Welcome to my page today. I invite you to send in your comments. Let me know the much of the discussions you enjoy or find boring. Your candid comment will help me to make necessary adjustments.

Permit me today to bring to you the 6^th Commandment of Rights-Based Communication with Children: Show Interest.

Nothing kills a child’s excitement, morale and self-esteem like when custodians do not show interest in matters, which the child considers important. A lot of times our children come to us to discuss with us and we show no expression or interest in what he is discussing with us.  Once we do not show interest, we gradually lose them. Therefore when they have matters, which are critical to them, it is registered in their sub-conscious not to talk to us.

The primary source of validation for a child is the primary care givers, the parents. The parents are to carefully pass the baton to the secondary care giver. Once our children do not get the validation from us, they must look for it elsewhere. In most cases they look for it in the wrong places, where it does not exist. The tragedy is that they look for it at great cost to their dignity of human person and yet they do not get it. Have you ever experienced paying so much for a fake?

Please note that to children, love simply means acceptance and attention. How do we demonstrate acceptance and attention? Primarily, beyond what we say, it is by what we do. How much interest do we show when our children decides to speak with us. How do we show disinterest? Let me discuss two or three ways:

One of the ways parents show disinterest is to talk down on what a child is so excited about. Now, parents may not be excited about what their children are excited about for many reasons, particularly if it does not agree with the values they hold dear or the knowledge they have about the child. But they may need some playing along in terms affirmation and encouragement, before we express their opinion may be important. For example, a child, whose parents believe to be an art student by their observation and understanding of his natural flair tells the parents, he wants to be in the science class. The parents try to help him see otherwise, but the more they try, the more the child persuades them. So they cut a deal with him to go to the science class but if after one year in the class he does not do well, he would go the art class. Gladly, he accepts the deal and the parents give him all the support. One day the mother returns home after their third term examination and finds the child coping his art subjects’ notes. The mother asks why, the child says, he accepts he is not cut out for the science class. The mother tries to ask if he still needs more support from her and his father to remain in the science, the child says ‘no’ and genuinely thanks the parents for their demonstrated commitment.

Another way we show disinterest is that we simply ignore the child. A lot of times when we ignore the child we always find excuses like, ‘I am tired,’ ‘this child talks too much,’ ‘I am busy with something else like watching my favourite program.’ In most cases, we begin with ignoring the child and if the child does not keep quiet, insisting in his own way to be heard, we yell and send the child out of our presence. I understand that as parents, we are human, we may be tired, we may have other things on our mind, we may not be ready for the child’s discussion, but ignoring him will never be an answer, pleasing to his spirit, body and soul. We may quickly respond to them, explain to them why we could not listen to them immediately and schedule a time for the discussion. Again, depending on the importance of the topic of discussion being raised by the child, we may want to suspend every other thing and listen to the child there and then.

One other way we show disinterest is not to keep our scheduled discussion with our children. Like I advocate above, your child comes to you with a matter and you are on your way out and you tell her you would discuss it when you return. You return and she reminds you and you reschedule it again. By the time you reschedule the discussion, either serious or otherwise two to three times the child gives up. When she gives up, she either bottles things up or she seeks help from another source. In most cases, she turns to her friends, who mislead her. Consider the case of 13 year old girl, who begin her monthly menstrual circle and immediately seeks audience with her mother. Her mother tells her she is in a hurry to attend a function and promises to discuss same when she returns. At dinner, the girl waits for the mother to raise the issue. When the mother would not raise the issue, the girl does and instead of responding to the issue, so important to the child, the mother laughs it off to the embarrassment of the child. She makes up her mind not to discuss her matter with her mother and turns to her friends. Of course, her friend misleads her, telling her that beginning her menstrual circle means she is ready for sexual intercourse. She believes and goes to town with her body and contacts STIs. She tells her story at the age of 16 with so much regrets and pains that she is let down by her mother.

I think if we reschedule a discussion with our child, it is our responsibility to bring it up as at the scheduled time. It is even safer for his protection for us to bring it up because between when he first attempts to speak with us and the rescheduled time, he may contact new knowledge or distracted by another school of thought, which will make him unwilling to discuss with us again.

