Who should be responsible for disciplining children?

Discipline is one area where the line between carelessness and responsibility is thin. As a form of correction, disciplining a child means teaching them responsible behaviour and self-control.

Wikipedia defines child discipline as “the methods used to prevent future behavioural problems in children. Parents believe it is their responsibility to provide for their children and that their children have no right to tell them how best to do this.”

Today, waywardness and irresponsibility is on the rise due to the improper upbringing of children and so many factors are responsible. Sometimes because of the extent of irresponsibility, the lack of discipline is blamed on either the father or mother of the child. And so because of the raging debates about who should be responsible for a child’s discipline, Lifextra sought the opinion of people across Nigeria and we got very interesting responses.

Speaking to Lifextra, Patience Steven who resides in Jos said, “It is the responsibility of both parents to make the children know good from bad. It is also their responsibility to discipline the children so that they will not be a nuisance to the society.”

Janet John, who is single, thinks that both parents should be responsible, especially the father. She said, “Charity, they say, begins at home; the first people a child gets to meet or know is the family. The length of time spent in his early age is necessary and the parents should do that, although these days we have a lot working mothers and fathers and this limits the time spent with the child. But responsible parents with full knowledge of their responsibility will create time for their child.”

“The holy book says train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he won’t depart from it,” she concluded.

Hadiza Adogwu, a barrister and mother of one, said it should be both parents. Her reason? “Because once left to one party, the child feels the disciplinarian is a difficult or wicked person and he/she can get away with anything with the second party which is a bad place to be in.”

Samson Mendos Elisha however has a different thought. “I stand to disagree with the saying ‘the child belong to the entire society’. Not everyone in the society wants you to be like them, and being disciplined comes with success. So you should know that some people in the society are just there to corrupt your mind and hinder you from doing the expected. But, your parents would always want the best for you no matter what,” he said.

Sunday Ominyi Ogilegwu, who is married and lives in Benue State, says “disciplining of a child should start from the family because this is the first institution he/she belongs to. In every institution, there is always a head for the smooth running of the institution because somebody must have to direct. And God has placed a man as the head of every family/household. When God created a man, he saw that it was not good for the man to be alone, hence He gave him a helpmeet, the ‘woman’. So, the man is supposed to discipline the children, assisted by the woman.”

He added “But it goes beyond that because the society is made of various families coming together. In the society, we have different institutions: education, religious groups among others, therefore everybody should be a stakeholder in the discipline of a child otherwise for every ill-act of a child such as armed robbery, prostitution etc. the entire society is at the receiving end.”

Alhassan Bala, a TV journalist, said “Although the issue of discipline is collective responsibility of both parents but the one who has more responsibility is the father because he is the head of the family. Most times children are afraid of the father than the mother, and they take after their father. For the female children, if the father is not disciplined they can become wayward.”

Zeenat Olamide Abdulazeez, a youth corp member, has a different view from what other respondents said. “It is a collective responsibility of the father and the mother to discipline their child but the mother has more work to do than the father.”

“The children are closer to the mother than the father from birth. It however doesn’t mean the father should leave the whole work to her. The duo should set a principle that’ll guide the moral conduct of their children so as to maintain a disciplined home. The bottom line is that no one (neither father nor mother) should be blamed for indiscipline of a child,” she concluded.

Richard Bamas, a student of electrical engineering, said “Parents may have to give up having things done exactly as they would like them to be done and on their exact timetable in order for a child to move from obedience to responsibility. But allowing a child to “do it his way” will encourage a feeling of pride in accomplishment and foster a sense of responsibility. Secondly …Healthy parenting occurs when children are raised in a home in which there is unconditional love along with clear boundaries, limits, rules and consequences.”