Watching my ten-month old nephew trot about ungainly, his three toothed grin, cheekily brightening up the room, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of awe at Allaah’s Greatness, seeing how happy and healthy he was. He blossomed under the attention of his mother, grandparents, several aunties and uncles. . Even though he was not a year yet, he had started to walk and he sometimes loved to walk with his eyes closed, of course opening them half-way when he suspected that there was something in front of him! He would spin round and round and then fall on his bottom when he got dizzy.
He watched to see when nobody was looking and then attempted to climb the stairs. He had done so a couple of times too, to the horror of the adults in the house! To the delight of everybody, especially his parents, he started to talk. And rather than say what most babies started out with, calling daddy mummy as their first word, my nephew says ya iyaiyyaya Not exactly with a diction that would win an Arabic speakers award but words that declared the truth of existence, melted hardened hearts and fill souls with hope and the promise of goodness in this world and the Hereafter. And whether he was hungry or sleepy, happy or sad, it was ya iyya iyyaya in different versions.
No matter how many times he said it (and that was a considerable number of times in a day), I was always charmed by how adorable he looked and sounded when he did his ya iyyaha iyaya number, May Allaah make "La iIaha iIaa Allah for him the pillar of his life and make him not to depart from this ultimate truth, Amin. The quality of parent-child relationship has long been acknowledged to be one of the most powerful predictors of optimal child development.
By parent we mean any childcare giver that takes on the role of parenting over a child, whether grandparents, foster parents or even other relatives. In research and studies carried out over the years, it is seen that warm, responsive parenting is associated with later child language development, cognitive development, school success, and behavioral adjustment. Hence children who grow up in a warm and loving environment appear quicker in development, this I have witnessed firsthand by observing my nephews growth and development. As a mother too, it is easy to attest that my nephew’s obvious intelligence for one so young is already manifesting itself in several of his actions.
And if I had to start talking about the under-fives I have at home and the way and manner they use their intelligence I would probably fill up a book and crack a few ribs in the process too! Ask a couple of parents around and they would have plenty to say! Conversely, parents who are less involved and affectionate with their children are more likely to witness a variety of academic and behavioural problems with those children as they grow. Now being affectionate is not necessarily expressed through frequent trips to fast food joints or daily gifts of expensive toys, nor does it on the other hand translate to careless abandon of the child, whereby parent and child go their separate, ways or in some cases have a master/servant relationship with the parent being the master and the child, the servant.
Which brings to mind an incident a dose friend told me some time ago, she had gone to visit another friend of hers and there she met a lady with two young children about five and seven years old My friend only just managed to stop herself from giving the children. Some hard pinches and much needed spanking. She said the children drained used empty bottles that had been used by other guests with their mouths, broke anything and everything they could get their hands on, and fought and rudely called everybody that attempted to stop them, both young and old, names.
They yelled and jumped on the chairs and cried if they didn’t get what they wanted. What does mother do? Morenike! Tayo! (not real names) please stop! Mummy, doesn’t like that! Having done her duty, mummy turns back to the magazine she is reading, while the children continue on their path of destruction. These children were obviously not underprivileged children, they were pampered, spoilt and completely out of control. At the far end of the spectrum, child abuse and neglect are strongly related to poor developmental outcomes, in both the short and the long. I watched as the four-year old daughter- of an acquaintance, clung to every uncle around at a program.
Trying unsuccessfully to get the attention of her mother who was busy attending to her customers, the little girl went to a corner to relieve herself, When she finished, she again went to her mother so she could clean her up, but her mother was just too busy, she tried to get her auntie, who was also very busy and just snapped at her to wait. The girl soon got tired and started to play, soiled and bare bottomed! When I couldn’t bear it any longer, I managed to get through to the little girl’s mother through the crowd of customers that surrounded her and told her, her daughter needed her attention.
The next time I saw the little girl, some several minutes later, she was clinging to another uncle with her dress raised up. She had still not been cleaned up and she was still without her panties! What kind of future would a child like that have, when her mother had already set her up, for sexual molestation and other possible abuse through neglect? The one who was supposed to be the little girl’s shelter was the very person that was unknowingly spinning the wheel of her destruction.
Today, gory tales of little children, both boys and girls being abused by one houseboy/girl/driver, uncle, auntie, father or mother have become so common place that what was with screams of horror before is now received with a shrug of the SlouIder’s, a sad shaking of the head, or for the more expressive a loud hiss and then it’s on to other things! It’s just another ugly side of life. At best the listener would feel some compassion for the affected family but reassured and confident that it would never happen to his or her child/children. Do you give your child, the proper and necessary attention he or she needs? Would you honestly say that you are a good parent? Later on, when your children pray: "My Lord! Bestow on them Your Mercy as they did bring me up when I was small." (QI7[1sraa]:24) would it be a duaa or a curse for you? Reach deep within yourself and what you find might be the first step towards attaining a rewarding or darming future in this life and even in the next for having been a good or bad parent.
This article was culled from the publications of Deen Communication Limited