Please show interest in what your children are interested in, even if it is to understand it enough to dissuade them from it. Many of us have lost our children today, yet they still live with us; we are completely cut-off from our children. We do not know the friend they keep, the slang they speak, the music they listen to, the food they eat, the things they drink, the role models they adore, the fashion to crave, the beliefs they hold and so on. That is why their actions shock us in most cases. They have simply become familiar strangers. This ought not to be so.  Our children speak more than we listen both through actions and words, it is time to show interest and help them.

I think I should sign out here. Thank you for visiting today. Sure you learnt one or two things on how to Think the CHILD…Think TODAY and Think the FUTURE.

IMPORTANT NOTICE
Our Child Protection Audio Library Comprising of 7 Audio Books and 3 E-books are available for order and immediate delivery depending on your location. They are well-researched and widely-applauded materials, carefully and meticulously designed to bring to your CONSCIOUSNESS and CONSCIENCE the RIGHTS and RESPONSIBILITIES of your children and EQUIP you with the INDISPENSABLE SKILLS to do all things in the BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD. Be on the side of your child Today…Be on the Side of the Future…Place Your Order NOW! @ 234-8186830275(SMS Only) or send an email, titled: ORDER to ask@taiwoakinlami.com. Thank you and Stay INSPIRED.

Welcome to my page today. Thank you for coming. We suffered another break yesterday. Please bear with my infirmities in keeping up some times. I believe things can only get better.

Today I continue the journey we began a while ago.  Here is the 5^th Commandment of Rights-Based Communication with children: Do not make yelling a habit.

I have the tendency to yell a lot. I was brought up with yelling. My mother yelled at me at every slight opportunity, so was my father. The yelling was usually followed with a slap on the face or at the back. It was typical for both of them to begin the process of ‘correction’ with yelling.

Now, as an adult, it has been a very difficult task dealing with this area of my life. It has taken years of working on myself under God and His grace to find another way to communicate apart from raising my voice. In fact, I still have a lot of work to do. I found a defence for raising my voice anytime, I am confronted, particularly by my wife. I frequently told, still yelling, ‘that is the way I talk!’ Yet, this is a lie. I do not believe anybody is created to communicate by yelling at another. It is pure an indulgence, sustained by being a slave of one’s abusive past.

The question is, why do parents yell at their children or why do custodians yell at the children under their care? I just gave the first reason. Everyone is a product of influence. Many of our parents yelled at us and therefore we do not know any other way to communicate with our children. Unfortunately, we have come to accept it as a norm. Even when we find out that it is wrong, we consider it a lost battle to find solutions.

I think the second reason, why we yell is because we try to deal with issues, we are not pleased with on the spot.  The best time to deal with an issue with your children or spouse is not when we are angry or when the issue is still very hot and the hurt it may bring is still very fresh.  Though, we must not leave the issues, very cold before it is addressed, or we altogether sweep it under the carpet in the name of not addressing it when it is hot. The balance is to find peace within before we address an issue.

And how do we find peace within? From my personal experience, I find peace within when I try to establish the motive of a person’s action, different from the action itself. I mean, I try to separate his person, his motive and his action. I try to use his efforts to judge his errors and not the other way round. When that happens, I know, I am ready to address, what went wrong and not who went wrong. I presume the person I am dealing with, innocent until proven guilty. Why? Actions do not always equal to guilt. They must be consciously backed with motive.

The foregoing demands a lot of discipline on the side of the custodian. When we are able to exercise this discipline, we show our children that we are matured. The truth is, are we ready to communicate with our children? In communicating with them, we must understand that we must take into consideration their best interest.

Anger is not a skill. It is a weakness. Anger leads to yelling and yelling does not help communication in any way. And please do not buy this myth that you establish your authority with your children with how much you are able to yell or how audacious you sound. It is a lie. Firmness and yelling are two different things. So also yelling and exercise of dominion and authority are two different things. In fact they do not go together at all, not at all.

I will conclude today by sharing the impact of yelling on children. I will like to point out the impact by sharing with you some of the synonyms of the word, ‘yell:’ ‘shout,’ ‘scream,’ ‘roar,’ and ‘howl.’ The synonyms speak for themselves. It is interesting that one of the dictionary meanings of the word, ‘roar’ is ‘a prolonged loud cry of certain animals, especially lions.’  It goes without saying that one of the ways, lion, the king of the jungle tames its environment and its inhabitants is roaring. By roaring, it strikes fear and paralyses all. This is excusable for the lion as nature has not endowed it with another way of exercising dominion over the jungle. And therefore, all the other inhabitants understand the language and give him its place. It is also important to note that the lion does not roar always. When it is about to catch a prey, nature tells it to keep quiet, watch and strike.

