#Lolofiles - Helping Raise a Grand Child
I have one living child, Sebastian Victor. I qualified it as living because the Lord fulfilled a promise to us and gave a daughter Isabel. It was only for a few days though in 1996. She was our visiting angel. Victor however, is now 30, married to Emelia and they have a beautiful daughter named Athena Isabelle. We nicknamed her "Belle". Born 18 Feb 2016 and now a very precocious, extremely energetic, toddler. Yes, our backs are starting to ache and our arms feelings the 18 kg of unrelenting movement!
In this time of smart phones and IT connectivity, we have terabytes of pictures and videos that document her development. This is literally from the time when she still had her umbilical cord attached to the present! I am sure, she's part of the millions of children whose parents and grandparents have, are doing and will do as a normal part of life. Our friends comment that they are surrogate parents via Facebook!
How does on raise a grandchild? The usual practice of spoiling them and letting the parents do the disciplining prevails! However, Wowa makes sure she learns prayers before meals “Father, we thank thee”, Bless or ‘mano’ and Sunday School. The inclusion of God and Jesus, I am sure will be the best foundation. The same is true of all her cousins and having a Sunday ritual of having a meal together as family sets the routine.
We are blessed to see our son and his cousins now raising families of their own. It will be another 5-6 years when this batch of grandchildren start to be more knowledgeable of good manners, but right now, they are getting to know right and wrong. It takes tough love and more than one’s capability of patience but the Holy Spirit truly guides us!
Looking forward, we see many challenges for their generation. My son already faces stiff competition, difficult challenges and a really terrible way to go around; traffic and weather impacted roads. The grandchildren will feel the brunt of our mismanagement of plastic waste, the terrible impacts of climate change and the super fast phased life of 5G.
But that is the future, we need to do what we can now. Start with the foundation of Jesus Christ, getting the drills on GMRC ; good manners and right conduct embedded in how they live and teaching them life skills ; executive actions while being street smart. It takes alot of courage to be a child these days. I quote my friend, a former Shell executive who became a Jesuit priest- “Christianity is not for wimps”. It is the solemn duty of a grandparent to mold the grandchildren into warriors of Christ.
In this time of smart phones and IT connectivity, we have terabytes of pictures and videos that document her development. This is literally from the time when she still had her umbilical cord attached to the present! I am sure, she's part of the millions of children whose parents and grandparents have, are doing and will do as a normal part of life. Our friends comment that they are surrogate parents via Facebook!
How does on raise a grandchild? The usual practice of spoiling them and letting the parents do the disciplining prevails! However, Wowa makes sure she learns prayers before meals “Father, we thank thee”, Bless or ‘mano’ and Sunday School. The inclusion of God and Jesus, I am sure will be the best foundation. The same is true of all her cousins and having a Sunday ritual of having a meal together as family sets the routine.
We are blessed to see our son and his cousins now raising families of their own. It will be another 5-6 years when this batch of grandchildren start to be more knowledgeable of good manners, but right now, they are getting to know right and wrong. It takes tough love and more than one’s capability of patience but the Holy Spirit truly guides us!
Looking forward, we see many challenges for their generation. My son already faces stiff competition, difficult challenges and a really terrible way to go around; traffic and weather impacted roads. The grandchildren will feel the brunt of our mismanagement of plastic waste, the terrible impacts of climate change and the super fast phased life of 5G.
But that is the future, we need to do what we can now. Start with the foundation of Jesus Christ, getting the drills on GMRC ; good manners and right conduct embedded in how they live and teaching them life skills ; executive actions while being street smart. It takes alot of courage to be a child these days. I quote my friend, a former Shell executive who became a Jesuit priest- “Christianity is not for wimps”. It is the solemn duty of a grandparent to mold the grandchildren into warriors of Christ.
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