EXCUSE ME PLEASE I WANT TO RAISE SPOILT CHILDREN(3)

This is the concluding part of a conversation we started three weeks ago. In the first installment of this conversation, I shared extensively on the place of authority. I think I shared seventeen fundamental principles we need to know about our authority vis a vis child discipline. The second installment I discussed our understanding of who a child in the context of how to influence him or her. In this conclusion I want to address, the whole concept of a spoilt child.

In our work with parents, particularly in Africa, when we discuss the issue of discipline of children and their practice of applying the rod, their greatest defense is that the consequence of not applying the rod as the means of discipline is to raise spoilt children, who have become albatross of the parents in the developed clime. like the parents in the developed world.

They say those who raise children in the developed world indulge their children by ignoring the tenets of traditional child discipline, which is the application of the rod. They back up their argument for the application of the rod with Bible verses and beliefs, which they attribute to African customs and culture.

So, the question is, what does it mean for a child to be spoilt? It seems to me that it means that the children are allowed to express the liberty, their individuality deserves, which is the validation of their personhood as persons of worth with a sense of judgment and power of choice. That liberty may include them having meaningful and logical conversation with an adult without fear but with respect. Not accepting anything because an adult is saying so but because, they are convinced about it based on universal principles of how God created this world to function. This is what most Africans mean when they say children raised in the developed world are spoilt.

Now, this is it for me, I know that the conversation about being spoilt cannot be addressing the value system of our children because whatever ills we talk about in developed countries also exist amongst the children in the developing countries. Whatever ill it is they are talking about is worst in the developing and third world countries, where hypocrisy and lack of data hold sway when the visit the subject matter of the morality quotient of our young people. So, I believe that the conversation about being spoilt is not about morals, it is not about children being involved in societal ills, it is about the freedom these children exude. The conversations they can hold. How they can hold these conversations. How the children can hold their primary and secondary parents accountable.

I think that is what we quarrel with when we talk about raising spoilt children. Now, this is my argument when I say excuse me, I want to raise spoilt children. I think the foundational issue is that when we look at the First world countries, we ask what their greatest possession is, and it is human capacity. The capacity of the human mind to think because it is the mind that creates all we see. The state of the first world nations is a reflection of the quality of the minds of their people.

The considerable pleasure and the organized society is a product of the mind of the people that are both the citizens and leaders. Please note that we cannot separate the leadership of the country from the followership. As a matter of fact, the leadership is a reflection of the followership. That is why they say that people deserve the kind of leadership they get.

Whoever is ruling a country comes from the people. If this is the case, the quality of the people’s minds are reflected in the society they build in terms of their social, economic and political prosperity. ?

If the First World and Third World are a reflection of the quality of the minds of the people who live there, it therefore means we need to examine how these minds are bred.

We need to go back to the basics. We also need to note that I am not submitting that the First World nations are perfect in all their ways. My argument is that there are certain things, they have perfected when it comes to human capacity development, beginning from how they raise their children.

It is my submission that the Third World countries have a lot to learn from how the First World countries breed the minds of their people. This starts from childhood. How do they treat and bring up their children? If we remain developing nations by the virtue of the quality of minds of the people in our world, the First World remains where they are by virtue of the quality of minds and the character of their people, it is important that if we want to rise to the level, they are today (which we envy) that we need to be interested in how they develop the quality of the minds of their people. We must be interested in how they raise their children.

In Africa we talk about beating children as the best way to correct children. I think the whole concept of child discipline has been bastardized to a level that the concept needs to be revisited and reviewed. That is why I do not talk about child discipline, rather I talk about the culture of discipline.

Permit me to state unrepentantly that the belief system, which accepts corporal punishment as part of disciplinary mechanism of children or any type of dehumanization for that matter, including the use of harsh words is not only irredeemably warped but has no foundation in the Christian faith and African. And I challenge anyone who so wishes to a public debate on the subject matter.

Our children are a reflection of our society and the adults in their lives, so if we talk about child discipline without the culture of discipline which is a superior conversation then we are going to be deceiving ourselves. The conversation cannot be about child discipline, it must instead be about the culture of discipline. Everybody who comes around the child should be conscious of the culture of discipline as against child discipline. The culture of discipline recognizes the personhood of a child. ?One, a child is a person of worth, two, a child is a reasoning being with a sense of judgment, three, a child has a power of choice. All of these must be on board when it comes to the culture of discipline.

Finally, children are either beneficiaries or victims of the examples they see from us. Whatever we don’t like in our children we are the ones, who put it there. If we approach discipline with humility and example, then we create the culture of discipline. This means that the first set of people that need to be disciplined, are the people trying to raise children, the primary and secondary parents. It is from the well of their own discipline that children will drink from.

It is in my conclusion today that the same people we criticize for raising spoilt children are our role models in everything, social, political and economic. but how they raise children.

When we train in our seminars, we use the quotes of those raising spoilt children, we use their analysis, and we claim and boast of being certified by them to practice one trade or the other. Our certification that we carry and by which we hope to command the respect of our locality is from those who raise spoilt children. We use the technology and define our sphere of power of wealth and influence, using the platforms of those who raise spoilt children.

Remove, what the product and services created and deployed by those who raise spoilt children, we will become demobilized on all fronts of our lives.

If the saying, “the way a person does one thing is the way they do everything”?is true, how come we seem to accept and copy the way the First World nations do everything but the way their raise their children?

They are leading the knowledge economy. It is important to note that the 9 of the 10 richest people in the world are from First World economies. Why is this so? I think has a lot to do with human capacity development, which began from childhood, their commitment to raising their children as free spirits.

While our children that are not spoilt because they beaten in the name of discipline are busy in the rat race of being consumers, the children that are spoilt are busy innovating and creating what we consume.

In conclusion, if what it means to raise spoilt children is for them to rule the word by the quality of their minds, bequeathed to them by how they are raised, then I want to raise such spoilt children. If raising generations of consumers, who are powerless in contributing anything tangible to the global economy is what it means to raise children right, then I reject it.

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