Don't lose lessons learnt during COVID-19 lockdown

PARENTING |

It has been five full months… or thereabout. Children had never been out of school this long in decades. Save for the lapse between the completion of A'level and the beginning of university, all other breaks take two months at most.

So, for all learners from kindergarten to university to be at home this long, was a first for many.

It indeed was a first even for parents — never before did they have to keep all their children at home this long.

It demanded that many adjustments be made; that new lessons be taught and learnt. It made us unlearn so much.

What could have been a dark cloud of despondency, gave us an opportunity to weave and paint our own yarns to line it with — some gold, some silver, some copper, and some many other things. Not all went to waste.

In our house, people are now amateur chefs, making things I would never have tasted, let alone known that they exist, had the COVID-19 monster not called.

Plus, all the herbs whose pictures I had only seen on containers, like oregano, rosemary, parsley, and others that do not come easily to mind, now I see growing, and eat them with their lifeblood still fl owing. We grow them.

Other people did other projects and some are actually making money off of them. But more than the tangible projects, this season helped us bond in previously unimaginable ways. I am a Christian and I interact with other birds of similar plume.

I have heard tales of how parents have been pleasantly shocked at the things their children can do.

Children who lead worship like they went to worship college. Children who preach moving sermons that cannot let you move away.

Children who take care of their siblings with amazing attention and affection. Children who are the peacemakers in the family. We have a lot to thank God for.

Yet, as time went on, people began to let down their guard. They began to manifest a lax attitude; to cast away restraint, careless bit by exasperated bit.

The longer the wait for freedom became, the more urgently people lost interest in what they were doing. They sought to do things that would appear to rub the powers that be the wrong way, ostensibly to cause them to open up society sooner.

What futility! What vanity! For, after going out of your (inhibited) way to make the best of a terrible situation, how can you then be the self-same person to undo all the good you had done?

After investing in teaching your children to hang around each other and looking out for each other, how can you let them begin roaming the entire countryside, mingling with children without the values you had instilled in yours?

After developing a routine that catered for all domains — body, mind, and spirit — and making the entire family get used to it; even love it, how can you then be the one to begin returning home after sundown, just because the government pushed the curfew?

No, we should not lose what we got. We cannot model the attitude that if we are not policed by the State, we are incapable of doing right.

Bob Kisiki, parent, teacher, and social worker