Children Privacy: Right of Privilege

Happy new week dear friends and followers. The past week was one of emotional torment for me. The MTN network got really hard and I could not access my social media handles including Hive. It was that terrible but now, I am glad to be back.

When we take the issue of parenting, it may be difficult to draw a decisive conclusion on how to bring up our children. As an African parent, possibly across the globe too, there may be one or two parents who may buy into my ideals for parenting skills on handling children's privacy matters.

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For people like me who grew up in a room apartment with my other siblings, the definition I can give to the word privacy may be totally different from children who have access to a room of their own and have their mobile smart phones, ipads or computers.

To accord a child the privacy right to me is a 21st century uprising in this part of the world. The proportion of children who can lay claim to privacy are very minimal in number and are possibly those who are exposed to European style of parenting.

While nurturing a childing, I think the natural thing to do is to make the child understand that life is in phases and he or she must be tutored to accept each phase as they come. I believe that giving a child total privacy may create room for too many influences and secrets. And of a parents finds it very necessary to give their child privacy, a kind of connection must have been established such that the child understands his or her position in life and the consequences that lie in trying what may not seem right.

A parent must have built enough trust with their children and also boundaries that must not be crossed no matter what. When children who are brought up in a friendly environment are given clear cut rules, they are prone to keeping rules knowing the aftermath of breaking the same. On this ground, the privacy accorded to the children is closely monitored.
Aside from building trust and setting boundaries, parents are expected to spell out the expected behaviour from their wards. Anything short of the spelt out behaviour must be frowned at.

Another reason why parents are advised to give their wards some privacy is the need to make them able to develop problem solving skills by making informed and personal decisions. Parents should do this knowing that in the near future, their wards will soon become adults who usually risk it all to make an advancement in what they choose to do.

Parents could model their wards through behavioural patterns knowing that most children are a replica of their parents. The children are simply copycats. This is why parents must always be on their best behaviour. Through this behavioural model, parents are expected to be welcoming during discussion and communication with their wards. This will give the children a sense of responsibility.

For a child to have privacy, the child's emotional behaviour must have been understudied. Parents should support a child's emotional status by first understanding the peculiarity of the child. It is an established fact that children who are free to express their feelings to their parents who must have created an enabling environment do not have problems keeping their space and privacy.

However, in some parlance, the cultural concoction welcome a child into the family space but she has no right to privacy. Here, life is a open book which everyone is entitled to see.
I believe that the cultural background where a family is connected to has a lot to do with the rights and privileges of a child.