The Overarching Role of Parenting — Our Security, Our Peace by Prof. O.E Bassey

The maxim of ‘children being the leaders of tomorrow’ is often preached without the awareness of the interdependent role of today. We inadvertently forget that whatever becomes of our tomorrow is a function of what we fail to do or fail not to do, today.

The future is untainted, it is pure, it is whatever you dream it to be. However, as humans, we come with the subliminal power to affect this profile, and make of it the effects of our discretion or otherwise. Therefore, it is important that when the projection of children being the leaders of tomorrow is flaunted, we are cognizant that such prediction transcends prophecy to dwell on pragmatism.

And for its worth, children won’t grow to become the leaders possible of them without the anchor of parenting. Its logic is simple: the world is wide and wild like a thick blue ocean, and your odds of making it to the other side unharmed is contingent on the intentionality of your paddles. A child is either too naive or too weak to effectively paddle to safety their way in the wide and wild ocean, if left alone. This overwhelming paucity is where, then, the adults identified as parents come in on the stock of biology or otherwise to protect, guide and promote the child for leadership.

It cannot be overemphasized the overarching role of parenting in every child’s life. Successful parenting always churns out successful children in same measure responsible parenting cranks out responsible adults. It is never the other way round. Parents must come to understand that whatever their children turn out to be tomorrow has a bearing with the parenting they receive today. This underscores why intentionality must be integrated into parenting for an intentional tomorrow.

From the school they attend, to the kind of clothes they put on, to the friends they frolic with, to their favourite pastimes down to the languages that proceed from their mouths, you call the shots in respect to these and should nurture in these regards and more for a proud future.

The Bible records God, while speaking of Abraham in Genesis, expressing confidence that Abraham from his antecedents will command his children to follow his instructions.

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”For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him.” – Genesis 18:19

It is relevant to note that the Bible didn’t put it that Abraham will ‘indulge, pet or pamper’ his children to walk after him, it conscientiously designated the word ‘command’ in awareness of the petulance and propensities of children towards frivolities. A host of parents, basking in the overabundance of love they have towards their children, have fallen pathetic victims of the petulance and propensities of their children such that at every slightest yearning for a thing, they are always motivated to indulge them so that they can be happy and quiet without recourse to whether or not the object of satisfaction and tranquility is to their good or bad, especially on a long-term basis and otherwise.

While the logic of providing for your children and gifting them things they hanker for is considerable, it must be not be mistaken that they remain ‘children’ suggestive that their yearnings will be more often than not influenced by emotions other than cognitions. This is where you as a parent come in with fuller cognitive abilities and fuller life experiences to decide what makes for a good choice at a given time and what does not. Every entreaty from a child should not be greeted with a ‘Yes’ from you all because you don’t want a child to be vexed or grumpy. Even as an adult. it’s a normal reaction to be displeased when things don’t go your way, and before you even know it, you find yourself being grumpy until you snap out of it. However, you could help a child understand how rejection is just one of life’s trappings by explaining to them, if old enough to understand, why you are opposing their particular yearning at the time and how such decision holds their own good on a long-term basis.

The responsibility to direct, guide and command children is peculiarly that of the parents, not because it is a gratuitous platform to assert your own will on them, but because you have the understanding of what today’s action can do to tomorrow’s results, hence; you are discerning in paving a child’s path to a future they will be proud to enter, such that when they look back on how far they have come, gratitude for having you in their lives overwhelm them, and what’s more, is the legacy for them to pass on such successful parenting down to their own children.

Beware to avoid buying into the whole charade of ‘let children be’, ‘it’s a free world’, ‘give them space’: it’s all a trap, one that speaks to lazy parenting. There is a reason you are called a parent in the life of a child. If God never had a function for this role, then he could have as well allow humans come to the world as adults. But reality does not have that as the case, underlining the inexorable role of responsible parenting in facilitating a society graced with responsible adults.

And in testament to responsibility spawning from parenting is the inauguration of elected public office holders taking place today right from the federal government down to the local government, the top to the grassroots. If parenting was never done right, individuals that will be sworn into office today would be unfit for such stately leadership positions that hold fate to the future of you and I. Your children have the capacity to be in such positions tomorrow but the possibility is significantly dependent on what brand of parenting you give to them today.

Ofonime Emmanuel Bassey is a Security, Peace and Conflict Resolution coach with decades of experience in the practice and promotion of Law Enforcement, Peace and Security through the Nigeria Police and the United Nations.

He is a professor in Leadership, Peace and Conflict Resolution, a certified United Nation’s Trainer, and currently the Director of ICOF Institute of Leadership, Peace and Conflict Resolution in Africa.

Prof. Bassey has served and interacted at the top-level management of the Nigeria Police as well as internationally as a United Nation’s Monitor/Mentor in Kosovo, Europe.

With his marks well-established in Peace Leadership both in Nigeria and Africa, he is currently the President, NISSI Safety Management Institute: An Institute of Peace Leadership.

To his many humanitarian acts, he currently spearheads a campaign tagged “The Next Peace Leaders” billed to run from 2022-2023 with a target of training 37,000 young peace leaders.

For peace and security tips, consultations and trainings, reach him via:

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