I was in church this morning in Lagos, actually when in Nigeria I attend RCCG near my "regular home" in Lagos, the Lagos Airport Hotel.
Imagine this scenario - kids all being themselves, they are playing, talking, jostling for attention, posturing for positioning amongst peers knowing that the better their act the better their chances of securing followership and that feeling of assurance that they will be listened to...
This, I reckoned, is normal... But, not where I am this morning... Seems kids in this instance are not expected to be themselves... they are expected to act like adult... Sit tight, keep quiet and listen to boring sermon that is obviously making some of their parent snooze...
Children's attention span is often described as very short, but from my experience, when kids having nothing to engage them, what you have is a situation where attention span is equal to zilch, nought, zero...
Rather than engage these kids, the carers, whom I guess are parents too, do the traditional thing in Nigeria... A cane in one hand and a frowning face in tow... I can not understand why the carers need a cane in church... I would have expected that kids would be given something that will keep them busy.
I can not imagine my own kids being kept at best behaviour in any church where, as my little girl would describe it, 'the talk is for big people, not meant for little people because we don't understand'.
The following day, I decided to get some kids together for my Breakfast talk show on radio (broadcast on EKO 89.75FM). I asked one of the Producers working with me to get kids from diverse background and schools into the studio within the next few days.
Well, guess what, it was a revelation as the kids got me laughing and rolling on the floor with their candid response to my questions. Now I can imagine how rewarding it could be to put a programme together on how kids can be so funny.
I crammed about 20 children into the recording studio, unfortunately this is one studio where the airconditioning was not working and because these kids are used to the heat of Lagos, I was the one panting for fresh air, had my shirt off, and just my vest on, which got the kids laughing at me and thinking I was a weird kind of adult by Nigerian standard.
I was told by one of the kids that I was acting like a "small boy", when prodded for why he thought so, he said most adult (in Nigeria) are very 'serious' and do not play 'pranks' like I did.
Interview session went on, information was rolling out in large volumes, not one of the children could remember the last time they saw their parents hug or kiss... infact they made it sound like its a bad thing to do... just not the done thing in most households in Nigeria.
One kid, Chike (about 8 years old), speaking seriously during conversation with me, said that his Mum will only call Daddy "My Dear" or "Darling" when she wants money for shopping. A few of the kids confirm the same kind of thing goes on in their household and they have been tutored to be very nice to Daddy when you want something from him.
The girls, oh the girls, have been trained, amazingly well, by what they see around their homes... they do not need formal education on these things, they just watch their parents, uncles and aunties. They know they way to get their way when there seem to be no way.
Now, let me go full cycle, as I come back to the carers of these children. This is not a church environment, this is not even the school, where you expect some amount of regimented discipline, but somehow, the teachers brought usual attitude and strict discipline to the studio.
I kept asking the teachers to leave the children alone and let them be. I noticed that some of the kids were cowed because they did not want to put a foot wrong, they have been trained to be on best behaviours and this means, unintentionally being non-expressive and not talking unless they are spoken to. The implication is that you do not get the usual freedom of expression known to be the way with children.
I had to insist the teachers leave the studio enclosure and let me properly engage the kids before I finally got the children feeling free enough to talk without having to watch out for a knock on the head or pinch of the ear and other such subtle punishment for being too expressive or in the words of their teachers not disciplined.
I will probably never come to terms with this way or style of bringing up kids in Nigeria. I have every intention of finding a way to get parents to begin the process of reviewing their ways of training children so that the next generation of Nigerians will grow up to understand the principle of rights and responsibilities. I will go into details of this in my next write up.
I believe a lot of Nigerians do not understand how to claim their rights and being unable to express that understanding of ones right is a serious issue. When you grow up being told what you are allow to say, think or do, its bound to be quite a bit problematic to start thinking for yourself, saying exactly what you think and making your own choice how you will do things.
This is not about adults, its about kids... and the way we want them to grow and the kind of adults we want them to become in the 21st Century. The story continues...
