Good parenting in a good home is one of the major resources for national development and progress. It is the most important factor for personal development. and forms the foundation for successful marriage and family life.

The undefined and confused mixture of the local (indigenous) culture, the foreign culture, and technological culture in many nations, has caused modern day parenting to become tougher and more challenging than ever. Many young people have no real self-discovery, and do not know who they really are. They therefore simply imbibe the mixture of cultures, and blindly or sheepishly follow the drifting crowd of the day on a journey to nowhere.

The surge of tremendous influence on human minds and lives, of cell phones, websites, social media, e-mail and text messages, movies, and other forms of technology, has virtually destroyed much of the bond and good relations among humans, especially relationships between children and their parents or guardians.

People are interacting with dead machines instead of living human beings, and receiving no real love and life for proper growth, no inner joy from authentic relationships, and absence of the required natural human productivity from real human connections. The artificial can never replace the natural for optimum results as God, the Creator, originally intended. 

THE RESULTS OF GOOD OR BAD PARENTING, OR ABSENCE OF ANY PARENTING

The examples that I see, reports I receive, and careful analysis of the thousands of counseling, teaching, and mentoring cases I have handled over the past decades indicate clearly to me that many people did not receive the solid parental infrastructure necessary for mature, meaningful, and productive lives, especially for personal morals and ethics, marriage, family life, home establishment, and other forms of relationships.

Bad parenting and absence of any parenting at all, especially the absence of fathers in homes and families, are the primary reasons and fundamental basis for many of the corrupted, immoral, evil, and purposeless lives we see around us today.

The gross immaturity, inability to resolve conflicts, thin endurance for trials, and lack of fundamental wisdom in decision-making plus making of choices, are sometimes stunning for several individuals, typically youth, young adults, and people looking for love and happiness.

We call upon parents, mentors, and adult supervisors to strive hard and establish strong bonds of teaching, love, and affection with young people, especially in their homes. We have made ourselves extremely busy, chasing after 21^st century toys and fame, and do not make the time to establish such bonds, because it takes time to build friendship and successful homes, and we cannot do so effectively on casual basis with quick outings, hurriedly-done shopping, simple good-nights, school activities, one or two entertainment activities, few church events etc.

As a parent, guardian, or adult supervisor in a home and family, you must take time to play with the children, hug them, verbally express appreciation, engage them in chats and dialogue, study and do homework with them, sit them down for reading and teaching of values in proactive parenting etc., and discipline them appropriately when they go wrong. Then we can patiently lead them, lovingly guide them, help them to discover their gifts and potential, and be able to inculcate godly and fruitful values into their lives. I believe that with such efforts we should definitely see less of immoral lifestyles, addictions, school dropouts, wasting of resources, financial wrecks, integrity loss, meaningless romantic associations, marital separations, and divorces in our communities.

Many youth and young adults lack focus, and do not simply know how to live nicely, cooperatively, peacefully, and mutually with other people. They had no good examples from their parents or from those who trained them (if they even had any training at all), and are tragically ignorant of the basic ingredients for successful human relations.

Youth problems become adult problems, and therefore many adults also think, talk, act, and behave the way they unfortunately do today, because of ignorance, poor background training, and rebellion from childhood.  Their wrong decisions and dishonest lifestyles in positions of power and authority adversely affect all of us in families, communities, and the nations.

Although we chide irresponsible parents and elders, we doff our caps for diligent and principled parents or mentors and congratulate them for a job well done. In such instances, some very godly and disciplined parents do their best to raise their children with the best methods in place, but the young people simply decide to get entrenched in their natural rebellious ways by indulging in calculated waywardness that aims at kicking against all parental authority and guidance. Therefore, sometimes the children are to blame for our problems and not the parents.  There is also a category of people who have such an extraordinary hotheaded and impenetrable mindset, such that they are literally impossible to reason with or convince to abide by sound and acceptable principles, no matter the parental training they received.

In my opinion, it takes the power of God to break through the soul and mental faculties of rebellious children to deliver their minds from intractable shackles that bar them from accepting and following common sense morals, ethics, kindness, and principles. For such people, it becomes almost impossible for anyone to date, court, marry, work with, fellowship with, or live with them lovingly, reasonably, peacefully, and productively in any home or group. 

In the midst of all the frenzy to get the world’s economy making progress on a sound footing, establishing peace through cooperative national and international initiatives, and combating the negative elements that promote chaos, we seem to have placed parenting on the back burner to a large extent, although we refer to it here and there.

We should not forget that parenting, along with our marriages and homes constitute the family unit that forms the foundation of every nation. No matter our discoveries of national treasures and great accomplishments as legacy, our children are going to inherit and handle all that we are toiling for now. Are we preparing them adequately in our homes and institutions for the task ahead after we are gone? Some of us make a lot of noise in pulpits, on radio, in newspapers, on the internet, audio and video messages, and on television, trying to manage corporations, churches, ministries, institutions, organizations, and large communities, but cannot manage one spouse, one or two children, and one little home. May the Lord, have mercy on us!

Parenting is a core ingredient for fruitfulness and success in society, and must receive our full, undivided, and devoted attention. Parenting should be at the central spot within the beltway of projects and policies we are racking our brains to hatch in the nest of strategic planning and tactical moves for future lasting success.

Each of us had to be nursed, trained, and nurtured by our biological, step, adopted, or some kind of parent from birth up to this stage in life. The man and the woman, who engaged in physical and sexual intimacy to bring the baby into the world, are primarily responsible for the teaching, training, and nurturing of that child in a good home, using all the knowledge and means available to them, within every prevailing circumstance.

Grandparents, other elders, family members, school teachers, counselors, pastors, church leaders and members, friends, colleagues, and the government do help with childcare and child training, but should not be made to become the primary caregivers and trainers for any son or daughter. Parents should be diligently responsible for their children, and not dump the responsibility on others, especially school teachers.

Parenting has the same principles as discipleship, leadership, and mentoring. Parenting is among the toughest jobs on earth because it began in the sinful state of man. Starting from Adam and Eve, we never knew how to parent a child in our perfect sinless state, since the first child was born outside the Garden of Eden (Genesis 4:1).

I frequently tell our children: “We are imperfect parents training imperfect children.” That is why a parent must be wise and humble enough to say “sorry” to a child, for example when a father or mother mistakenly offends the child (e.g. wrong accusation, misinterpretation, mistakenly spanking the child, not having time for the child).

Parenting is even tougher, more tasking, and more draining, in these advanced age for any father or mother because of an environment that cheaply offers too many raw materials to children for distractions, rebellion, carnality, laziness, callousness, immorality, ungodliness, several sinful activities, and a wide range of destructive habits.  Being a father or a mother therefore poses a great challenge to men and women in our generation, and a greater challenge still, if the father or mother sets bad examples for the children, and is irresponsible, uncaring, and delinquent.

In my opinion, childcare and parenting pose more challenges to women than men in our generation because it is the woman who goes through the pain and toil of pregnancy, and gives birth to the child. She then has to face the enormous responsibility of providing the initial nutrition by way of breast milk, experiences most of the bodily contact with the baby, bathes and cleans the child, performs most of the necessities to maintain the child, and thereby bonds more to the child than the father. The physical and emotional attachment in addition to the burden of pregnancy and labor pains cause the mother to feel, sympathize, and empathize for the child more than the father does for his son or daughter.  In majority of cases the father spends more time working and trying to provide for the family, and make achievements for them, while the woman spends most of her time attending to the welfare of the child, feed, tend, and care for the needs of the child.

It is unfortunate that many men have become “pollinators” (like bees) hopping from flower to flower (woman to woman), and impregnating women without any plan or commitment to marry and team up with the woman as a wife to become responsible father and mother who will train and care for the child that resulted from their lustful escapade.

All these factors create conditions that generate tough challenges for men and women who have to deal with all the complexities of raising a child in a modern environment that is saturated with distractions, overwhelming needs and activities, plus habits of irresponsibility that make many fathers heap the burden of childcare on women with little or no assistance. The challenges become more compounded by immoral activities and infidelity in marriages, abusive and wicked attacks, financial constraints, human interferences, child abuse and neglect, the tough economy of today’s world, and other multiple needs. 

I want us to carefully note this solemn deduction:

It means that if parents do not live righteous, honorable, and respectable lives for their children to honor and respect them, then the parents are shortening the lives of their own children! Wow!!  Sometimes I wonder if the lifespan in the present generation of humans is so short compared to the incredibly long lives of hundreds of years in the olden days, because of the way we live in disobedience and rebellion, and disrespect our parents and elders?? 

If we understand and accept this truth regarding child-parent relationship, then we must be fully aware that if a father or a mother does not live in obedience to his or her own parents, then that becomes a bad testimony to a son or daughter that the particular father or mother is trying to teach and discipline in order for the child to fall in line with the parental rules of obedience required of him or her. It also means that parents must train their children in such a way that when they grow to become adults, they will still obey them as parents and respond to their genuine needs until their elderly father and mother die.

Institutions, churches, organizations, communities, and the government must seriously embark upon educative projects and strategic plans to educate and train present as well as future parents to know how to engage in exemplary leadership and mentoring, and how to love, nurture, and train their children in more purposeful and productive ways for the progress and fruitfulness of our societies, and the nation as a whole.

 

By Dr. Samuel Kisseadoo, Biology Professor, Ordained Licensed Minister, International Evangelist, Marriage and Family Counselor, Virginia, USA. E-mail: kisseadoo@msn.com. Obtain more information on “The Home” from his 2015 book: “How To Establish A Successful And A Happy Home”, by sending him mail, or calling 233-20-8208567 in Accra, Ghana.

Tune in to JOY 99.7 FM in Accra, Ghana to listen to Dr. Kisseadoo’s weekly broadcast “Hope For Your Family” on Sat. 5:30am-6am, Ghana time (12:30am-1:00am, US Eastern Time in November - March). Access on the Internet with MYJOYONLINE.COM.                                                                                                                  

For free counseling, programs, prayer, messages, books, speaking engagements, call Dr. Kisseadoo in Virginia on 1-757-7289330 (or call Fruitful Ministries on 233-20-8126533 or 233-276-322982 in Accra or 233-275-353802 in Kumasi, Ghana). Obtain Dr. Kisseadoo’s books in Accra from Challenge Bookstores, or from Baptist Bookstore opposite Anglican High School at Amakom in Kumasi; or call his Literature Manager in Accra on 233-20-8209567. Website for resources: www.fruitfulministriesint.com. Call to attend free Public Seminars on Family Life and for Personal Development every 2^nd Saturday of each month at 10am-12pm in Accra.

In Ghana, call Tigo or Airtel 545 and follow the prompts for daily inspirational messages of Dr. Kisseadoo. Permission granted to freely share but with acknowledgment.