Students are more likely to have academic success if they are not pressurized through their early childhood by parents who overestimate their competence and over-expose them to academic pressures, Uchechukwu Michael Ginika, legal adviser/press secretary for A Mother’s Love Initiative has said.
He said that this hurried concept permeates the entire fabrics of the society, and manifests itself in diverse ways through heightened domestic roles, undue academic expectations and excessive demands, child labour and child marriage.
The aftermath of these pressures, Ginika said in a statement , is having children who believe that they are unworthy, and feel rejected when they do not meet up with family or societal expectations. Some behavioural responses to stressors associated with hurrying a child, he said, included lack of motivation, indiscipline and learning difficulties.
For this reason, A Mother’s Love Initiative, a social change Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) has chosen to champion a cause in Africa through which it will counsel all stakeholders to take positive steps in salvaging the future of the African Child.
To achieve this, the NGO has been using various strategies such as child development advocacy, psycho-education, preventive and remedial interventions, reorientation, professional counseling, films and television series, book series and publications, documentaries, radio and tele-advocacy, and institutional/community support services to relate its messages at various levels of the society. One of such strategies is its soon to be launched documentary, “The Hurried Child: An African Perspective”, the statement said.
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The bottom line of The Hurried Child Project is to make a case for an intervention that hurrying the Nigerian child has a huge implication on their overall well-being and the future of Nigeria.
The film, titled, “The Hurried Child: An African Perspective’, is an informative documentary that creates awareness and shares insights on the ills of hurrying the Nigerian child, which will be formally launched at Protea Hotel by Marriott, Kuramo Waters is to commemorate next month’s World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse.
The event will consolidate on the call for action by other stakeholders, and engage the town and gown on the Hurried Child syndrome.
Ginika emphasised that the documentary is a media advocacy documentary aimed at reorienting the subtle but hurtful concept of hurrying the child through life.
The documentary, he noted further, is a wake-up call for an intervention to prevent its huge implications on the overall well-being and the future of the African child.
A Mother’s Love Initiative, established in 2018 to bring change to the African Child’s narrative, has since its incorporation been engaged in massive and aggressive advocacy for the society to raise ideal, balanced and happy children in Africa. It has also been involved in providing interventions and support to children, and also educates parents and major stakeholders in the society towards improving the overall psychological and social well-being of the African child.
Ginika stressed further that the present culture of hurrying attributed to emphasis on success alone has bombarded children with so many schedules tasks and expectations that they grow up too quickly. They are pressured to learn how to read and count even before they can walk perfectly; pushed to outperform other children in their kindergarten years; pushed to manage adult responsibilities such as running or owning business interests, adding, “Our primary call on all and sundry is to ‘let them grow”
