Caring for children
Many deviant behaviours including delinquency, truancy, waywardnessand disrespect for elders which manifest in some children while growing up are attributable to lack of proper parental care and love. The widespread moral laxity that is characteristic of many young boys and girls in today is traceable to parental irresponsibility especially those who compromise between their duties […]
Many deviant behaviours including delinquency, truancy, waywardnessand disrespect for elders which manifest in some children while growing up are attributable to lack of proper parental care and love. The widespread moral laxity that is characteristic of many young boys and girls in today is traceable to parental irresponsibility especially those who compromise between their duties as parents and the pursuit of worldly gains.
It would be understandably difficult for a child who never enjoyed the expected care and love from his parents to develop and offer same to them. Within the context of theories of personality development in behavioural psychology, a child’s firstand immediate social environment,which is basically the home, shapes his character. In the home,parents more than other family members play the most significant and influential role in modelingthe pattern of behavioura child develops.
The way parents manage the physical, mental or psychological and educational needs of children could make or mar their overall personality development. The extent to which parents care about the well-being of their children including nutrition, bodily hygiene, school or educational needs and opportunities for recreation all determinethe inclusive character ofyoung boys and girls. A mother who considers her crying-baby to be unnecessarily stubborn could be misinterpretingthe child’s plight. Similarly, a father who believes a child should be given all that he asks for could be ruining the young boy or girl’s moral development.
Some mothers who fail to see breastfeeding of their babies as a God-defined responsibility find nothing wrong in abandoningthis natural obligation. While urban mothers avoidbreastfeeding for fear of losing their bodily shape, rural women who are guilty of this wickedact naively do so out of sheer carelessness or lack of education. Allah (SWT) defines the period for breastfeeding babies in Qur’an 2:233 and states ‘The mother shall give suck to their offspring for two whole years if the father desires to complete the term. But he shall bear the cost of their feeding and clothing on equitable terms…’ Which love and care could be greater and betterfor a child than feeding from his mother’s God-endowed natural and nutritious food; the breast milk?
The generation of children born in the Nupe community of Nigeria in the early 1960s fully enjoyed the benefitsof the practice then by parents who breastfed their children for at least half of the Qur’anic period of breastfeeding. That, perhaps, could explain the intimacyand attachment found between children of that period andtheir parents. The closeness is plausibly less between today’s children and their parents. It is not unlikely that children who send their aged parents to old people’s home for care are those who enjoyed little or no parental care and love. Such is the group of children who also have little or no regard for others who are old enough to be their parents. They are ruthless andtreat everyone with disdain.
Although the trend has sincedisappeared, it was a fashion in the 1970s and 1980s among breast feeding mothers to use infant powdered milk including Lactogen, NAN; and SMA as substitute to breast milk. Some breastfeeding mothers at that time saw it as a thing of pride to feed their babies with powdered milk.Sometimes, mothers at that time began feeding their babies with the powdered milk soon afterdelivery. The chumminess and lovingnessthat obtains between a baby who enjoyed exclusive breastfeeding for even the six months defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) is unlikely to be the same with a baby who (against his wish) was breastfed for a very short period or whose main food was powdered milk at a time when he should be breastfeeding. I was lucky when my daughter who was born in 1987 rejected all the brands of powdered milk my wife bought to feed her with. The little baby chose exclusive breastfeeding even before the Baby-Friendly Initiative (BFI) of 1991.
It is, I guess, in recognition of the value of breast milk to child growth and development that the BFI was launched with a view to reducing the high child-mortality rate that occurred from some preventable diseases. This global programme of the WHO and UNICEF was launched in 1991 following the adoption of the Innocent Declaration on breastfeeding promotion in 1990.
Beyond breastfeeding as an essential element of childcare and love is the kind of relationship parents maintain with children when they are grown up. Children, when they have come of age, should be their parents’ best ‘friends’ but this can only be achieved if parents are friendly to them by providing friendly environment for friendly interaction. It is important for parents to create time to interact with their children with a view to appreciating their needs and challenges. Parents have a responsibility to help their children find solutions to their problems.
Yet, parental care and love must not be exclusive of discipline and proper upbringing; encouraginggood habits. ‘Carrot’ and ‘stick’ should take their rightful places in nurturing children. Employing the services of pre-school day-care centers should be done with much caution in order to forestall the development of bad habits in children. Providing answers to the curious questions of children, communicating positively and truthfully about events, providing clear but calm instructions, monitoring and preventing unwanted behaviours, as well as discouraging unhelpful thoughts are some strategic forms ofcaring for children. May Allah (SWT) grant us ‘children who will be the comfort of our eyes’, amin.