watching the television than the total number of hours spent at school or with their parents.

Using a certain home as a case study, researchers discovered that the average total time the children in that home spent in communication with their parents was a shocking 10 minutes daily. The children in that home spend most of their time with the television, social media and friends.

Children tend to grow in the direction they spend more time with. The research goes on to say that, children now get leadership from T.V. or the Internet or with whoever they spend most of their time with.

It is, therefore, advisable that parents calculate and regulate the number of hours their children spend watching T.V., on the Internet, and with friends and associates. Failure by many Nigerian parents to spend time to parent their children has resulted in the television, social media and bandits recruiting and providing leadership for their children.

It is very unfortunate that the baton of leadership in most homes has been passed on to Tom and Jerry, false celebrities and bandits. God did not create the family to be led this way. He made the family dependent on human relationships.

Parents should control what their children watch and the time they spend watching it or else their children will grow farther from them and closer to things that will not benefit them.

As forms of relaxation and entertainment, plan family-oriented games and select proper television programmes that will aid adequate leadership and in turn cause family bonding.

Adults should be an example by regulating the time they spend with T.V. and their computers. They should in turn regulate that of members of their households too.

Parents should, therefore, focus on spending more time with their children and thereby providing them with good values and morally sound leadership.

One of the most important requirements of parents is to mould the conscience of their children. No child can grow into having a proper conscience if Tom and Jerry, the social media and bandits are those they spend more of their time with.

Every child should be taught the difference between what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad. There is no way Tom and Jerry and other cartoon figures are going to teach your children to have a sense of what is right and what is wrong. Tom and Jerry teach children how to play pranks and not values.

When the Bible tells parents to “train up a child in the way he should go…” it is a leadership responsibility given to parents and not to friends or bandits or cartoon characters. Provide leadership for them and teach them daily about the consequences of doing evil and the benefits of doing good.

Some months ago, a young boy who was arrested for armed robbery told the press and the police that he was not brought up to have a sense of what is wrong and what is right because his parents, especially his father did not spend time with him to teach him what is good and what is bad. He, therefore, grew up under the leadership of television, and friends and finally under the leadership of an armed robbery gang and bandits. And that is what lack of parental leadership does.

Such children grow to unleash terror on the nation as bandits as it is happening now. Parents should send for their children wherever they are, love them and counsel them out of the gangs they currently belong to and begin to arm them with values that will make them responsible citizens, who can care for them in old age. Love you!