Have you been following the crazy trend happening in our young couples' marriages lately? Aren't you scared? You should be. Every parent, and parents to be, should. This is totally alien to us. In our time, we rarely saw our parents turn each other into punching bags, much less perform mindless knife- stabbing rituals on each other like one who's been put under some strange spell. We didn't see any of that, thankfully. But what we're seeing now isn't anything anyone should feel unconcerned about, even if it hasn't happened to you or anybody close to you. For some reasons we simply cannot explain, our sons and daughters have now turned into some sort of vampires who now seek only to take the lives of the one person they claimed they would love and cherish till death do them part - their partner. Well, these days, they no longer wait till death comes to do them part, they actually do death the honors by ripping out the hearts of their partners themselves while Mr. Death only strolls in to come pick up the remains. So, what do we do as parents, do we simply sit down, fold our arms and continue to watch this horror show go on unabated? How do we curb this menace? As parents, how do we prevent things like these from happening to us, or possibly to anybody for that matter? The following are 5 basic tips we must practice to address this menace.
1. DO NOT OVER PAMPER YOUR KIDS: A lot of us parents are guilty of this. Truth is, because we allow the love we have for our kids get the better of us, we don't let them get to start dealing with the realities of life themselves. We chauffeur them to school, we do all the hard work to get them into the university (some of us even get our kids enrolled at special centers just so they can get into the university at all cost). And even when they do get into the university, we still literally spoon feed them all through the period. When they graduate, we hit the streets on their behalf, trying to use our contacts and goodwill garnered over the years to get them their first jobs. There is nothing bad about this, only problem is, when shortly after, they come home with their sweetheart, breaking to us the news of their engagement, you begin to wonder if they're psychologically ready for this all important phase of their lives they're about to venture into. Can they handle, for instance, the downsides of life on their own? Can they deal with difficult moments like the loss of a job? Can they weather the storms of life on their own without falling back on us for help? Can they handle an abusive, violent or shamelessly unfaithful partner? Are they prepared for any of these? Have we tutored them enough? These are some of the questions we must ask ourselves when out kids wedding bells begin to ring.
2. INVESTIGATE YOUR CHILD'S SUITOR: What do you know about the sweet looking girl who's all over your son and with whom he plans to spend the rest of his life? Does he/she have anger issues? Does he/she throw tantrums at the slightest provocation? What about his/her family, is the father abusive? Is the mother notorious for trouble making or she's a woman who's traversed the homes of many men, bore different children with different fathers and feels absolutely proud of her
conquests? It is time we begin to look into the backgrounds of our children's proposed partners, this could help us have a clear picture of what our child is walking into and what to possibly expect from the union. Yes, I know we are all often too excited about our son or daughter getting married and are looking forward to joining that exclusive league of grand-parents that we don't even pay attention to these little things, but we have seen the consequences of our inability to pay attention to these important details. A lot of us parents walked with our kids down the aisle with our eyes wide open, only to watch helplessly as our children's homes turn into Hammer House of Horror. Whether we admit or not, we often see all of these danger signals but chose to ignore them.
3. ENDEAVOUR TO KNOW YOUR CHILD'S PARTNER MORE: Usually, when you are with your son or daughter's partner (before the wedding comes) they act all polite and nice. They hide away from you all the little negative traits about them that could make you have a rethink about letting you leave your child in their care for the rest of his or her days. So, what do you do? Try and engage them more. Invite them over to come join the family in small parties, ask them to do little errands for you, invite them over for little chit-chats, this might help you uncover another side of them, in terms of their world views, mannerisms, temperament, etc, that you didn't know before now.
4. PAY THEM UNANNOUNCED VISITS: This is very important after they become man and wife. Pay them unannounced visits that would afford you the opportunity to meet them unprepared for you. If there's a friction going on between them at that time, you're likely to know. You could walk in on them and find your daughter has a huge black eye and because she wasn't expecting you she may not have enough time to spin you a lie about how she got the big black eye, or her swollen lip. Or you could walk in and find your son wearing a huge plaster across his head. Somebody's obviously hit him hard up there with an object and its definitely not his boss in the office! We need to start paying attention to these little things before they bring us inconsolable misery. We should get which ever of them that needs help professional help as fast as possible (could even be our own child) and terminate in time the monster that could grow up to come tear our joy and happiness into a thousand pieces.
5. HOLD REGULAR CHATS WITH YOUR CHILD: This should be easy. For parents who have long established good communication with their children, it shouldn't be a problem calling up your son/daughter to find how they're faring as a young couple. Find out if there's no problem in the home, if they are dealing with their little squabbles with civility and with no rage or violence involved. Teach your child how to be patient with his/her partner and not provoke the partner into a rage that could lead to some really terrible stuffs.
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