Forcing A Career Path On Your Children Can Destroy Them Totally
I know what you might be thinking, this is 2023. Which kind of parent still forces their kids to choose a career path against their wishes? That is what I thought too until I came across a thread about a week ago on a particularly popular Nigeria forum.
I was reading one post made by mother on www.nairaland.com she was seeking help for her son who is threatening to leave the house and never looked back.
According to her, the son has stopped talking to his father aside from greetings. Their bone of contention is that the father had always wanted the son to study pharmacology against his wish of becoming a professional footballer. The father works with NAFDAC and sees how well-paid the pharmacists working with him are. So he must have a son as a pharmacist as well.
To the extent that the father hires tugs on two different occasions in the past to beat the hell out of him to force him to do his wish.
Her son later gave in, went for the course then later dropped out after a few years. He now seems to lose his direction in life while blaming his dad for not allowing him to follow his career interest.
At the age of 21, he lost interest in relating to anyone in the family, none keeping any friends whatsoever. According to the mom, he can lock himself alone in his room for days without relating to anyone. All her efforts to get through to him were unsuccessful.
I felt really bad for this young boy, someone who was supposed to be his protector and guardian and is now the same person tormenting him.
This kind of parenting, forcing our kids to follow a career path against their wishes and interest can destroy their life journey in such a way one can only imagine.
How on earth can a father hire tugs to torture his kid? That alone can break the young lad and make him lose his self-esteem.
What we should be doing as parents is to help our kids discover their talents and interests, and then guide them to achieve success in it.
Not force our unfulfilled dream, or because we see some people doing great in some fields and we want our kids in those fields by all means necessary even if they hate such career fields.
Communicate with your kids and help them discover their talent.
Listening to them through effective communication and finding out what their interest is, what they are best at doing will save the parents and the kids a lot of trouble. Kids want to be heard, and their feelings to be understood. So, showing them our support, with love and understanding is the best way to go if we want a child to have a happy and successful life. And of course discipline them with love when needed be.
As a mother of a six months old boy, we are looking out for what talent he has and his career interests as early as possible so we can start guiding him to become his best in whatever career he chooses. To me, I believe that with the right guidance and support, anyone can succeed in any career path as long as the interest is there.
The mother of the boy above was advised to try as much as possible to communicate with his son, to get through to him. The father should apologize and support him in whatever he chooses to become. Before it is too late for them.
As a mother, it is our responsibility to know when to defend our kids from a dictatorship father like the one in this story. And not just stand by and watch while their life is ruined by a controlled freak in the name of he knows what is best for his son.
This is all from me for now, thank you very much for following me and all your support. Till some other time I wish you a happy Sunday❤🥰 