Raising up Children has never been an easy venture. In Nigeria for example there are many problems that could be better imagined than experienced in
Child cares when it comes to
property issues.
Cultures vary from one country to the other but ultimately the child must be brought up disciplined irrespective of geographical region.
I will love to begin by saying; it is hard for a two-year-old child to learn that certain things are not to be touched. He sees other people touching the dishes on the table, handling the books on the shelf, and using the telephone. He is permitted to use his toys freely and sees no difference between these and the other things about the house that he would like to handle.
A
parent must use patience in teaching a toddler which things are for him and which things are forbidden. By the time a child reaches three or four years of age he knows the difference quite well. His clothes, his toys, his bed-all of these belong to him. If there are other children in the family, the four-year-old will defend his things and will usually object when another child tries to use them. Thus the child begins a child’s understanding of property rights.
The parents’ next step should be to explain that just as the child has certain things which he calls his own, so others have things that belong to them. The things on Mother’s dresser are hers and he must not touch them without her permission. Similarly, things that belong to other children must not be used unless the owners consent.
At an early stage of learning, a child will make frequent mistakes. It should not be surprising if he tries to help himself to coins in his mother’s purse. He feels no sense of guilt about taking an apple from a fruit stand. He notices that his
Mother picks up certain objects at the store and takes them away. Not realizing that she paid for them, he reasons “If Mother can take things, why can’t I?”
The patience with which a parent explains to a child which things are his, which things belong to someone else, and the proper means by which he can obtain something that does not belong to him, is well rewarded. It all helps the child to develop his conscience along the lines of what he may use or what he may not use as he pleases.
Perhaps the most important part of the whole process of helping the child to learn about property
rights is that parents make sure they recognize the child rights to the things which are his own. Many times a parent is careless about this matter, as, for example, when he takes the money in the child’s piggy bank to pay the paper boy. Such an act, even though perfectly innocent in its intent, confuses the child on the real meaning of personal property.
It is unfortunate when a
father on the farm suddenly sells a child’s calf without the child’s permission. If the child had understood that this calf was his personal property, then why should the father sell it without talking the matter over with the child?
I once sat at dinner with friends when a neighbor came to the door and bargained with the father for the purchase of a registered pup. Without speaking a word, the five-year-old in the family began to shed tears. The child had been told the pup was his. Now, without any explanation, the father was selling it. How pathetic it was to witness that child’s grief! But even more pathetic was the realization that the father failed to see the damage he was doing to his child’s personality and, particularly, to his understanding of property rights. Seeds of rebellion sown in a child’s personality under such circumstances may later produce a crop of lawlessness in the form of theft and disregard for others’ property.
Caution!
Parents should learn to respect property rights of their children if they wish to raise up discipline children that will make them proud.
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