Fundamentals of Society Building: When to Begin Conditioning A Child.

Once a child is born, every time he is awake is an opportunity for him to learn. He hears sounds around him and voice signals make necessary impressions on his ear drums to register for recognition on repeats and as the child grows and develops. He catches the views on his sight and learns to recognize things and objects. He reaches out his hands to feel objects and things he touches. Of course, he smells odors and aromas of the air around his environment. All this combine to develop the child’s learning ability and activity. It seems that the sight and touch senses develop faster than those of sound and smell as the child usually mimics things, he observes others around him doing. Every opportunity with the child presents itself for educating the child about life and responsibilities corresponding to the child’s level of development. We have stressed that this education naturally begins with the mother who has the initial and closest contact with the child even before birth. And before the child’s birth reflexes from the mother’s activities have been proven to influence the child’s own development and information. Hence the mother’s mood and emotions during pregnancy and at the child’s birth are important signals for the child’s unfolding upbringing. This is a serious matter for note by mothers and that is why antenatal visits to well-staffed and equipped hospitals and maternity homes where such information is disseminated to women is strongly recommended to pregnant mothers. A visit to a recently delivered mother opens one to myriads of misinformation and disinformation about child upbringing. Recall that older women challenged my teaching in this respect when as a bachelor I engaged them in family life education with respect to child training when they gave me their bet that I would see the difference when I would eventually marry and have children to train. Now having married and trained four responsible children of mixed sexes I am more confident than then in my response to them that the ideas I canvassed then and now were God-given and would work if any one applied them carefully and faithfully as the success rate was guaranteed. And the guarantee is assured! Breast feeding sessions present very good times to teach the child feeding etiquettes and proper emotional responses to others beginning with the mother. A mother should present smiles to the child while breast feeding the child if she wants the child to learn to smile and form the habit of smiling as the child imbibes gestures made to it as a matter of reflex. We have earlier referred to a child’s crying as the usual means of communication of some form of discomfort or another hence a mother should be ready to investigate the cause of discomfort and address it promptly to avoid inculcating bitterness to the child by inadvertently allowing the crying to persist. The child’s reflexes copy and retain actions by repetition it should be stressed. We have once said that a child learns by imitation and not by lectures. Any activity repeated to the child is an invitation for him to copy and learn! And once the activity is learned it would be difficult to stop as the child tends to grow with it. No wonder the wise man wrote to ‘Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not turn from it’ (Proverbs chapter twenty-two, verse six). A child who bites the mother during breast feeding presents an opportunity for the mother to teach him respect for other peoples’ feelings, that is, courtesy. The mother’s frown at the child would give him the signal that the incident did not receive the mother’s approval. A repeat should be met with a spank of any part of the child’s body followed by an instruction to the child to stop biting. At that point the child would react with a sad face and possible crying if he wanted to insist on the gesture. Once the child recovers from the episode he should be shown affection as soon as possible by the mother reintroducing the feeding process. Children learn fast except that the natural bent takes them through repetitive cycles of behavior which must be gently resisted by the parents each time unacceptable behaviors are displayed. It is not advisable to leave the child to grow with unacceptable behavior with the hope that he would drop them later in life. It does not work that way at all. It is not proper to teach a child to retaliate wrongs done to him by his peers although this has become a common practice among parents. The child who suffers wrong should be taught to report to older persons who would mediate in the matter and see that justice is done. Such times of suffering wrong should be used to educate children on the need for justice in human relationships and the availability of forgiveness. Justice may require that the offender be punished for the wrong depending on the weight of the error. Along with justice children should be taught the need for reconciliation which is a basic ingredient for peaceful co-existence in a heterogeneous society. Parents must learn to talk to their baby right from birth. Talking to the baby is not the real means of teaching the baby although babies imitate the parent’s gestures and hence develop the power of speech. A child should be allowed to observe activities in the house like washing of plates and cooking utensils as well as clothes, especially their own. Their attempts to participate in such activities should not be frustrated rather the child should be guided that he has not learned it because of his age but would learn it at the proper age. Frustrating the child’s attempt to participate would engender rebellion when he eventually attends to the proper age to perform such activities. Take for instance a time when the mother is washing clothes in a wide basin and envisage the child running to the basin and after a short watch of what the mom is doing, reaches out his tinny hand into the foamy soap water in the basin and either picks one of the clothing items or splashes the foamy soap water about in the basin. I have observed most mothers in such scenarios and their reactions being same: Hear the mother screaming at the top of her voice at the innocent child! This is followed by harsh warning if at all, scolding and even beating the child or at best forcefully removing the innocent child’s tinny hand from the basin. The frustrated child has no other way of communicating his frustration than to yell and cry, while meanwhile falling into the temptation of repeating his initial action, at times, aggressively. No! No! No! For one thing, the child must learn. The only issue is that he is not yet of age and is ignorant. But would you blame the child? Where has he observed someone, even the mother, washing clothes before? What would he understand about clothes washing for goodness sake? And when and where? An enlightened mother would rather hold the child’s hand lovingly and tell the child lovingly too: “You can’t do it now, but you’ll soon grow up and learn how to do it.” The wise mother will then guide the child’s hand through some mimic form of washing and tell the child to stay and watch her…. But the child cannot stay because he has already felt exhilarated by his newfound experience, and also his attention span is very short. He will dash out without frustration and perhaps repeat the same process all over. This is the only way to ensure that the child would grow up to be willing to learn and do the washing at the proper age. Frustrating the child in the usual way we do only creates rebellion in the little mind of the child waiting to manifest when the child grows up to the age he can actually learn and do the washing. He will naturally resent instructions to do the washing at such a time, and the cycle of negative reactions from the parents will create further hardening of the child’s mind. Parents must learn how to be patient and loving with a child especially at that very tender age when they encounter adult activities in the home for the first time. Proper handling of the child’s adventurous activities at such times is what will ensure that they will learn to comply with instructions to do those same things when they come of age. At the preschool age of three the child has formed basic characters of life and it would take very strong influences to change those basic characters so formed. This is also the proper age to expose the child to formal learning activities and preschool enrolment. Once a child has been exposed to school environment care must be taken to ensure that negative influences are addressed by closely monitoring the child’s behavior after each outing and reinforcing the positive traits while carefully correcting the child’s negative intakes from peers. The child’s spiritual development is ensured by the parents introducing the child to spiritual activities right from time. Children should be involved in praying, singing, worshipping, giving and caring right from the very early stage of life. The child should be dedicated to God on his first attendance to corporate worship by the parents. And regular worship activities should be introduced to the child in good time until the child gets committed both at home and at corporate sessions. The child should equally be allowed to socialize as he begins to walk and talk. Group activities should be introduced in the family setting and naturally flows into the neighborhood and larger society. The child should be guided to find, choose and make good friends from the neighborhood. This is the time to provide for the positive attitudes that the child should learn like tolerance, obedience to rules and regulations, complying with instructions, patience, perseverance, kindness, sportsmanship, endurance, hope and inspiration all geared towards achieving happiness. These, then, are the numerous periods of time when the child should be guided to develop properly in life. In fact, the Scripture records for our consumption and compliance how God the creator commanded the Israelites to: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates” (Deuteronomy chapter six, verses five to nine). Hence, we see God’s position on this: Anytime is the time to teach the child. It is also the duty of parents to make the impression at this early stage of the child’s growth and development. God therefore knows that if we take advantage of this it must work out for the good of all and he will be pleased. It is to the credit of every right-thinking parent to take advantage of this commandment of God for ultimate success.