LIVING A LESSON

Discipline is something that is hard to learn. This is why learning it at an early age is vital for every human. As an adult I have discovered that it isn't easy learning new things, more so it's harder to learn new things when you have a lot of responsibilities to deal with. It's easy to want to learn something, it's hard to follow through on it. This is where parenting becomes tricky. Parenting forces that discipline out of you because you first need to be half what you want that child to be. Half because you give them an opportunity to surpass you. But then again, it's easier to think about the result of discipline than the process of disciplining a child and this is where even the best of us fall short. I have seen a lot of parents become the very thing they hated as kids to their kids. You hear a parent say they will never hit their children because of how their parents hit them, but then the child does something so wrong that you feel they need a good whooping to reset their brain.

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There are also those who do everything to keep their promise of not hitting their children to the child's own detriment, making the child feel invisible and untouchable even by the parents which at the end makes them go out of control. Although I'm not a parent yet, I've helped raise a couple of kids and I know to a good extent how that changes a person. This is why I decided never to brag about the kind of parent I will be because I have heard that the love of a parent is incomparable to anything. I pray I don't end up spoiling my kids and being the very thing I hate now while training them. I pray I am able to raise kids who will be proud to call me dad because I know what it means to raise kids who wished they were born by someone else. I pray I am that parent who is in their kids life and does not think they are in their kids life. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I hope I become a great dad eventually.

I already shared some time ago how I would love to raise my Children, I see myself as a learning from experience kinda guy and would go lengths to make sure my children have all the experiences they can have as kids. I want them to make all the mistakes they can make early enough. I'm not that person who would want to stop you from making a mistake, I want them to know how to face the world without fear and stand out. A lot of parents would shield their kids from trouble, I'm the kind of parent that will let their child get into trouble but ensure it's not more than what they can handle. I'm the kind of parent that they can run to when in trouble, but I won't be that parent that shields them entirely when they run to me, instead I will teach them how to get themselves out.

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I would like to start teaching my kids that actions have consequences from a very young age. I will teach them from my experience, and will teach them from any experience they have. If my kid is getting bullied in school, I will teach them to stand up to that bully, while I go behind their back to stand up to the parents of the bully. This would make them aware that they have the strength to face anything that comes their way and not just think like everyone, but to think uniquely in order to solve the problems around them. If my child is acting rude as though he can live without his parent, I'm the kind of father that would stare up an occasion for that child to spend two months in an orphanage to experience what it means to live without a parent and appreciate what he/she has while I watch them from afar. My methods might not be generally acceptable, but it's how I think my kids will learn best, or how I think I would have learned best. Well you never know, I might change tactics in the future.

THIS IS MY RESPONSE TO HIVE LEARNER'S PROMPT FOR WEEK 158 EPISODE 1