They say charity begins at home. No doubt. Currently, I'm beginning to think that charity now begins at two places. The first place is home, the place where a child grows up and learns the essentials of life. I've come to understand better that children don't learn much from our spoken words, they learn widely from the actions that are being done around the house.
Little story: Recently, I paid an August visit to my aunt. "August isn't here yet," but visiting someone unannounced feels more like the August visit, and I feel so proud of myself when she mentioned that to me. So after staying for a while, her son had just gotten back from school and wanted to have his lunch. I think all of a sudden he remembers that he still has a snack that he didn't eat in school. So he ran to his room and brought the snack out.
Seeing the snack, I stretched out my hand to him which signifies "please give me" even without saying a word, then the boy ran towards me, asked me to open the snack for him "which I did" and then he brought out some and put it in my hand, and said "aunty take yours". For a little while I was surprised because not all children will do that.
I know potential parents weren't given manuals on how to raise a child, even our parents; they just adhere to the sayings of the elderly people around them, add some sauce to their own style of parenting, and become perfect. Often I just sit and think about how I would raise my children, because I'm not gonna get any manual on how to do it. And then I still feel like I'm gonna be a good parent because my mom raised me very well and I'm gonna apply that same method and add my sauce to it.
Back to discussion: now the second place that charity begins is "school," where children get to interact with peers, and often interacting with these peers is likely to change certain things about them. Because those peers were raised differently and being taught different things like my aunt will always say "every parent has a special parenting skill that is different from others" and is the major reason we the up coming parents become confuse because we wouldn't know the particular parenting skill to adapt rather we adapt a little outside and input ours as well.
So peers can affect the way a child thinks positively or negatively, and that depends on how the child can handle peer pressure. I know some children possess this soft lifestyle that can be easily influenced, while others have a hard heart that can't be easily influenced.
I believe a person can learn how to be good and bad because some people are easily influenced. Becoming good or bad solely boils down to the individual involved. You can raise a child to be good, but then it's the responsibility of that child to remain good without being influenced.
Thanks for reading 🧡
