A few days back, a video was trending on social media.
It was the video from a school graduation party for kindergartners.
Dressed in ballet outfits and some with made up faces to match, they sang and danced away joyfully.
Children sing and dance and it was their graduation so the occasion called for it and there should be no qualms about it.
That’s right.
However, not a few parents were enraged by the appearance and performance of the pupils.
These children who should be about 5-years-old, from their looks, sang along and didn’t miss the hard-to-grasp lyrics of secular songs as music blared from the speakers.
Expectedly, opinions were divided over the issue. While some people said they’d never condone such, more so from a school, where their children are expected to be molded, others saw nothing wrong with it. To them, it was just children having a good time. It didn’t matter to them that the song lyrics and accompanying dance moves were profane.
The argument that followed the video was a reminder of how low in values we have sunk as a society.
Years back, it was the responsibility of every right thinking adult to raise a child, which brought about the saying that it takes a community to raise a child.
Parents taught their children to respect elders and did not frown if their children misbehaved and were corrected by another elder.
The situation is different these days.
The way some parents react to acts of misdemeanor by their children, you won’t be wrong to say they find it cute.
Has anyone noticed that when you come across children these days, it is more likely that they will not greet you?
They walk past you, almost shoving you, look right into your eyes and do not greet.
There is yet another set who choose who to be courteous to, depending on how much of their bad conduct you indulge. If you’re that adult that cautions them each time they go overboard, you’re tagged wicked and not deserving of any courtesy.
Some are decent enough to mouth a forceful hello.
And the parents will throw their hands up in defeat, explaining that the child doesn’t like greeting people.
Then there are parents who have to remind their children to greet each time they come across adults.
The stories that come from schools, private especially, are worrisome.
Parents come online to boast about the way they humiliate teachers for daring to discipline their children. They insult the teachers right in the presence of the pupils. Some even engage in fisticuffs.
How do you expect such children to have any kind of regard for the teachers or other adults for that matter?
Interestingly, many a school proprietor would rather lose the services of a good teacher than offend a parent by disciplining their child, or take the side of their teacher when such unruly parents come to harass them.
There was a recent incident in a private school in Abuja where a woman reportedly came with her friends and family members, backed by soldiers, to assault the head of school for daring to punish her child she “carried for nine months in her womb”. In the video that was broadcast online, the woman was seen throwing objects and raining invectives at the man.
The assault and trauma reportedly led to the death of the man two weeks after the incident.
In my time, which is not so long ago, parents taught their children basic courtesy. Greeting was a must. As soon as you came in contact with an adult, you were expected to greet them and if for any reason you failed to do that, be sure that some sort of reprimand awaited you, either from your parents or whoever that adult was.
And more often than not, especially if you were not caused any physical harm, your parents would be grateful that someone out there helped to straighten their child when the need arose.
People argue these days that our parents were too hard on us. Some even liken the kind of upbringing parents of yore practised to abuse and insist that many adults are still traumatised from it, and that it shows in the way some of them discipline their children.
However, when you see the way children are raised these days and the way they turn out, you are grateful for that ‘abuse’.
It is graduation season and one can bet that many more of such videos of children being sexualized by dance and songs in the name of choreography will surface online.
It is indeed worrisome that some parents are doing a tough job of shielding their children from some of these vices at home but when they go to school, they pick them up, not just from other students but the institution.
These songs and dances are distasteful for children that age. There is nothing edifying about them.
How do parents even feel watching their children twerk and gyrate to such songs?
There are age appropriate songs and dance moves schools can choose for their events. There are also many fun games that children can play on occasions such as graduation. Such age appropriate activities for school parties abound on the internet.
It, therefore, beggars belief that rather than go for such, schools prefer songs with lewd lyrics and dance moves for impressionable children.
It is laziness and a need to go with the trend that makes many go this route.
There is a thin line between raising a well-rounded child and exposing the child to values that are detrimental to their becoming the best versions of themselves.
Sadly, these days, parents are even more concerned about their children’s academic performance so that they can have bragging rights among their peers. They do not care that their children are lacking in the basic skills to help them function in the society.
The lines between being bold and outspoken and being rude are also being blurred daily but adults who should keep the children in check indulge them.
Children must go out and interact with others and because of this, you cannot, as a parent control all that they are exposed to.
This is why parents must do their best at the home level to raise their children right with the right values.
After all, the Christian holy book admonishes us to raise our children right so that when they grow, they will not depart from the teachings.
This cannot be emphasised enough.
