It's funny that I grew up in a very disciplined home, where you get punished in the "African way" whenever you misbehaved. Our parents were mostly burdened about the character we displayed in public, our dressing, our mode of approach etc. They had this"what will people say?" syndrome . Yeah, I called it a syndrome, because to me it was, in the sense that they just get carried away with what others-the society- thinks about their family. It's actually general, it spreads like a disease to many other African home.
The old African way, leave you with lots of bitter sweet memorable experiences that affects your behaviour in public.
Honestly, those modes of training came with lots of shortcomings for example, Issues like Dealing with Depression, Child Sex Education, Emotional Bullying etc are never discussed and mostly avoided. If by chance, the topic is somehow brought up, it is handled poorly.
little secret: I was a victim of that.
In recent years, the emergence of Technology and the 21st Century "mindset" has really changed lots of things, honestly. The world right now is at the tip of our fingers.
As the world evolve everyday, and new technologies are been discovered daily, our parents who have finally seen that the old ways had began to fail them had no choice than to join the moving train. The most astonishing change was the 21st Century mode of child training. It took me aback.
Parents nowadays don't correct their children in the Modified African way.
Modified African way: I coined that up. It means mixing or combining the recent 21st century ideas and modes of child training and the "necessary old African techniques". The necessary old African way of training a child is by using the most important techniques which is "child spanking'. I totally support this mode of training. Spanking, not hitting the child with destructive items!.
I know in recent times, ways like "grounding, restriction etc" all these are the modern ways and should be applicable too but the necessary old African way shouldn't be ignored.
The society now is engrossed with this changing evolution coupled with the "you need to get updated" ways that we let go of our African values. The recent increase in the moral decadence in our society is due to the negligence of our African societal values.
WAIT!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we shouldn't adapt to the latest advancements and all. All I'm saying is that, we should not only adopt those modern changes but we should merge them with some of our notable African ways in other to still instill in our young champs the African values that is about to go into extinction.
Lets call a spade a spade, we all know that some of these modern ways we are adopting is doing our children and generations to come no good, but we still do them so that others don't think that we are outdated.
WHY DON'T YOU ... merge both.
This way you are killing two birds with one stone. HOW?
The modern ways of child training help you bridge those gaps that our fore fathers were unable to do. Discussion on dealing with Depression, Low self esteem, Emotional bullying, Sex Education and so on are handled diligently. Imagine, combining them with the necessary African values like "language speaking, spanking, norms and some cultural teachings etc.
I just shared my thoughts...how about yours?. You could share yours below the comment section.
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