By ABIBATU LAWANU

Good advice is one of the antidotes to preventing children from bad influence. So parents of this generation should learn such behaviour, thereby making the children to grow as well rounded character which is the bed rock of excellence.

According to Chidinma Agwu, “Every mother prays for her child to grow up ‘quickly’ to the stage that he’d stop being so helpless. We dream of long uninterrupted nights when mummy wouldn’t have to wake for mid night feds, nor walk the length of the bedroom countless times with a wailing child on her shoulder. We dream of the time when they can announce their needs without crying, when they can go to the toilet at the right time without dragging us off our own activities.”

The healthy, wholesome relationship between a girl and her parents is an example for every family. Mutual frankness and trust in dealing with the subject as it relates to growing up and sexuality can create a positive rapport and the girl can face approaching adolescence with confidence.

She would escape the traumas. That many other girls suffer and will later achieve, quite possibly in her teens, a satisfactory life. The tendency to have a more balanced attitude towards growing up is usually associated with social and academic ambitions.

A 14 – year- old girl after having sex with her boyfriend told him that, they will have three kids and started to name her future children! When a girl is well adjusted in adolescence, she invariably goes on to enjoy her later live. She will have a healthy attitude towards life respect for her emotions – certainly not inhibited or prudish but is fully aware of the prevailing permissive attitudes among her peers, but because of the soundness of her background and genuine communication with her parents, she will not be seduced by them and faces them as challenges, not threats.

It is only by adopting this sensible approach that parents can hope to overcome the dangerous influence of the out side world and prevent their teenage daughters being recruited to the junior ranks of the irresponsible section of permissive society.

Chidinma continued by saying that the girl child is not safe. Men! They show no discrimination. A 40 year-old man drives around secondary school grounds looking out for a young gullible girl ruin. The younger boys are tall and irresponsible. Do they know that early and unprotected sex can ruin their future? Will your daughter remember to wait a while – wait till she marries, you’d told her (as if you waited). Would she be firm in her relationship with boys and even girls (good gracious, the way lesbianism crops up in news journals is alarming). Those her friends! What do they always talk about? Those giggles ? Can it be school work? No! You know the answer to that one . You’d giggled just like that decades ago! Oh God! Don’t let her be giggling over the same things as you did . You begin to panic afresh.

A mother got wind of her teenage daughter’s affair with a young man, she confronted her daughter and demanded to know what was going on between them. Her daughter shot back that she was old enough to do what she wants. She ordered her daughter to stop seeing the young man, but she refused, instead she said “ I bet when you were my age you did it just as much. But now it’s easier for you to forget and start preaching about how bad it is for me. Stop nagging me about the amount of time I spent with my boyfriends, She said.

Parents can effectively prevent their children from bad influence. First of all observing critically the type of friends they move with. This is because bad friends are likely to destroy the good efforts of parents. Therefore, parents should guard against evil company or relationship by their children.