Are you a parent of an only child?

Do you feel that you must be very careful, or perhaps extremely careful and caring about your only child to the extent that you must care for the child as if you’re caring for four other children you’ve not had.

Do you shower your only child with so much care that you’re even bothered about what others think of you and the way and manner you care for your only child?

Well, there is no harm in that.

I don’t hold anything against you for what you’re doing.After all it’s your life and that of your child.

However, l want to point your attention to the sins you may be committing unwittingly in your parenting activities while caring for your only child.

These are sins that you can avoid if only you are a little careful about your actions towards your only child.

The sins are so important in your child’s life that they should be of concern to you as a parent who truly loves his or her child to the extent of wanting to make whatever sacrifice there is to be made even at your own expense and possible negative effects on the child.

These are the sins of parenting an only child that you must try to avoid if you must make a success of  your parenting efforts:

1.Overindulging and overcompensating: You’re probably
overindulging your child without knowing it simply because he or child is the only child you have now.The consequences of this is that your child will not see life the real way it is. You’ve not allowed him or her to go through  the necessary hardships that will perhaps toughen him or her to become a person that could fit into whatever situation he or she may find himself or herself in life.

2.Treating your child like an adult: It’s a sin to go about treating your only child like an adult when he or she isn’t. This is a child and that’s the simple truth about the situation on ground.

Your child should be allowed to pass through the normal stages of human growth and nothing short of that would be tolerated. You can’t create a vacuum because nature will not allow that. Your child can’t jump over what he or she should naturally go through.

3.Over praising your child: Don’t be tempted to over praise your child no matter how impressed you’re with whatever activity he or she has performed to your satisfaction.

Don’t get me wrong! I’m trying to very careful here because l don’t want to be misunderstood completely.

You should praise your child if you’re impressed by what he or she has done. But you’ll be making a mistake if you over do it. Praise is a human need because we all thrive on praises shower on us by those who appreciate
what we’re doing or what we’ve done.

4. Overprotecting your child: Let your child know that you’re there for him or her at all times, but never be tempted to go beyond the normal by overprotecting the child.

What is wrong in overprotecting your child is simply that the child will never be wrong as far as you’re concerned. She or he will never learn the right lessons of life which is that all of us must strive and struggle for ourselves without relying on others to help us defend us at all times.

Let your child protect him or herself with a little contribution on your own part. By so doing the child will be developed and feel safe even when you’re not there to protect him or her.

5.Failing to make rules: The world is orderly simply because it’s guided by rules and order. For this reason we all must learn to go by the laws of nature for us to be peaceful in life.

If you fail to make rules that will guide your child’s life simply because the child is an only child, then you’re already showing the way to crisis and chaos in the child’s life because there will be no orderliness in the child’s life.

These are the five sins of parenting an only child which you should avoid as a concerned parent.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

Let not your spirit be weary teaching your child the right values!

You’re tired of repeating yourself over and over again, aren’t you?

Sure! Every reasonable person will…

We get worked up when we’re made to sound like a crack disc; repeating the same instruction to our children every time.

It’s disheartening that children seem to be somewhat carefree in their attitude to parental instruction. But you need not let them wear you out.

Most times you will need to repeat yourself while telling your child the end for personal hygiene; as they don’t see any reason why they should keep their clothes clean and change them when they are soiled.

Bathing and brushing of teeth every morning and night, is probably not his concern except if you press hard to make it happen.

Have you, at anytime, sat down to find out the reason behind this behaviour?

Why is your child ‘hurting’ you so much and making you to get exasperated repeating the same instruction several times?

It could be either of these two reasons:
(a) Forgetfulness; and
(b) Deliberate attempt to disobey.

Because children’s minds are filled with so many ideas about leisure activities, they find it hard to remember our instructions on values. Those things are not programmed into their to-do memory.

You might have offended your child without knowing it; he feels the only way to get back at you will be to deliberately turn down your instruction and make you yell at him.

You yell…

Consequently, you hurt yourself in the process; and he feels delighted doing it.

There is a remedy!

1. See your child as an individual who has a mind of his own.

2. Don’t keep quiet; you don’t have to. But don’t yell at him. Keep talking.

3. Keep teaching him the value of integrity, hard work, fear of God, and respect for constituted authority.

4. You must open the communication line between you and your child. Until the message sinks in his mind, your job is not done yet.

5. Listen to what he has to say.You’re the parent, and so what?You’ve got to put an end to being dogmatic and don’t take every matter seriously.

6. Reach a compromise by sparing time to engage your child in useful no-hold-bared discussion. And listen carefully!

That is the trick…you’ve got to listen, if you want to have p-e-a-c-e !

Pay attention to your child and hear what he is saying as the world is changing.

Believe me, if you do all of the above, your child will always listen to your instructions and obey .He will turn out to be the best of friend you can ever have.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.
Sikaz

Anger is a natural display of emotion by human beings.
There are many ways by which every person tries to show
his anger physically.

Your child,like every normal human being,usually
get angry over some unpleasant experiences she or he
is going through.

But do you know when your child’s anger signals are
displayed?

Can you sense it when the physical display of anger is
being shown by your child?

Perhaps you’ve not made an effort to even study your
child’s emotion.

Perhaps you’re even less concerned about the child’s
anger as long as you’re not disturbed by whatever
emotion he or she is passing through.

