TEENSPEAKS - Affairs of the Teenage Heart

Every parent can testify that from the minute they look into the precious little face of their new baby daughter, they begin to entertain fears for her virtue. It doesn’t matter that she has just been born and no one but God can really say how she is going to turn out; it doesn’t matter that her mother was once a little girl herself and turned out alright in the end (if she does say so herself!) or that her father is a member of the dreaded sex that he believes exists for the sole purpose of seeing to the ruination of his girl-child.

She must be protected, barred from the world of men, set in the highest tower of the farthest castle in the deepest ocean in the farthest corner of the earth until she dies either from age or sheer boredom- at least, she would have died safe!

Okay, I exaggerate. You will agree with me, though, that some parents of teenage girls kind of go ballistic when they discover that boys have started to find their daughters attractive. They get hernias whenever they see their daughters speaking with a guy; hyperventilate when their young lady is talking with some guy on the phone and has the effrontery to look happy while doing it; and go into cardiac arrest when they discover that their sixteen-year old has a (saints preserve us!!!) boyfriend!

I am privileged to work with teenagers on a regular basis and it hurts me to observe how fears about relationships not only fuel rebellion, but alienate the teens from their parents. Girls have been called promiscuous or worse, been physically assaulted or humiliated in front of their siblings and relatives, given irrational curfews and accused of all sorts of things just to scare them into submission. This may put the parent’s heart at uneasy rest, but it forces the teen to seek alternative outlets for their emotions like pornography, masturbation and premature sex.

Listen, I agree that this is not America. This is Nigeria, where social relations between teenagers of the opposite sex, is not viewed with as much license. It is not that American teenage rituals are necessarily harmful; it’s not just in our culture to indulge practices such as ‘going on dates’ and ‘prom night’. People, we need to understand that though we may disapprove of the manner in which those teens express their attraction for each other, we cannot ignore the fact that our teens have those feelings too and they need to be dealt with.

The kind of exposure teens of nowadays have doesn’t make things any easier. They watch TV, go on the internet and hear what other teens’ parents allow. Everything they see is encouraging them to break out, take control, and make their own decisions. But more than these, they can’t deny that their heats beat just that little bit faster when they see that special boy (or girl, for the boys), or that when they are with them, everything seems better and they don’t want the time to end.

Because teenagers are teenagers, their feelings per time are erratic so a parent cannot entirely be blamed for discountenancing some of their more passionate affirmations of ‘forever after’ feelings for so and so. A wise parent, however, would get close to their teenager and help her channel those feelings positively and productively. A paranoid parent would rather have their child deny the existence of those feelings and command her to face her studies, asserting that if she had been doing the latter in the first place, they would not have committed valuable time to thinking about boys (or girls, in the case of the boys).

We need to stop burying our heads in the sand, hoping that if we close our eyes, the teenage years, and their attendant complexities would go away. Every teenager is different and needs to be treated thusly. We need to take time to acquaint ourselves with their ways and their world (after all, how can we fight an enemy that we do not know or understand?), and more importantly, acquaint ourselves with our teens.

There is a lot of information out there in books and over the internet that can equip us with the skills we need to chart the choppy waters of the teen years. But having done all to stand, we need to arm ourselves with the Word of God and with prayer.

We need all the help we can get!

FROM THE HEART OF A YOUNG NIGERIAN MOTHER - They're looking at You, Mum and Dad

I remember the first time my two-year-old daughter wore her first bra.

I watched her little face, screwed up in concentration, as she pushed the first arm, then the other into the straps, and fitted the cups over her chest.

She then turned to me with a look of triumph and a huge smile. It didn’t matter to her that she was making a big deal over something as uneventful to me as putting on a bra; she had done it all by herself. It mattered even less that she was wearing my bra and it was, well let’s just say, definitely not her size!

Yes, she was imitating the ritual she had seen me repeat every day since she was old enough to understand what it was, even if she did not yet understand why I did it. As she doesn’t understand what make up is, or why I use it; that the high heels I wear , though alright for me just swallow up her small feet and that handbags sometimes do really need to be as big as she is.

My tiny tot’s antics remind me that whether I am conscious of it or not, I am her compass for all that it means to be a female. It started right from when she realized that I kind of look like her and it will end the day that I go on to glory.

Being a reference point to her of all things feminine and adult becomes a big responsibility for me. It makes me question how I comport myself, how I dress, how I handle conflict (especially with her father), whose example I follow, how I treat people, how I make decisions, how I handle money and a myriad other things.

Do I do the things that I ask her to do or do I just say them? Do I teach her to confront issues or ask her to tell Mrs. So and so that I’m not at home while I hide away in my room? Do I tell her to respect all people and then stop her from playing with Mama Comfort’s daughter because her mother owns the ‘buka’ down the street without a really good reason? Do I let her do what she jolly well wants and then take her to task when she makes a potentially embarrassing bad decision? Am I honest with her or do I tell her a little ‘white lies’ to make her aim higher like how I always used to come first when I was in school?

It is very sobering for me to realize that whatever my child becomes in life, starts from what she learnt at her mother’s knees as what I became started from what I learnt at mine’s. It makes me want to constantly put a magnifying glass on all that I do and ask myself what kind of an impact it will have on her.

I’m grateful to my parents for how I turned out in life. I would love for my children to be able to say the same.

FROM THE HEART OF A YOUNG NIGERIAN MOTHER - Tips for Raising Your Kids in the Jet Age

‘A wise son makes a glad father but a foolish one is the heaviness of the mother’ Proverbs 10:1

 There’s a joke that says when a woman says a child is hers, it’s a statement of fact; but when a man says a child is his, it’s a statement of faith. It seems unfair but whether we like it or not, the burden of raising children rests squarely on the mother’s shoulders as by default, she gets to spend more time with the kids.

Nowadays, not only does home and career vie for her attention, she has the added concern of the amount of information her children get exposed to. Thanks to the internet, the television and other media, she can worry that one day, 4-year-old Tunde might ask her, ‘mummy, why are that mummy and daddy fighting on the bed?’

Here are a few tips that might help you:

• ·         Take control. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all that needs doing but you must be on top of your children’s upbringing.
• ·         Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Sometimes, you only have to say the word and you can get great advice from experienced mums.
• ·         Give your children boundaries. I once met a mother who did not allow her 10-year-old to watch High School Musical because guess what, her child is not yet in Secondary School. Be a friend to your children, but you’re first of all their mother.
• ·         Let them never doubt that you love them.
• ·         Get involved in special projects with them to create ‘mummy and me’ times.
• ·         Pray and get wisdom from the Bible.