Change starts with families

THE family is the tree from which all members of society have thrived.
What happens in a family unit should be setting the foundation of how children will move and interact in the community.
Everywhere, there are talks about breakdown in law and order, increase in alcohol and drug abuse, increase in domestic violence, police brutality, and sorcery-related deaths and a breakdown in services.
All fingers point to any government of the day, blaming it for diverting its focus elsewhere and not on matters where we claim supposed to be addressed.
Realistically, given the current situation the country is in, the Government can only do what it can do and the rest of it falls back more specifically on families.
Changes may not happen overnight but can be achieved if all efforts are put into empowering a family unit, especially the father and mother, with the help of the church.
A family is a place where children can be raised in a safe and stable environment.
Fathers and mothers have an important contribution to play as each have a different perspective and can uniquely help children of both genders to learn important skills relating to marriage, education, work, morality, ethics, social interaction and other values.
The traditional and fundamental rules for raising children are good manners, personal discipline, responsibility and respect for others who are directly or indirectly responsible for their care.
Family love and care for each other are the hallmark of family relations, particularly in caring for infants and elder family members.
Families are a place where three or four generations can care for each other from the cradle to the grave.
These include the sick, the vulnerable, the disabled and the aged.
It gives family members a sense of purpose and meaning that paid jobs cannot.
Ask any child to draw his or her family and you get the traditional picture of father, mother, brother and sister and maybe the family pet thrown in.
The family is the nucleus of society.
Although families all over the world have transformed greatly over the past decades in terms of their structure and as a result of global trends and demographic changes, the United Nations still recognises the family as the basic unit of society.
Every time a family breaks up, the society is affected in some way.
In fact, the parents are the epicentre of any household.
We would not be alive today if not for our parents.
Patterns of behaviour within the family are similar to the family genetic structure, though families can modify their behaviours.
In past generations, peer pressure was less significant and the influence of schoolmates was positive.
In our modern era, youths are vulnerable to and are often engaged in social behaviours that society labels as delinquent.
Society may label the behaviour of some youths as adult criminal behaviour, which exacts a high cost to society in its attempt to reform or correct, by process of imprisonment and rehabilitation.
With the advancement of technology, changing cultural standards, new priorities and new forms of communication fuelled by the internet, it’s natural to wonder what the importance of the family is.
When something goes wrong in our society, some people look to governments for answers because they have the expressed accountability and responsibility and the macro–administrative mechanisms to address the broader infrastructure problems of society.
We ought to look within our homes, our religious organisations, our churches, our corporations, and our educational institutions for answers to family instability.