Officially, we have entered the summer season (even though
Naija doesn’t actually have summer, we have to “belong”) which is good news for
the children, as this usually signifies a period of waking late, watching TV,
visiting friends and just following the day without a strict schedule. However,
most Nigerian parents feel that too much idleness makes children get themselves
into bad situations; so they make children attend summer lessons and coaching
from morning till night, after which the child goes to bed exhausted. Lessons
to develop a child’s intellect are not bad, but a child needs to have a
well-rounded life outside of just education to enable that child to develop necessary social skills and
other additional skills to become a fully functional member of society. Rather
than plan lessons or coaching to fill the whole day, there are other activities
that can work alongside these lessons and will be of great help to the child
both now and in the future. Some of these activities include:
Vocational training-
These days, people are encouraged to learn a skill due to the huge deficit in
the job market. It would be a good thing to find out the child’s interests and
get the child trained in such a skill- this can help the child make money in
later days. As a child, I was very interested in cooking and baking and one
summer training taught me various cooking techniques that I still use today.
Excursions-
theoretical teaching can be instructive, since humans are visual beings, we
learn better if we are directly engaged with visual lessons. This holiday, try
to take the children out to see the sights in your city- this could include
museums, historic relics and cultural relics. If you have the money, why not take
a trip with the kids to give them a
little bit of enjoyment. If there isn’t any time to do this yourself, there are
a lot of schools and organizations that plan trips and excursions
for kids, so don’t let your children get left behind in the fun.
Challenge their
thinking- it is becoming really difficult for people to read and write
correctly these days, due to the obsession with social media “language”, and it
is a really sad development. To prevent this in the future generation, try to
get your kids to read literature (not necessarily school books) and to play
games that challenge the cognition and improve their diction.
Having the children doing these things, in
addition to summer coaching (and of course, allowing the child some time to be
a child) will definitely help the child to develop in all aspects of his/her life.
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