Let us take another synonym of the word, ‘yell,’ ‘howl.’ When you search the word, ‘howl’ in the dictionary, the first result, which comes to you is ‘a long plaintive cry or wail characteristic of a wolf or hound.’ It is important to note that wolf or hound is merciless predators. The word, ‘plaintive’ is also instructive. It means mournful and sad.

From my brief analogy, I think it will not be out of point to conclude that yelling is not designed to be a means of civilised and effective communication among human beings. I make bold to say that yelling is a notable register in the communication of the jungle. It helps the predator to express its heart to the prey and cow same in the process. It breeds fear and intimidation and once fear and intimidation comes in, communication ceases.

Since parents and custodians are not predators and the children are not preys and the homes or schools are not jungles, we must desist from yelling. Yelling is not in the best interest of the child. It destroys the child’s dignity of human person and makes huge withdrawals from his self-esteem in instalments. Psychologists have told us that for every one wrong word you say to a child, you need seventeen words to correct it.  It is important that the psyche of a child does not have the capacity to handle any form of abuse. It may interest us to know that yelling is nothing but a form of emotional dehumanisation.

When we yell at children, we are teaching them how to communicate. Yelling forecloses reasoning. Therefore when we yell at our children, we teach them not to reason when they find themselves in a situation. If they are not taught to reason, it means we are teaching them to be unreasonable.  When people are said to be unreasonable, it means they have a myopic word view and are selfish and the possibility of striking and keeping beneficial relationships becomes very narrow, if not impossible.

I know, it may not be easy not to make yelling a habit, but I tell you, it is worth working on with all our might, if we understand the impact on our children. I know we may not be able to stop just like that; we must make efforts to begin to work on ourselves and give the best to our children.

I think I should sign out here. Thank you for visiting today. Sure you learnt one or two things on how to Think the CHILD…Think TODAY and Think the FUTURE.

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Our Child Protection Audio Library Comprising of 7 Audio Books and 3 E-books are available for order and immediate delivery depending on your location. They are well-researched and widely-applauded materials, carefully and meticulously designed to bring to your CONSCIOUSNESS and CONSCIENCE the RIGHTS and RESPONSIBILITIES of your children and EQUIP you with the INDISPENSABLE SKILLS to do all things in the BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD. Be on the side of your child Today…Be on the Side of the Future…Place Your Order NOW! @ 234-8186830275(SMS Only) or send an email, titled: ORDER to ask@taiwoakinlami.com. Thank you and Stay INSPIRED.

It is a beautiful day. I am elated to be here today. I wrote this series last on June 12, 2013 just before I departed for Osun State, South West Nigeria to answer the call of UNICEF to train the newly-elected executive members of the Child Protection Network of the state and other stakeholders, including government partners. I was determined to continue the series but I was thwarted by sundry obstacles, the last being that my laptop decided to pack-up. It simply went on sabbatical to a far country for more than eight days, with technicians battling day and night to lure it back to my side. Painfully, it took all my data along with it, reiterating to me again the wisdom in regular back-up of data.

Well, I am back today to continue to give expression to my passion to speak up for the African Child. I will like to share the 4^th commandment of Rights-Based Communication with Children: seek to learn from the child.

Most Africans have serious issues when it comes to learning from children. We believe that adulthood is synonymous with wisdom and childhood is synonymous with foolishness. Most of us believe that adults know all while children know nothing. The reason for this conclusion may not be too far from how most of us were raised. We were not seen, not to talk of being heard.