Well, you should begin to observe your child’s
physical display of his or her anger because the
signals are so obvious for a descerning person to
see.

Here are three ways by which you can easily identify
your child’s anger physically:

* Clenching Fists: A child that is angry will normally
clench his or her fists because the muscles are all going
to tightened just to push away whatever is causing him or
her to get so angry.So you have to observe this physical
display just to be sure.

* Shortness of Breath: Anger can’t be hidden because it’s
always in display for whoever cares to see.You must try to
see if your child’s breath is normal or not.A shortness in
your child’s breath means that he or she is really angry.

* Sweating:From the face to the palms and the whole body,
your angry child will be covered by his or her own sweat
to show you that he or she is very angry with whatever
situation he or she is facing a that point in time. For
quick and easy identification of the child’s mood,take
a look at the child’s forehead and you will notice some
sweat coming out.

There you are, the three physical signals of anger in your
child are listed above for easy identification.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

Identifying and articulating your child’s feelings could be a daunting problem at times because teenagers are known to be secretive in nature.

Teenagers, especially the boys pretend to their parents about their feelings in order not to be seen as weaklings.

Boys tend to be open to their friends much more than their parents when it comes to matters of personal feelings as they feel much more comfortable even when they are laughed at.

Emotional expression that borders on irritation,embarrassment,disappointment, anger, sex and inadequacy are usually bottled up by teenagers so that their parents are not aware of such feelings.

You must be observant as a parent. You must be aware about the way your teenage child is feeling at every moment if you don’t want to experience unpalatable consequences of such bottled-up emotions.

Here are some of the ways by which you can identify and articulate your child’s feelings at all times:

* Ask The Child About His Feeling: Don’t hesitate to ask your teenage child questions about his or her feelings at all times. The good thing is that most human beings, your child inclusive, hardly succeed in keeping up with pretenses for too long.

* Ensure Your Child Talks To You: You should try to make sure your child talks to you no matter what  it will take you to get that done. Most teenagers don’t find that funny though. But as a parent you must create a conducive the atmosphere for that to happen successfully because that is the only way by which you can break the emotional ice.

* Create The Opportunity: Why do you thin your teenage child is not feeling easy to talk to you about his or her emotional feelings? Why would a child you’ve brought to this world keeping his or her feelings away from you?

This is a question you need to ask yourself most times.

Well, your child does so because he or she has not been given the impression that you’re his or her friend from the onset. You’ve not created the conducive environment for that kind of close relationship between you and the child.

Now is the time to learn to create such close relationship so that your child could begin to see you as a friend who he or she could rely on when it comes to matters relating to his or her emotional feelings.

* Create The Necessary Space: Most teenagers l know feel caged by their parents and they desire to have their on space where that will feel very comfortable all alone.You have to create enough space for your child so as to make your home a comfortable environment for him or her to stay. This is the only reason why your teenage child is not sitting at home and always go outside to look for comfort among his or her friends.

* Provide A Shoulder To Lean On: You should now begin to provide a friendly comfort for your child to stay with you whenever he or she is feeling troubled by whatever he or she has encountered in his or her sojourn on earth.

There is no better ways to do this than the provision of a comfortable shoulder to lean on in times of trouble.The realisation of the fact that there is a parent around to share his or her problems with without any dust being
raised will make their child express him or herself better for you to provide the right solution without apportioning blames.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

Do you have a teenage child who is brilliant, creative and perhaps ‘friendly’ outside the home, but turns out to be somehow hostile and defiant at home.

Has your child ever ran away for hours or even days in protest against your decision about what he is trying to do or is already doing?

Relax you aren’t alone, so many other parents are experiencing the same the from their teenage children these days.

The following are the steps you should take when your teenage child is becoming rebellious:

1. Try to find out what is bugging him, but count yourself lucky if he tells you.

2. Start to give him some space and latitude and recognize the fact that he is a young man who possesses raging hormones.

3. Offer him new, more flexible rules .Don’t allow for any question from him, neither should you explain. Just give them to him.

4. Give him chances to make his own mistakes, which are also opportunities to earntrust. Never expect him to be perfect, he is still a teenager, after all.

5. Treat him as if he has just packed into your house; negotiate with him and set new boundaries.

6. Don’t be tempted to hold any family counseling section where you would unwittingly be forcing him into talking about his feelings in front of his sisters and his mom, l’m sure he will hate that. The possible result would be that he will lie and say whatever everyone wants to hear.
7. Recognize that he is a grown up and he needs some serious adult responsibilities, and some trust too.

8. If you are going to pick your kid up at the park, you must agree on a meeting place somewhere nearby because teenagers do not always like being picked up in front of their friends.

9. Learn how to communicate with him. He will respond best when  approached indirect and talk about things which will not make him feel that he is that exposing himself emotionally thereby subjecting his feelings to a  risk.

10. Don’t ever bring in counselors as it will worsen the relationship between you and your kid instead of improving it.. The child may see it as an admission that you can not cope on their own. The likely consequence of this is probably going to be a loss of respect from your child.

Rebellion is a thing every one of us have tried (in our past years) at one time or the other. Therefore, it will be advised that you should try all of or any of the above solutions and see which one would work.

The main point, however, is to see your teenage child as a human being; who is still young but who is trying to grown up faster than his age. For this reason, he cannot be perfect and should never be expected to be so.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz