How to train your children to succeed    

FAMILY
Do you seee a trend today? …After those children have their own children, they still look to their parents to take care of their kids.

By THOMAS HUKAHU
IN my previous article in Weekender, I shared with you some tips on how the family should work as a team to achieve a common goal.
To do that, each member of the family must understand what their roles are, and how they should work together.
As I was thinking about the family, I also thought about the importance of raising children who should succeed in what they do.
And that is what good parents strive to do: To help children succeed in their lives.

Do you see a trend today?
Do you see something that is happening around us?
It seems parents nowadays are doing all the work and some of their children continue to depend on them for their livelihood.
After those children have their own children, they still look to their parents to take care of their kids.
This mentality is un-Melanesian. It is also not in line with common sense.
Children who become adults and have their own children must now take care of their own children, in the same way that their parents took care of them when they were growing up.
So, what went wrong here?
Were they not educated properly about their responsibilities when they were growing up?
Or, are they just being irresponsible in the way that they are living that they cannot properly support their own children, and consequently passing them on to someone else to take care of them?

The Book of Proverbs: A chest full of advice
The Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament is filled with wisdom and valuable advice, some of which I drew from, when I was living away from my parents while attending boarding schools and then national high school.
There were things I learned in that book that were never taught to me by my parents and the big church that I grew up in. The Book and the guidance offered by good Bible teachers later on helped.
While I was still in my teens, one of the first lessons I learned from Proverbs was in Proverbs 27.5-6: “Open rebuke is better than secret love.
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”
Those verses taught me that someone who rebukes you when you do something wrong may be doing you more good than harm, and wise people welcome genuine rebukes.
It was a powerful lesson: Someone who loves you may rebuke you at times, as in the case of a good parent admonishing his child for being disrespectful. People who say they love you but never correct you for your wrong attitude or deeds are not helping you.
One of the verses that should guide the main theme of this article is Proverbs 22.6: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Teach them in the way they should go
Do you realise that that verse is also stating that parents are the first teachers of children?
Actually, in the old days, everything a child needed to learn about life and a trade were taught by a parent and their close relatives, as in the case of Jacob engaging his sons as shepherds of the flocks of their family.
Rich families can engage a tutor to teach a child more specialist subjects, like politics or mathematics though.
Notice too that Proverbs teaches that you, the parent, should train or teach the child in the way he or she should go, not the way you want them to go.
You should not decide the future career of your child. Guide them, but let them choose.
Do not force them to become a lawyer or medical doctor because you or your spouse is in that field.
Guide them in the way they should go.
Who knows, maybe they will contribute more to the society as a farmer, an engineer or economist?
Your responsibility is to guide them in the way they should go.
I support my nieces and nephews with their education.
Sometimes, I tell them what they ought to study, or where they should go to study a course.
But if they have chosen their field of study and the institute that they want to study in, I will only support them.

Good parents support their children to succeed
A few years ago, I was sitting in a football stadium with a young man, and while watching the international match unravelling before us, we talked about life.
He was actually a student of mine when I was teaching as a young teacher, and he was then working for a government institution.
He, as others in his group, went the hard way as certain decisions made by the school administration at that time were not made in their favour, particularly in their selection of subjects in Grades 11 and 12.
But he managed to complete a tertiary program with a private institute and was now working to support his young family.
He told me about his child who was in school and how proud he was to see the kid win prizes on graduation day.
I told him that he should continue to work with his child to ensure that he continues to get those prizes in many more graduation days.
That is what good parents do: They help their children succeed in what they are good at, whether in academics, sports or arts.

Teach them to go higher
There is something that can be observed these days.
It is more likely than not to see children of people in high offices never reaching the level that their parents are at, either in their education or in their professional life.
Actually, there is no guarantee that just because you are a CEO, your children will become one too.
You must go one more step, you must teach them how to get there.
The same must be said for a highly educated parent. You must encourage all your children to work hard and at least get a bachelor’s degree and then seek employment.
If they want to continue to do a master’s degree, or go on to do PhD studies, is something that they can decide on later.
The sad thing these days is often the children do not get anywhere close to the level that their parents reached, as in obtaining a bachelor’s degree.
Some people may argue otherwise, but I think the blame should go to the parents for failing to do their part in training the children in the right way to go.
Remember, the parents’ responsibility is to teach the children the way they should go.
To teach them means you have to be an example too.

Show kindness
Like they say, charity begins at home, and in the same way, show kindness if you want your children to be kind.
Talk about higher education at home, if you want your children to go to university.
Just last week, I was listening to a Bible teacher teaching in a YouTube video and he shared a story about his daughter asking him one time about something that she observed.
She said: “Dad, those times that we stopped by different places and you approached poor people and gave them something, you were actually giving them money, right?”
The father said, yes, he was doing that.
And the daughter told him: “Dad, I want to be someone like you.”
Now, that is the greatest compliment that a parent could get from a child.
The child admired the parent and wanted to emulate him.

Teach them the spiritual side of life
If we get back to Proverbs 22.6, the verse is often used by Bible teachers to teach that parents must raise their children to walk in the faith.
That is true, but I was also applying it to other areas in life, as in applying it in education or career.
Do you also realise that parents are urged here to teach their children to walk in the faith?
Yes, if we are considering that verse, it is saying that it is the responsibility of the parent to teach the child the right way so that he or she does not depart from it.
It does not say leave that to the pastor or Sunday School teacher, it states that it is the parents’ responsibility to start the training process.
I think that is clear.
You, the parent, need to know your responsibility in the child’s training.

When you get married, your choices will change
This is another very simple thing that most people overlook when they get married, and may be the cause of a lot of uncertainty, anxiety and cause other problems.
And, this has to do with choices that couples should make after they get engaged.
The fact is when you get engaged, or are married, your choice of activities should also change.
For example, if you are engaged and you love going to sports or a club every weekend and should your partner want to visit you, you may have to drop that favourite pastime of yours.
Or, this time, you bring your partner with you to a football game with you, or to spend some hours socialising somewhere.
Remember, as time goes on, the most important person in your life must be your partner, not your friends or colleagues.
Sure, your parents will continue to have a special part in your life, but they must never be compared with your partner.
Now, when the children enter your life, they are the next lot of important people.
Your friends and colleagues should not be as important to you as your spouse and children.
If you are not sure about this, this can cause a lot of problems for the two of you.

Spend time with your children
A good parent spends time with his or her children.
And that means accompanying them to their football games, or taking them out to the movies.
As mentioned in a previous article, on Saturdays I go out to film AFL matches around the suburbs here in Adelaide, South Australia.
Some parents bring their children along to the games and during breaks, they kick the football with them on the pitch, just as I did with my cousins more than 37 years ago in different ovals in Wewak.
That is a small thing, but an important team-building exercise.
Some Aussie parents who like to cycle, buy bicycles for everyone in the family, so on weekends you can see a whole family cycling down a road near their CBD.
Those parents are good parents.
They are building their relationship with their children and also training them to take care of their bodies by cycling.

Train them to succeed
When you properly train a child in the way they should go, you will help them succeed.
That is, you will help them develop the right attitude to approach their academic studies, and how to choose their friends, their pastimes and their possible careers.
Some may even decide to become a top-shot manager or start a business, or make a lot of money and employ a lot of people.
A few of them may choose the life of a scholar in pursuing a PhD program and later lecture in a university.
When they reach that target of theirs, you are part of their success.
You have carried out your task well.
Next article: You as an achiever among other people

• Thomas Hukahu is an Australia Awards student in Adelaide.