My rhetoric sounds sometimes like a broken record.
I often get a backlash as a result of my write-ups as many of them are very controversial and sensitive in nature. I say things that should be concealed, as a result I have a lot of people challenging my submissions.
Honestly I upset myself as I am often in the spotlight of many of my write-ups. I write partly to free myself from the baggage I have carried through childhood into adult life. No apologies at all!!
Between the age of zero and 10 years old, the character of an individual is formulated in that period.
By the age of 10 I have been through the sea of rejection, of despair and the passage of hell; and existing in a constant state of shock.
When I encounter broken people, particularly men, I often imagine what their upbringing was like. What I see in the abundance of a man/woman is often the wreckage from his or her childhood experiences and family background.
Being raised in a constant hostile home environment from childhood can set the precedents of what is likely to transpire in the near future for any child.
If children in the world I come from (particularly my family background) were subjected to psychological evaluation mental test, I can guarantee only a few of the children will pass.
Family upbringing is crucial to who an individual becomes - by and large. When a traumatic upbringing dominates the life of a child, Society will subsequently inherit a broken adult; in effect that society suffers the consequences of the child’s early life experiences.
When family values are compromised and eroded, the direct result is seen in the life of a child later on in life particularly in adulthood. I have repeatedly emphasised in my books that most of the human brain is formed before age 10 years old.
Most of a person's 10 year old self never dies as such you travel through life with the experiences your brain had absolved in the early stages of your life many of which can be librating or detrimental leading to adverse effects on your life and persons associated with you.
You see, you break a child when the child is constantly:
Ridiculed and disgraced before he or her peers;
Sent parking when he or she contravenes your rules;
Use derogative name to describe the child;
Placed in solitary confinement;
Isolated from the family get together;
Left to roam the streets for survival;
Undermined as a result of academic deficiencies;
Put through instability;
Deprived food and health care;
Told he or she is not to be reckoned with in society;
Pushed away when he or she seeks comfort and protection;
Told he or she is useless;
Subject to beatings - in the name of discipline;
Meet with the caregivers' absence;
Blamed.
The human race naturally exhibits the formation that happened in the brain before age 10. If a person had experienced a lot of trauma in the manner of upbringing, the outcome is often exhibited through the character and attitude of such a person to their later life into the 70s, 80s and 90s should a child live that long.
We are the products of the home we come from and the manner in which we have been raised.
There are people who have made concerted efforts to move away from their appalling childhood experiences to create a better path. Credit to such people.
Psychological examination can show you why you are exhibiting certain tendencies. Psychological counselling and coaching can help to a degree to correct those tendencies.
But in the long run, it goes down to experiences children have in the early stages of their lives.
Take a microscopic look at our society in Nigeria; how it has eroded and broken down over the years. what we are constantly seeing on display is the formation of childhood experiences and upbringing.
For example:
We have seen marriages breaking down at an alarming rate;
Relationship do not have the fibre of contentment anymore - all about money or nothing;
Politicians behaving badly;
Corruption at an alarming rate;
People in position of leadership constantly telling lies;
Sexual exploitation on the increase - resulting from vulnerabilities of poverty and lack of contentment;
Abnormality becoming a normal way of life;
Absence of father figures;
Death trap roads everywhere;
Electricity blackout has become a common place;
Substandard educational system;
The rich oppressing the poor and the poor have become adapted to being oppressed;
Insecurity everywhere;
We have become a nation that doesn’t go to sleep with our eyes closed;
We destroy every natural resource our nation is blessed with then blame other jurisdictions;
We rob Paul to pay Peter;
Kidnapping and blood money everywhere!
We must remember that children under the age of 10 years are experiencing directly and indirectly some of the conditions listed above regardless of the home they come from. I must say, the frequency of crises is much more severe and closer to some children than others pending in the home one comes from.
I honestly speak and write from direct experience. We must be honest with ourselves by critically and sensitively considering the damage we are creating for children and generations to come and seek a U-turn.
Prayerfully, with practical actions we need to seek an end to these societal problems our nation is wallowing in.
We need courageous, self determined, men and women of integrity, and God fearing individuals come 2023.
Israel Ayodele E. A. Lazarus Oshunremi
Bachelor of Arts, Honours In Education and Community Studies, UEL
Mentor/Educationalist/Public Speaker/Human Rights Activist/Author
- Category:
- Society
- 30 Apr, 2022
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