My Son Toys With Essence Of My Motherhood

Dear Agatha,

It has become a difficult task to raise my young boy now in JSS 2.

I am shocked to see how he changed from being a good boy to a very bad one that he is now. He refuses to write his notes in school, read his books at home or even do his assignments at all. He has suddenly become too stubborn that he has even begun stealing my money.

From what I heard, he has become a sort of Father Christmas to everybody in his school, including his seniors.

His new passion is to make friends with people older than him, mostly those who have no vision in life.

His performance in school has dropped too low despite the fact that he is an intelligent boy. And what beats me hollow is his apparent lack of care.

Being a single parent, he knows that life hasn’t been easy for me and that I am going through a lot of hardship raising his school fees each term. He is not showing any remorse and seems not ready to change.

The worse is the fact that no method of discipline seems to be working for me at all. I love him so much. I have exhausted every means I know including force, love, and persuasion.

I know that I would be held responsible for whatever he becomes in future. I am beginning to feel that I really do not know how to handle or raise children, otherwise, why is he not responding to my measures?

I really accept all these as my faults, which is why I want to be taught how to improve and become a good and responsible mother to him. I do a menial, and since I have to make ends meet, I ensure I put in extra hours while my younger sister is always at home. And I expect her to help out but it seems she isn’t doing much.

I will really appreciate some sort of guidelines that can help me raise this child in a Godly way.

Concerned Mother.

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Dear Concerned Mother,

Let me start by assuring you that no parent really has the magic to rearing perfect children. It takes the special grace of God to produce acceptable children. If any parent tells you, he or she has the panacea to perfect children, that person is a liar, because any thing can go wrong in and with the process of child moulding.

I assure you that one of the most dreadful and difficult assignments on earth is parenting. Child nurturing can really be a torture and pain in the neck.

Not even acclaimed men and women of God can boost of having the right key to children training. Many parents have overtime found themselves falling flat on their faces when otherwise perfect children at home turn out to be real monsters in school.

Although it is most difficult with some children than others but generally speaking, it is like constantly sitting on a board of sharp edge nails. You never know what to expect when it comes to children. Even if your rules are guaranteed to work for your children, it is only for as long as it takes them to mix with other children whose behaviours you have no control over. Because no man is an island, and for this reason parents cannot influence effectively as friends they keep in school or other places they frequent, peer influences as well as other social values constantly being marketed by the society vis-à-vis the media always interfere from time to time with whatever training a child gets at home.

Then again the teenage years are the most difficult to manage because the child, due to all the hormonal changes going on, thinks freedom is at hand. The avalanche of confusion generated by the hormones makes the teenager particularly rebellious and so anti-reforms.

This is the threshold your child has found himself. He thinks the changes going on in his body have made him an adult with all the concomitant freedom to do as he pleases.

Your role as the mother is to give him support while educating him on how his new lifestyle can destroy him forever. This is the time he needs your support, attention, care and experience. Don’t let him see your anger at what he is doing to himself instead let him see the pains, anger and disappointment of what he is doing to himself.

He wants you to be angry so he can use it as an excuse to remain bad. Don’t give him the satisfaction. I appreciate the justification of your anger but it isn’t the wise thing to do right now else you would be driving him farther off from you.

Show him unconditional love; confront him with both the strength and vulnerability only mothers know how to combine to their advantages. There is no way your sister can do it for you. This is a job only a mother who loves a child can do.

Ask him why he has taken to stealing. Listen to what he has to say, it may be a sign of protest against what you are doing, or to get you to pay more attention to him.

Being a boy without a father could be very challenging for him. You must at all times be there for him.

To help you understand him better, try to remember your teenage years and how you dealt with issues. Your understanding and love are what would always make the difference as the years roll by.

You also need to be close to God so it would be easier for you to introduce him to the only Father that has the powers to make all the difference in his life.

Good luck.

Can God’s Perfect-will Make Us Perfect-match?

Dear Agatha,

A question came up during a discussion with some friends and we were unable to resolve it. In the context of our belief in a God who has a perfect-will for all His children, is it right and biblical to suppose that each individual has one unique life partner?

If yes, what happens for instance, when owing to wrong choices, the person uniquely made for us finds him or herself in somebody else's arms? Do we wait till death do them part and possibly ourselves die in the process or do we displace someone else by taking their unique match? If no, what happens to God's perfect will?

Chidi.

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Dear Chidi,

The story of creation lends credence to God’s specifics for us. He made Eve from Adam’s rib. Therefore from every man, He has extracted a rib to make his mate. There is no way another man’s rib would fit into another man perfectly. To have a perfect relationship physically, there must be a spiritual harmony, which is what the rib represents.

Doubtless, we all come with our unique partners that is why some marriages despite obvious lapses in the character and attitude of either of the partners still manage to have a flawless relationship whereas, two seemingly good mannered people have problems making their marriage work.

The problem come from the beginning; the conflict in our beings when our choices conflict with the plans of God for us. Many a time, we insist on our own desires against the real plans God has designed for us. Most times, God allows us the freedom to our ways because right from the beginning He gave us to each and everyone of us the choice of a freewill.

This is why when some of us are going against His Will; He looks the other way, refusing to help us do things His way because He isn’t a dictator.

Marriage falls under one of the many mysteries of life. Although it has a master plan from God but like all the choices we make in life, such plans get derailed along the line either through the choices we make or through our own carelessness as well as thorough understanding of what we are getting into.

Of all the institutions in the world, the marriage is the only one that must stand on the tripod to succeed very well. The physical must at all times find a correspondence with the spirit and the soul to achieve perfection. But unfortunately, most marriages only have the physical formation to go by.

These are marriages based on physical or material consideration. More often than not, the mistakes come from the women who think that unless a man is handsome and rich, he can never make a good husband or provide for his family. This line of thinking is being helped by massive global trends to materialism. Advertisers these days, and unfortunately, religious leaders sell the message of prosperity being the hallmark of God’s personal seal of approval of a person’s effort. They present success in alluring colours and attractive packages while ignoring the resources and investment within.

Because of this trend, nobody likes to be part of anybody’s beginning or support any dream in conception. People only like to be part of a ready-made dream not the beginning of it.

Therefore anybody who appears less successful, no matter how beautiful and dependable that person is, gets relegated to the background or completely ignored by a society that seems to have lost its value or the place of God in things.

This same attitude has found its way into choices of life partners. Many intending couples no longer care about potentials but existing evidences of a person’s profitability as a life partner.

When through our own warped choices or inactions find ourselves or supposed right choices in the arms of other, the way out is to fall into God’s alternative plans for us. For every plan He always has an alternative. When man fell from grace in the Garden of Eden, he instantly put an alternative plan for man’s salvation because nature abhors vacuum.

Once the original plan suffers a setback, it becomes inevitable for one to find another person to fill the void to prevent the greater calamity of loneliness, frustration and moral bankruptcy.

The alternative may not necessarily offer premium satisfaction but produces friendship, understanding, respect, tolerance and sense of responsibility. It may not have the above extra value embedded in perfect choices but would have near perfect result with more determination as well as dedication. The passion may not be exactly right but the friendship as well as respect that comes with second best choices also make marriage satisfactory because there is a meeting of the physical and the spirit.

However, problems become glaring with alternative choices when the choices are based solely on physical considerations. Something has to be felt deep from within to make whatever choice we end up living with amiable to us and ultimately allow God a place in our lives. Being His children He is forever on the look out for our well-being and doesn’t stop at ensuring that His mercy covers us always, only if we learn to put all our trusts in Him.

Good luck.