Marriages ain't a bed of roses. It's like a bed that you maketh and so you lie on it. Children are God's blessing and a gift to a family. Gifts that ought to be treasured.
Raising a child is like nurturing a seedling into a young plant which grows under various weather conditions. The weather may be harsh and the plant fails to see its maturity, the weather may be favourable and the plant blossoms to see it's good days.
In the Bible, I quote, it's written that a good tree bears good fruits, no bad tree bears good fruits and vice versa. Similarly a well raised child will grow to have good virtues and will be appreciated in the society.

In any family, having a child is easy, what's difficult is raising the child. Poor parental ain't any parents' fault as it may be due to their upbringing, societal views, customs, lack of experience and knowledge on ways of bringing up children. People learn from their mistakes or other's mistakes. Some of the mistakes made are lack of attention and affection, comparisons, bad role models among others as we are going to see below.

One of theost common mistake with current generation is that parents spend inadequate time with their children. This is mostly due to the busy schedules of most parents. It's every parents wish to give their children a comfortable life and each parent strives to offer quality life to their children. It's quite normal nowadays for parents to leave the children under the care of nannies and afterwards under teachers care as they go about their daily businesses. However, some parents choose random nannies to look after their children which is not ok as those nannies stand in as guardians in absence of the parents, thus the children's behaviour, character traits and personality are picked from these nannies. Children at tender age tend to learn by observing and copying so if the nanny portrays bad behaviour or habits the child will pick it and think that's the way to go. Parents no matter how busy you are, always find time to be with your children, have interest in their hobbies, follow up how the children are picking up in school, get to meet his or her friends, have one on one heart to heart talks in a while. In short, take part in your child's upbringing, monitor the nannies that way the child will have the sense of belonging, have parental love and care, get someone to consult on various issues and the parent can be rest assured.
Inadequate time and lack of involvement in your child's upbringing may have effects such as the child might be withdrawn, see the parents as strangers, it might also be difficult as a parent to correct them as you weren't there at first to teach them the correct way.

Secondly, some parents reflect bad habits to their children. A parent is the first teacher to a child thus a parent should strive to be a good role model to their children. Parents should not be preachers who preach without practicing what they preach. It's easier to teach your children morals that you yourself uphold too. Some traits that convey bad role models are; spouses fighting or calling each other names, abusing the other in front of your children. If parents do this, children will grow up knowing it's okay to be violent and it also traumatizes the child and in teen years it might be hard for them to get into relationships as they no longer believe in love due to what was portrayed at home.
As we said, marriage ain't a bed of roses there are ups and downs, parents should therefore argue out their differences in a respectable way. That way serving as a good example to the children in how to resolve conflicts in an amicable way.

Thirdly, another area that most parents fail the test of parenthood is in discipline. In the scriptures, I quote, it's written spare the rod and spoil the child. Disciplining a child does not entail using a rod only, other forms of disciplining include grounding the child, forfeiting some luxury, talking to the child, lecturing the child among other.
There are no best or worst ways of disciplining. Mistakes parents make in discipline include being too harsh on the child, comparison and overexpectation. Discipline measure taken, a parent should take into consideration; if it's a first time offence, the extent of the mistake of the child, reasons as to why the child did what they did, was there prior warning, did the child had knowledge that the act was wrong. Disciplining a child should be in a form that would enable the child to realise the mistake, it's repercussions and to give him or her a chance to amend. Some parents act on impulse which is wrong, punishing the child there and then while angry may result to the parent reacting harshly, punishing the child severely without reasoning with them or getting the facts or truth of the matter. This instills fear in the child and makes it harder for the child to approach the parent, the child may end up bottling up their problems as they lack a confidant in their parents.

Also, another mistake that parents do unknowingly is comparing their children to other children, or seeking perfection, having high expectations or standards for their children. Everyone is fearfully and wonderfully made by God in His own image. Everyone got their strengths and weaknesses, no one is perfect. Human got flaws. Children are different from each other and everyone of them are special in their own way and should be accepted as they are.
Though one can work on their weaknesses and turn them into strengths, the motivation should be from oneself. It's okay for a parent to push their children to realise their dreams but some parents put a lot of pressure on the child. Overexpectation and seeking perfection is where these parents go wrong as in the process they end up comparing the child to siblings or neighbours child for instance," why can't you be like so and so.." I bet conversation ends there but it got impact on the child. Putting a lot of pressure on the child may in the process result the child to be stressed, lowers his or her self esteem, make the child to strive to seek perfection in order to reach their parents' standard of a perfect child just to get their attention and praises. Imagine striving to live someone else's life in order to fit in..how stressful. The child may end up hating the sibling he's being compared to and it might show a discord between them. The child might resolve to extreme methods to achieve that 'perfection', parent's expectation thus doing himself more harm than good, worse may end up in depression and drugs. Never compare your child to other people, appreciate them as they are, appreciate their efforts however little, motivate them but don't have high expectations, let the child pursue their interest and goals. Do not project your unachieved goals to them. Heard of a story a child pursued a course, got a degree, gave it to his parents then resumed college to study a career of his interest? This is because the parent put his interest and goals before the child's interest.

Last but not least, children need freedom and break from routines and habits too. The freedom though should not be absolute. Allow the child to pursue his hobbies, plan their leisure times, indulge in activities. Where parents go wrong in this is when the parent fails to set and enforce boundaries to the so called freedom. Lack of boundaries and limits to what the child can do or indulge in may result to the child developing poor habits such as drugs and substance abuse, moral decay among others. Parents should therefore try to be involved in their child's social life, at least get to know where he or she hangs out and in which company, get to know the child's interest and hobbies. However, parents should not over indulge in the child's life, give them some privacy. Also, avoid doing everything for the child, let them to once in a while learn from their mistakes, experiences and to also learn to solve problems on their own.

Conclusively, there's no correct way of raising a child but strive to be a good parent.
© Grace Atieno.