No One Can Replace Mom and Dad!

With so many agencies devoted to child training and development these days, thousands of parents are beginning to doubt their own importance. They seem willing to surrender their rights- that of passing along to their children the family’s spiritual and moral heritage.

No one can replace the parents. The agencies such as the school, church or training camps are helpful, yet the parent’s influences may be good or bad remains the main factor in a child’s character formation.

For example, parents sent their child on training camps hoping that their child can change his bad attitudes such as being late, never does his home works and loses his values. Training camps are of no benefit if parents will still allow their child to become dependent on them as soon as he went home. Such parents don’t inculcate their own influence and teach their child on their own.

Such as honesty, parents sent their children to school hoping that they would also teach them the essence of honesty, one of the very important factors in life. Yet, this may not work if there are conflicting values at home. The research of Dr. Howard Lane in New York University shows that those students who cheated during exams are products of successful-driven parents who lie in order to achieve success. Under such circumstances, a child will not be able to learn the importance of honesty, even if a teacher tells about it a hundred times or more.

A child may grow up selfish and cruel if he lives with parents who are too impatient, easily angered, or too busy to spent time with him. While a child may grow good and lovable towards others if he lives with parents who are gentle, patient and attends to all his needs always. The child’s love of his parents pushes him to adopt and learn their best traits. No other people can give the love a child can get from his parents.

Parents also play the major role in teaching their child the courage in facing problems and situations towards his life’s journey. A parent who shows a child his importance and respects his ideas and feelings, develops real courage while a child who are considered by his parents too stupid to make decisions on his own and disrespect what he thought and feel will not develop courage. Courage is not being lectured; it is being shown and felt in the heart.

Though the modern world of today changes some patterns of family life and requires parents to work very hard to attend to their family’s needs, they must not forget their job of child rearing.

With the complications of modern living, we can’t expect parenthood to be perfect. Though their are hundreds of ways to be a good parent, the parents and future parents out there must always remember that no matter what of which they choose, one must not forget that neither a school, a church nor any other agency can replace the home in giving a child the qualities he needs for a successful living in the future.