MODERN MUM: Be your child’s first teacher

Sending him to school is a little daunting for me. Learning rules and systems that are not my own is a hard adjustment for me.

I realise his childhood is not about me and my methods of child rearing. But my argument is my children should first learn the fundamentals of existence within the framework of their first society: the home. How we live, how we operate and what our basic principles are.

I teach my child how to speak properly. I teach him confidence and an overall positive self-worth. I teach him the ABCs and 123s. I teach him simple addition and subtraction.

I teach him to understand his needs and how to tend to those needs. I show him how society functions through engagement and interaction.

Of course, there are some things that are taught by fully immersing oneself, like interacting with one's peers. This is why we send our children to kindergarten early so that they can learn to socialise with their peers within a controlled environment. They are also taught age-appropriate skills by experienced people.

But I find everything rings hollow if the child doesn't receive the foundation of learning from home. Simple things like respect and listening are a big problem for teachers globally as parents do not instill these values at home. If a child doesn't learn to listen and respect his parents, he will definitely not listen to or respect his teachers and elders. A child who does not understand the meaning of “no” grows to become an entitled adult who believes everything is his right.

We have a big problem with society right now as parents keep sending their unparented children out into the world to be everyone else’s problem. You have the parents who are too busy to parent, the parents who believe their child is the best saint since the birth of Christ, and the parents desperate to be their child’s friends.

All these parents might have different ways of parenting but the result is the same. They burden society with unruly children and out-of-control teenagers who grow up to be insufferable members of society.

We burden teachers and the police with the task of parenting our children because we failed to parent them ourselves. Our children are only ‘children’ for a short time, but if we miss this window of raising our children the right way, then we are just setting ourselves up for failure in future.