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Shift Media News 
By Gladys S.N Kabanda
Kampala, SHIFT MEDIA NEWS- Its Holiday Time again! Holidays can be a great time to bond with your children and maybe even let your own inner child come out to play. But it can also be a stressful time when kids can misbehave because of boredom. It’s best to put a little bit of advanced planning into the summer holidays and prepare yourself with an arsenal of activities to keep the little ones out of mischief.
“Holiday –celebrate, If we took a holiday, just one day out of life, it would be so nice– as sang by Madonna an American artist in1983.”Listening to this song surely makes one believe that a holiday is important in everyone’s life. Each one of us looks forward to having a holiday just to balance life, that is, work-life balance. I thank the almighty God who has enabled our children to return from school safely and my prayer is that they stay safe all throughout this long holiday.
Holiday being a time of rest from the heavy and fixed timetables at school, most holidaymakers tend to relax and do whatever they need without supervision from parents or guardians. It’s not a time to sleep and get wasted, children should be guided, given a sense of direction and taken out to visit their relatives, parks, farms, market places. These outreaches help to expand the children’s brain and this improves their intelligence quotient which is so crucial as they grow.
Many parents/guardians are happy to have time with their children but sometimes they get worried about how to manage their children especially the teenagers who are hyper in so many areas of life.
Parents should not dread holiday time, they should otherwise think of activities that will involve their children such as cooking, cleaning, gardening, craft making , swimming, attending music and dancing classes, visiting disadvantaged children in homes like Ssanyu and Nsambya babies’ home , painting, enrolling in sports academy where they enhance their sports capability.
As it is at school, parents should continue to discover their children’s talents, nurture and develop them so as to help them become useful to the communities now and in future. Parents should desist from saying that they are too busy, one thing I know in life is that everybody is and can decide to be too busy and block engaging in different aspects of life but it is all about prioritising the important things in life. Remember, “To be in your children’s memories tomorrow, you have to be in their lives today.”
Children should be made a priority in every home especially during this holiday when we shall especially celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. To bring out the best in our children and to enable them to acquire life skills like confidence, being assertive, creative and great problem solvers, we as parents need to give our children time during this holiday.
Parents need to be role models in their homes and at community levels like church, markets and public places. One should remember that children are usually very alert and pick either good or bad behaviour very fast thus we should mind what we expose them to especially during holiday time.
Dear parents as we enjoy this holiday with our children, let us keep them busy in activities as already mentioned, involve them in businesses we do so that they get to know what it feels like to work so as to develop entrepreneur skills right from an early age.
Apart from involving them in the businesses we do, we can also plan and take them for “ekisaakate Kya Nabagereka” which will take place at Hana International School Uganda, starting on 4th January 2020 and ending on 18th January 2020. This programme has helped our children to acquire life skills like self-esteem, effective decision making, knowing and living with others , appreciating one’s culture , assertiveness, effective communication among other aspects as emphasised by PIASCY(Presidential Initiative on AIDS Strategy for Communication to Youth)
Different churches have also organised children’s parties and ministries at parish level so as to help children achieve the best in life. The Children’s Ministry at Nabbingo Parish has also organised a non -residential retreat for children between 6 to 16 years running from Monday 9th December 2019 up to 15th December 2019 at a cost of 50,000/=.
This is all done to ensure that children are guided on how to live a Christian life full of values and of course not forgetting their culture as emphasised in cultural retreats like that organised by Nabagareka Foundation and so many other events geared at developing the youths.
On the other hand, as parents, we should not live it up to the professions to coach and mentor our children. We should, on the other hand, create “counselling time “ in our homes especially for the teenagers who need a lot of information about their creator, how to live with others, personal hygiene ,sanitation, decision making, growing so fast, drugs ,dressing code, career and a lot more in their line of growth.
The writer is an Administration Officer- Busega Prep School
#Management and Leadership Consultant
#gsnk.consult@gmail.com
One Comment
Surely you’ve spoken as a true Teacher and a Mother. Thanks so much dear