Unfortunately, we are so persuaded about the foregoing, yet we are so wrong. I do not believe this agree with our founding philosophy as a people. Please permit me to speak as a Yoruba man from South West Nigeria. The Yoruba philosophy says, ‘owo omode o to pepe; ta gbalagba o wo keregbe.’ It simply means, the hands of a child is not able to touch the altar, therefore he needs the help of an adults. On the other hand, the hands of an adult is not able to access the mouth of a keg, he needs the assistance of a child. The Yoruba philosophy further says, ‘omode gbon, agba gbon la fi dale fe.’ It means that the founding of a town is traceable to the wisdom of the old and the young. Summing up the essence of the Yoruba philosophy through the lenses the sayings above, it will be safe to say that children have a lot to learn from the adults, as much as the adults have a lot to learn from children. A young man called Elihu established the principle that adults have a lot to learn from young people thus: ‘I am young in years, and you are old; that is why I was fearful, not daring to tell you what I know. I thought, ‘Age should speak; advanced years should teach wisdom.’ But it is the spirit in a person, the breath of the Almighty that gives them understanding.  It is not only the oldwho are wise, not only the aged who understand what is right.’ If I get Elihu right, I guess he is saying that God has empowered even the young by His Spirit to speak words of wisdom.

We forget that children have peculiar experiences, which they are the only ones, who can narrate to a listening adult. We forget that the circumstances under which we grew up is different from the circumstances under which children are growing up today. Since their circumstances of birth and growing up of our children are different today, their socialisation is also different. It goes without saying that since their socialisation is different, their psychology will be different and so are their experiences. Therefore, we may never understand the best of their concerns, except we listen to them with a mindset to learn from them. When we learn from our children, we understand them and we are able to help them. They in fact help us to help them with the information they make available to us.

Please note that learning from children does not mean that the adult is weak or uninformed. It simply means we have come to the irresistible conclusion that you cannot shave a man’s head behind him and that he who wears the shoes knows where it pains and should be allowed to tell his story. It is like when we take our children to the doctor, depending on their age, we allow them to tell their own story of the symptoms they feel. As a matter of fact even if they are still toddlers, we depend on them through observation to expose the symptoms. I must conclude here that learning from our children by communicating with them is inevitable.

At what age do we begin to learn from our children through communication? I think we must begin to learn from our children from when they are born. We must understand that children at tender ages are not dump, neither are they deaf. They speak eloquently and expressly. It is only that what they are saying can only be decoded by skilful adults. The communication of children, particularly from age zero to eighteen months is non-verbal in nature. It requires skills to listen and learn from them at this tender age and many primary and secondary custodians do not have the skills to do so. Therefore they miss the awesome opportunity to listen and learn from the child at that tender age.

As the child grows older and begins to speak, the lack of skills of the custodians to decode non-verbal communication gives way to a deep-seated attitude that the child has nothing to teach the adult and his views must be rejected and if he shows any sign of insistence, he must be tagged a rebellious child and disciplined accordingly. What a tragic damage to the development of the child.

My charge to you today is that children have a lot to say and we have a lot to learn from them. Please let us throw away our traditional belief that children have nothing to say and we have nothing to learn from them. Let us take time to listen to them with a commitment to learn from them to help them. I bet you that you will be shocked at the level of their wisdom, which we have ignorantly neglected to tap from.

Let me conclude with the story shared by a mother at one of our Child Protection Seminars for parents, which I believe is instructive today. She said she had been ill and did not go to work. After school, her five year old daughter was with her friends. One of the friends had told another that she would not play with her again. The child, who was told she would not be played with again burst into tears and withdrew to a corner. The mother said her daughter went to meet the child, who withdrew to a corner to encourage her and told her not to worry. She said the daughter further said to the child, ‘if someone says she does not want to play with you, you do not need to cry now. Many other children will play with you. I will play with you also. Clean your face, let us go and play.’ The woman told us that the child stood up and was encouraged by the daughter. She told us at the seminar that she did not believe that her child could do that. She said if not that she heard the discussion from her room she wouldn’t have believed. You see, we underrated our children.

I urge you today, the next time you want to communicate with your child, make up your mind to learn from him to help him.

I think I should sign out here. Thank you for visiting today. Sure you learnt one or two things on how to Think the CHILD…Think TODAY and Think the FUTURE.

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Our Child Protection Audio Library Comprising of 7 Audio Books and 3 E-books are available for order and immediate delivery depending on your location. They are well-researched and widely-applauded materials, carefully and meticulously designed to bring to your CONSCIOUSNESS and CONSCIENCE the RIGHTS and RESPONSIBILITIES of your children and EQUIP you with the INDISPENSABLE SKILLS to do all things in the BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD. Be on the side of your child Today…Be on the Side of the Future…Place Your Order NOW! @ 234-8186830275(SMS Only) or send an email, titled: ORDER to ask@taiwoakinlami.com. Thank you and Stay INSPIRED.

