TEENAGE EXUBERANCE-PART THREE

But as these thoughts run through my mind, I am reminded of the fact that this child was destined for greatness, God created it for a purpose. I am also made to understand that this NIGHTMARE of YOUTHFUL EXUBERANCE is not inevitable; it is avoidable, if the two most important parties concerned (the parents and the child) play their individual roles. In my few years of studying, reading and interaction with people, I have come to understand that at birth the child is considered a “tabular rasa” or “clean slate” and its mind is pliable-susceptible to influence and indoctrination. Hence the Bible book of Proverbs holds its application here, “train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he would not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). Dear parent; mother or father, are you too busy to begin the inscription of godly and moral values on the “clean slate” of your child’s mind? Are you so much of a workaholic or even a “shopaholic” that you now live the upbringing of your child to the society? Remember that there are three factors that affect a child’s development-Nature (the genetic composition of the child, which are congenital; the child is born with it), Nurture (which refers to parental upbringing or child training) and Environment or the Society (which constitutes the acquired traits of the child). In all these, the last two hold a significant influence on a child’s life, that is, Nurture and Environment or the Society.

TO BE CONTINUED