OPINION| By Dickson Tumuramye
The holiday has already started with most children back home from their respective schools. My children have already started their holiday as well. Unfortunately, instead of coming back home and have a relaxation from the pressure of books, they came with a lot of holiday package. I am now planning to first give them a week of rest and then we resume the holiday assignments. This means I will still be running back home from office to sit with them and we do this holiday work. All of us are more-less like students in class. The bitter part of it is that I never went through this high pressure during my school days. Holidays meant holidays except when I was in candidate classes and we had holiday coaching. Even then, there were no almost daily assignments to cover up as the case is today.
Each one of these youngsters has already put before me his/her plan of how they want to spend their holiday. We have already agreed on the appropriate time they will be doing their work and as such, we have worked out a programme together for this holiday. They are demanding to go for their swimming and football classes at least 3 times a week.
This is something I missed to work out with my parents when I was still a child. All I knew was to follow instructions according to how they were laid before us. However, in this generation the trend has changed except if you want to be an authoritarian parent/dictator. The children are now more engaging and able to elaborate their needs or issues affecting them. The level of confidence in our children today is not in any way compared to the past days.
This calls us as parents to also be very sensitive and ensure that we read the seasons. We cannot remain in the old age expecting to enforce all that we went through during our days. For example, during our primary days, schools never had school vans picking children to and from school. But now it is the order of the day. Some secondary schools used lorries as their mode of transport, but this is not anymore and almost every school has a bus.
Our children need our time so that we can be able to share freely and listen to what they are telling us. It is a good gesture to see that this holiday is well maximized with your children regardless of their age. Ask them their plans for this holiday. Let them share with you the new things they intend to do with you and come up with a clear programme of how best you can achieve this.
There are parents who have very busy schedules and cannot afford to be with children throughout the week. But don’t allow the whole holiday to end without creating time for them. If you are someone who goes to work very in the morning and come back late, at least ensure that when you find them awake, give them hugs, kiss them and have something you can share about. That short moment with them will not leave them the same. You need to know how their day was so that they learn to know that they need to give accountability of what they do on a daily basis.
This will teach them to appreciate that much as you don’t have enough time at home on a daily basis, but at least the little they get with you is not wasted. And do not allow them to stay in house the whole day on TVs day in-day out. Let our children learn how do carry out house chores, participate in washing their clothes, do farming if you have a farm. Plan holiday activities with them which can promote their talents and they will also develop creativity.
Don’t let children stay in house sleeping or doing nothing. An idle mind becomes a workshop of the devil. Engage with your children now before someone else does it on your behalf.
The writer is a Child Advocate
