7 REASONS WHY TRAINING IS NOT EFFECTIVE FOR SOME PARENTS
By Yomi Adewale
It is the commandment of the Lord that all parents must train their children. Many are obeying this commandment while others are not doing so. However, some parents complain about their training input not reflecting despite the effort in their children. What could be the main concern here?
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6 KJV
Training involves activities set up by parents for their children to undergo in the view to developing skills, competence and important behaviours that will help them navigate through the journey of childhood to adulthood. The objective of the outcome is to make God proud and also, make the children become a responsible and godly adult. Parents will be glad and society at large will benefit from such a wholesome life.
Training will not be effective when parents are doing the following:
1. PRAYERLESSNESS AND CLUELESSNESS ABOUT HOW AND WHAT TO TRAIN ABOUT
Training without praying is not enough. You need to pray seriously and aggressively before children can yield to whatever you are packaging and rooting in them. Forces are militating against your training effort and activities.
Being clueless about what to train a child at different seasons of his or her life is another enemy of training effectiveness in parenting. Cluelessness results in haphazard training, not being organized and deliberate. The effort will be in futility. While you may think you are training your children properly, you are dishing out wrong things or you are just giving imbalanced information and knowledge.
You can do a better job in training your children when you get TRAINED too! A quack may not be able to deliver a thorough and articulated training problem that will build up a child from childhood to adulthood. You can’t help anyone to come out of the darkness when you are still in the dark. You can’t be in the dark while raising children in the 21st century and meeting their needs. You need to know how to assist them.
2. NOT AVAILABLE FOR THEM
You train your children in absentia. You know how to package your children and you know what is missing in them. You are aware of what they are lacking and your training agenda can address deficiencies. However, the objective cannot be achieved fully in our absence. Training cannot be fully carried out through proxy and absenteeism. Putting and pushing full responsibility of training to teachers, grandma and other support systems is not good. You champion it and take the lead. The primary responsibility of training your children is in your hands. God commanded you specifically, not any other person.
3. NOT ACCESSIBLE AND ACCOMMODATING FOR CHILDREN
You want to train your children but you are not friendly, accommodating and understanding. They are so afraid of you and they put on a mask while you are training them. As they do this, you don’t know whether they are listening, watching you and picking the lessons. Your being accessible and accommodating will aid the learning process for your children. Show them genuine love and heart that is kind enough to accommodate their funny questions and provide assistance to them.
4. DIVISIBLE PARENTING STYLE
When parents are divided, the children will be confused. You need to stand in unity and the right knowledge to pass across to the children. A division is an enemy of effective parenting work and training. Many voices will be speaking into the lives of your children, but yours combined with your God and spouse’s voice must be the loudest.
5. NOT RESPONSIBLE
When you are not responsible as a parent, the children can see it glaringly. You wouldn’t be able to raise them well. When you make efforts, they can see your willingness. But if you have made them to fend for themselves at a tender age without you helping out, they have to struggle to provide their basic needs like shelter, clothing, feeding, etc. These responsibilities are supposed to be carried out by parents. Are you irresponsible? You are failing God and your children if you are. Your training effort will not be effective and it will never yield results.
6. BAD EXAMPLE
Telling children what to do while your life contradicts your teachings shows that you are simply living a double life. They are watching you and they can also implement your double life standards. You need to know that such an attitude will not produce any positive change in them. Model the good you want your children to emulate in holy living, character, charisma, dressing, hardworking, respect for others, obedience to God and His word, tithe and offering, prayer lifestyle etc. You will see how they will emulate you in no time and you will be glad you did.
7. NO CONTINUITY
Many parents are making an effort in raising and training their children. However, they get discouraged along the way sometimes, especially when they aren’t seeing the result immediately. Some will start a good training agenda, calendar, good culture, system and value but they will not follow it up to the letter. They always think that training on a value or culture or system once and moving on to the next thing is ideal. Even at the beginning of a new school term or semester, teachers/lecturers always remind their students to refresh their memories about what they learnt in the previous term before teaching them new topics. Parents should never assume but should take the training of their children consciously, seriously and do it thoroughly. You will not fail God.
? Yomi Adewale
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
@bisiadewale @yomibisi
Join our Facebook Group
Marriage and Family Builders
