How we teach our children to fear instead of teaching faith

There is this very nice lady who professes Christianity a lot, she comes to help with care giving duties at the Special Mothers Project.

One day, whiles on duty, she was playing with the children, the children likes her a lot, her routine, includes, reading to them, engaging them in play, feeding, toilet training and just making the children happy.

Then one of the children, a regular child, begun to wander off, to a place that we don’t consider safe, the child wanted to go and play in the street in front of the house, she will call this boy and the boy will keep going so she said: “Mr crocodile come and catch this boy”

To my amazement, the boy said: “Yes, I will go, let the crocodile come and catch me” immediately I felt, she has failed at explaining to this young man why he should not go outside.

Another time, one other child wanted to explore, but was going beyond the boundaries, so the Christian Caregiver said “hey come over here, I will call the witch to catch you” (I almost froze when I heard it) but maintained my cool and thought, how can I counteract this without offending

My Christian Caregiver kept saying “I will call the witch to come and catch you,” when she said it for the sixth time, I came out and said to the child “Aaah, you are not afraid of a witch are you? A witch can’t catch you, you have the Holy Spirit so you can always overcome witches, they are the least in the dark kingdom”

Later in the evening, I summoned the children and told them about the power of God, I told them that they are children of light and darkness should not scare them, when they appear in darkness, the darkness will have to disappear.

I don’t know whether the children understood or not because their ages ranges from age six to two but the next day when the Christian Caregiver came and wanted to scare them with witch, one five year old boy said to her “Me I am not afraid of witch, I have God, I have the power of God and I can beat the witch.”

Pondering over this incidence, I realized just how much we teach our children to fear instead of faith, growing up, it was easy to have a parent or care giver call “Kakai” to come and catch you, whatever that meant.

Fear is taught, just as faith is taught, I prefer to explain to the child the consequences of his or her action that to scare the child and teach him or her fear. I will rather spank than to teach the child fear.

As a mother of three growing up toddlers, my first having cerebral palsy (Special Needs) I always want to teach children to have courage instead of fear.

I always prefer to take some time off my official duties and spend time anytime a new person is coming to work in my home to subtly teach the person what my values, ideals and goals for my children are.

To me, children are an invaluable gift from God and I cannot afford to mess up their lives with “an anything go” attitude.

For so long we have taught children to fear instead of faith, let’s remain conscious to teach our children faith instead of fear.

The Special Mothers project is involved in advocacy to enhance the lives of families raising children with special Needs and promotes inclusion.