Parent-child Relationship: Establishing Good Communication Habit -By Sholuade Ifeoluwa Folahanmi

Parents are the caregiver of the offsprings. A child is a young human being below the age of puberty or below the legal age of majority. The offspring of an adult is called a child. The parents-child relationship is one that nurtures the physical, emotional and social development of the child. It is a unique bond that every child and parent enjoy. The relationship lays the foundation for the child’s personality, life choices and overall behaviours. This relationship is more than father, mother and children or child relationship, it’s a relationship that a child values the most.

These days, some parents hardly spend time with their children. Some do not even know how they are faring. They feel as long as they are providing the basic needs of a child they are good parents, forgetting that spending quality time with a child is also among the basic needs parents should provide for a child. When a child seeks attention from his/her parents and does not get it he/she seeks it elsewhere. This is when the female child gets deceived by a young boy all in the name of seeking attention. She seeks advise from bad friends and she ventures into immoral activities one of them early sexual relationships they get used to it and they become prostitutes popularly known as “ olosho “  and the surprising thing is some do not do it for money, they just feel like it’s cool to do it. The male child also gets bad advice from a friend and starts Internet fraud popularly known as “ yahoo ” and 98% of them are smokers

Some girls have had so many abortions without the knowledge of their parents, when they find out they will say “ after all I have done for you, this is how you want to say thank you” most parents think money, clothes, food and shelter are the things a child needs. They forget how important it is to spend time with a child, some believe that at the age of 15 a child should be able to do things on his/her own which is not right .Even f they are 18 talk to them, advise helps them to take right decisions. Everything is not about money, food or shelter, these children want parents they can talk to, not the ones always thinking about money while ignoring the child’s emotional needs.

We can improve the parent-child relationship if parents spend quality time with their children, advise them, make them feel safe while talking to their parents, don’t make them feel like what they are saying is irrelevant even if it is, do not push them away by saying “you are busy”. A daily 20 minutes talk can make a big difference in establishing good communication habit, let them feel free around you. some children can not t even stand comfortably around their parents because they are too strict and they don’t spend time with them, they feel like a stranger around their parents. When parents are familiar with their children they will be able to notice any change in their children, even if a change is noticed a good parent will question their child and if it’s something bad they will sit them down and advise them without being too harsh because children of this generation do not take to corrections when it seems to harsh, be calm and advise them, tell them the disadvantages of making bad decisions or taking bad choices. By doing this parents will have a hand in reducing the crime rate in the country.

Sholuade Ifeoluwa Folahanmi

 Lagos state university