The holiday has started and it may seem short especially where children have a lot of school assignments to accomplish before going back to school. But at least first term holiday is never busy like other holidays except the December holiday. Don’t miss the opportunity to plan variety activities you can achieve with your children.
One of the things you can plan is to let your children discover their ancestral roots. Create time and take them to the village to visit their relatives whom they only interact with on phone. Fortunately these may include your parents, uncles and aunties. They only hear and know that this uncle/aunt is there but they have never known each other physically. If all your family members are in town, then bless God. But if you hail from the village, this holiday is also good for you to maximize the opportunity.
Because of the wickedness in our society, letting children alone to relatives or sleeping over even at your brother’s home is very risky. Yet we want our children especially those staying in towns to know their relatives and where they originate from in the villages. The impiety we see today demotivates you from trusting anyone including a father of your daughter. I am sure you have heard many incidences where fathers are using their daughters. You would think making strong boundaries around your children is safer than letting them be where they would prefer. This can never be a complete solution.
Single mothers sometimes deny children the opportunity of visiting and knowing their paternal relatives. They usually like to cut off completely the ties with their former fiancés, dead or ex-husbands. The paternal relatives may not be helping you in raising these children right now, but one day these children may ask you to show them their family ancestry. If you cut off the relationship completely, where will you begin from?
Children who grow up in families that are so protective behave in a way that they learnt from their parents. For example, if your children have grown up seeing you beating their mummy, they will grow up thinking that is how things are. But if they can visit others and learn that that’s very unacceptable in certain families or cultures, they may choose the best path. There is a saying a child who does not walk to other people’s homes thinks that her mother is a better cook. Such children who grow up only in enclosed homes without even knowing their immediate neighbors become selfish because they know only what concerns their environment.
I have also seen parents who have refused their children to move in public means/commuter taxis even when they are old enough to take care of themselves. You forget to know that one day you will not be there and this child will have to survive on her/his own. I am not saying that being overprotective is bad but you need to create independence for your children. They should also interface with the outside world so that they are able to learn other good things they miss or are not in your family. There is another saying that if your child is a coward, it is because you help her/him too much. Don’t remove every obstacle from their eyes.
Let your children have an experience of life outside their usual environment; home, school and church, urban/village setting. Allow them to discover their identity and recognize that they have a big family beyond them and their parents. Even if they have met their immediate uncles and aunties here in town, but let them also have that feeling of the village however short it may be.
I recently read in social media about a parent who left her children with her mother back in the village and other cousins. Unfortunately, the cousin brothers also raped her and this broke her heart as well as traumatizing the girl. In case you fear such to happen to your children, it would be good for you to take leave from you workplace and have a short holiday with your children at your parents’ home. This will help you monitor what all children are doing, the food they are eating, the games they are involved in etc.
But the truth is all our children need t know their roots, get to know their ancestral home, visit some of their extended family members but this should be better under your care and guidance. It makes more sense when you are the one taking these children around and introducing them to their relatives, the relationship with them etc. After such visit, evaluate what they learnt from there and what you think is the best way to protect themselves from harmful acts and bad relatives. We all learn better from experience.
The writer is a child advocate and parenting coach, based in Kampala.