Calling Your Attention to The United Nations Alarm:

I will like to call your attention as a custodian to the report of a recent survey conducted by the United Nations on the state of the world children. The survey sadly reveals that never in the history of our world has the children been under the kind of siege and abuse they are today. The United Nations Survey exposes a shocking picture of physical, emotional, sexual abuses, neglect and mistreatment of children in countries in every corner of the world. The survey declares, ‘while abuse may be at its worst in the developing world, no country is guiltless.’

It is also a major and disturbing trend in Child Protection, the world over today that children are being mostly and are likely to be mostly abused and molested those, who are closest to them and by those who claim to protect them, including primary care givers like parents/guardians and secondary care givers like nannies, teachers and others and not by strangers as most of us erroneously believe.

Global Frustration

‘International conventions on human rights for children have flatly failed to guarantee protections for the most vulnerable members of society,’ reveals the United Nations Survey

The Big Question

Why has the celebrated national and international legal framework failed woefully to protect our children from abuse?

Our Informed Answer

Having been in the forefront of Child Protection through the instrumentality of the law in the last 16 years and working with UNICEF in the last 8 years, we have come to the irresistible conclusion that the law as an independent tool of child protection is as powerless as a paper tiger. Therefore, for the law to make sense, it must be mixed with enlightenment. It is our informed position that Enlightenment is Superior to Enforcement™ of the laws relating to children and their rights. The strength of enlightenment is that it leads to prevention of child abuse. ‘Prevention is better than cure.’

Enlightenment is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. The goal of enlightenment is Child Protection Social Policing™. Child Protection Social Policing™ happens where every primary and secondary custodian within the four (4) institutions (Family, Community, State and International Community) responsible for the protection of the child are equipped with Knowledge (what to do), Skills (how to do it) and Attitude( wisdom and inner strength) to professionally and effectively prevent abuse against children.

The United Nations recently supported our position that Enlightenment is Superior to Enforcement™ as it submits, ‘responding to child abuse cases is four times expensive as child protection and protecting children against violence and abuse aims at saving cost of families, communities and ultimately the state.’

A Voice Against Child Abuse

The impact of child abuse is eternal except there is divine intervention. Therefore child abuse must be prevented by all noble means possible. For our children to become responsible family men and women, leaders of organisations and responsible citizens, we believe that academic pursuit is critical but it is not enough. We must be concerned about the sanity (heart) of the child, which is what we attack when we abuse the child. The heart of the child is the seat of character and compassion. It must be preserved and protected.

Our Role as Whistle Blower

As an organisation whose mandate is ‘to bring to the very front burner of private and public conscience and consciousness the rights and responsibilities of the Africa child for due respect, IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD,’ we are committed eradicating child abuse in Africa through enlightenment, which cuts across the Four (4) Rings (Family, Community, State and International Community) of Child Protection.

The foregoing, we intend to do with our Child Protection Creed Campaign, which seek to equip every custodian in the life of the child with Knowledge (what to do), Skills (how to do it) and Attitude (wisdom and inner strength) to professionally and effectively prevent abuse against children. Apart from educating the custodians, we desire to leave them a Child Protection or Child Safeguarding Policy, which seeks to create a culture of child protection by creating an internal system for child protection.

Our targets are primary custodians (parents and guardians) and secondary custodians (teachers and non-academic staff).

Our Request

We seek to have audience with you and your areas of influence (families, Community Based-Organisations, Government Agencies, Non-Governmental Organisations, Faith Based Organisations, Businesses etc.) to disseminate our ChildProtectionCREED™ One-day Academy at your earliest convenience.

We request you to partner with us by introducing the ChildProtectionCREED™ One-day Academy to all within your areas of influence.

Conclusion

It is in THE BEST INTEREST OF OUR CHILDREN, our families and nations to CREATE A WORLD FIT FOR CHILDREN. We urge you to embrace this challenge.

For Details

For details on how to be part of this drive to safe our children, please contact us: Taiwo Akinlami INSPIRES  W: www.taiwoakinlami.com B: www.taiwoakinlami.wordpress.com E: ask@taiwoakinlami.com T: 234-8186830275, 234-8033620843