Moulding Nigerian children for tomorrow’s ideal leadership

There is no gainsaying that the children of today are leaders of tomorrow. This also suggests that the leaders of today were the children of yesterday.

These current leaders leave much to be desired. It is therefore imperative and the right time to build the next generation of citizens. Nigerian citizenship just as it is in other countries comes with rights and privileges, which naturally, confers duties and responsibilities, including nation-building on all and sundry.

Experts are of the opinion that when a partnership approach between parents and schools exists the child’s work habit, attitude about life and education improve.

Such a child would demonstrate better social skills, fewer behavioural problems and a greater ability to adapt to situations and get along.

It’s no longer news that many employers are concerned about the lack of the desired skilled personnel to employ. Most young people get employed for their skills but get laid off due to attitudinal problems.

It’s no longer news that many employers are concerned about the lack of the desired skilled personnel to employ. Most young people get employed for their skills but get laid off due to attitudinal problems

This implicates an imperative for a more holistic formation of the next generation of citizens that will replace the workforce of organisations. There has been a buzz about the effective management of the generation of millennials and generation Z.

These apparent immigrants into the workforce have their peculiar needs and expectations. These are being given high priority in organisational policy formation to ensure an emotionally engaged intergenerational workforce to ensure employee productivity.

It is high time we were concerned about the next generation of citizens. As Frederick Douglass puts it, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” The current prevalence of issues of delinquency, and criminal behaviour among juveniles, today, is alarming.

We affirm that the root cause of all these inadequacies could be traced to poor infrastructure, poor education, lack of role models and upbringing but most importantly poor parenting. Besides these are some family factors such as abuse, neglect, or absence of proper parental supervision, which experts believe are responsible for some of these juvenile delinquencies.

It is a proven fact that children imitate the actions of their parents more than their words in terms of advice and guidance hence children whose parents exhibit a chronic lack of respect for the law and social norms of the country may imbibe the same.

Hence, parents as citizens owe the country the duty of bringing up this next generation of citizens, who are currently under their care as their children. This duty cannot and should not be outsourced to gardeners, teachers, boarding house masters or house helps, who are neither trained for the task nor willing to deliver on it.

The first step for parents to achieve this holistic formation of their children is by their good example, which would inspire these children to imbibe good behaviours.

The next step is by explaining to the children the intrinsic value of good character and to show how this is the only way to make the world a better place for all of us to live in.

We strongly believe and affirm here that parents cannot and should not excuse themselves with the slogan of “these children of nowadays,” as a panacea to justifying their children and wards’ bad behaviour or non-conformity with the laid down value system. This statement “these children of nowadays” has been used even by the grandparents and great-grandparents even before they were born.

It is interesting to note that their parents even used it to refer to them. Could this suggest a downward slide in character in generations of children? If it is then it is high time to pay more attention to this urgent need to build the next generation of citizens.

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Built for purpose as it is said in engineering. Parents are the primary educators of their children and this role should not be delegated to teachers and schools alone.

Parents are to collaborate with the teachers and schools in this inevitable task of the holistic formation of our children. The effective collaboration ensures that the great work done of forming these children at home is not undone at school and the reverse is that the efforts put in by the teachers in school to instil morals in a child are not annulled by the bad example of the parents at home.

Parents have to wake up to the realisation of looking beyond their selfish motives of bringing up good children who would get good grades in school and hence good jobs in the future as this secures their own lives and sustenance at old age, likened to an insurance policy.

Parents should increase their horizons and have a panoramic view, knowing that their children are the next generation of citizens of Nigeria. The future of this country is in the hands of parents in so far as they must inculcate the right values system in the upbringing of their children.

This task of the holistic formation of children entails working within what is available and affordable. Parents should not confuse the effort to send their children to the Ivy League high-brow schools in Lagos and other cities as equivalent to successfully fulfilling this role of good parenting.

It is instead a matter of care and attention at home to form the minds of these children, to inculcate in them the proper value system they perceive is lacking in society and in our current leaders.