Tag: AKINOLA AKINROPO

Consultant and child right Ambassador, Akinola Akinropo has been a motivational coach for more than ten years. With the downward trend in educational, cultural and spiritual values, the lead researcher of ParenMark School of Parenting found his calling as a parental development coach after studying Accounting. In 2018 he launched a book, Daddy where are you? urging fathers to take their rightful place in parenting. Barely one year after, Akinropo is set to change the face of parenting with ‘Mummy no excuses’ reports Omolara Akintoye.

LAST year you unveiled, Daddy where are you? to define the place and assignment of fathers in a family.  How would you rate the feed back?

It was awesome. In this present time in Africa, there is total parenting failure. Parents want to use their own wisdom to impact parenting. When we launched the Daddy where are you? Last year many argued that parenting is encompassing. Many stakeholders are involved in parenting; mothers should not think that it is only the father that is lagging behind in parenting. While you are solving a problem, the solution to that problem is creating another problem.

Survey from our school of parenting through engagement of mothers gave us the content to write another book, Mummy no excuses. I took the challenge and began the journey of what I would call a treasure chest for women, most especially mothers. It is indeed a tool, a gift; a resource and everything positive to enable mothers live a worthy and fulfilled life.

What message are you passing across?

Make your wish, seal your lips, sweet and sour are different titles of the eleven chapters book. For instance, there are some mothers that in a bid to outsmart develop their career, they want to compete with the men, and there is no competition here at all.  There is a narrative going on- we have a voice, we don’t longer belong to the other room. The book is coming as a guide.  No excuses regardless of the fact that you are a mother, you are Managing Director, Chairman, breadwinner, whether your partner  is irresponsible, not always available, regardless of the friends you keep, there should be no excuses.

You have a role to play in the family. Scientists have revealed that the first three year of a baby the mother is the teacher. Right from the womb, the baby feels when mummy shout, after birth it is the mother  that  he/she is used to .For instance, when a baby is crying and he heard the voice of the mother,he stops.  So come April 27 there will be public presentation of Mummy no excuses at Dansol School.

Don’t you think this will make the men to relax?

No man will relax after reading our book. If there is any such man, he will need to come to the school of parenting. Giving birth to children is not about parents and parenting. It is the aftermath; the responsibilities thereof that is called parents. Unfortunately, those responsibilities are not there, we have abdicated them to house maids, schools, grandparents, friends, aunties and uncles. That is why our values are eroded and all these ills that we assume are a generation change are also affecting us as a country and children who are products of such homes are on the line for leadership now. We don’t believe there is a failed parent. But we can help to improve on the quality of parenting you are giving your children.

Whenever a child is doing well, the father takes shine and when it is the other way round, it falls back on the mother.  What is your view on this?

It is a narrative that is wrong and we have been living with for long. Daddy has to pledge commitment not only to drop money. It is a societal failure to claim responsibility only when the child does well and shift blame when it is otherwise.

At what point did you decide to be a parental development coach?

Over 10 years ago, I had a calling from God and what he told me was parenting. I subjected myself to critical knowledge acquisition. I registered with some schools and a lot of people in Nigeria are my coaches. The major resource for this project I will, however, say is the day-to-day encounter with youths. I have lived over 30 years in Ogba and I am familiar with most of the youths in the area. I asked questions like – how long have you been away from home. Why did you leave home? And every answer suggests parental negligence.

As lead consultant and child right Ambassador, Akinola Akinropo has been a motivational coach for more than ten years. With the downward trend in educational, cultural and spiritual values, the lead researcher of ParenMark School of Parenting believes every citizen must have a culture of sanity as parents are the most potent tool to stop vices, in this interview with Adetutu Audu

Why School of Parenting?

When we look at the influence in Nigeria, and that everybody that has been in leadership position was once a child, our concern is to drive the change that we need because everything starts and ends with parents. Whatever that we were taught while growing up bring to bear when we get to leadership position. We have seen leadership gap in terms of value, character in the lives of the people leading us now. If we don’t want to make the same mistake and we don’t want our children to begin to question us in the next 10, 20, 30 years from now, we need this school in order to inculcate into the lives of parents. Why are they parents, what are the expectation of parents and parenting? This is an advocacy issue that it couldn’t have come than now. We don’t want to wait for parents before the parents start looking for clinical therapy. Instead, we want to put them through in this school what is called parents and parenting. Giving birth to children is not about parents and parenting. It is the aftermath; the responsibilities thereof that is called parents. Unfortunately, those responsibilities are not there, we have abdicated them to house maids, schools, grandparents, friends, aunties and uncles. That is why our values are eroded and all these ills that we assume are a generation change are also affecting us as a country and children who are products of such homes are the line for leadership now. We don’t believe there is a failed parent. But we can help to improve on the quality of parenting you are giving your children.

How far have you gone in this project?

We are presently in Imo, Kaduna and Rivers states. We are currently consulting for some of the states mentioned because we have other products that take care of the teaching and learning aspects of parenting that we carry out in schools. 25 schools in Lagos are aware of our activities. Mentioning school of parenting some 10, 20 years back would have been a taboo, but not anymore. We see today that there are a lot of vices going on in the society that are traceable to our parents and parenting. Our morals are being eroded, values in shambles, domestic violence is on the increase, rape is gradually becoming a norm, and these are few reasons why this school couldn’t have come at a better time.

Why aren’t we better off in spite of these policies that have been manned by the best administrators and technocrats drawn from their fields of expertise armed with foreign and local academic degrees?

All these succeeding policies are birthed to proffer solutions to the inherent socio-political challenges and problems we may face as a nation. But looking critically at the present situation of things in the country, one has to wonder, is there really any cause to check our minds as citizens considering the fact that we keep getting same results that have no direct impact in developing us in all spheres of influence as a nation? Things don’t seem to be getting better; in fact, they may be getting worse in terms of security, inflation, cost and standard of living, value of the average citizen’s life, jobs, education, healthcare and so on we need to critically scrutinise ourselves to discontinue from doing things the way we used to do them.

Please bear in mind that the energy of transformation is doing new progressive things daily. So I want to believe that the quantum of energy within us is much greater than the task ahead of us to succeed as a nation. But such will be an exercise in futility as we have had it in the past if we do not pursue this with the culture of sanity of mind.

So what does it mean to have culture of sanity of mind?  To have culture of sanity is the ability to think and behave in a normal and rational manner; sound mental health.

To begin with culture of sound mind is to think differently and constructively from the existing socio-political norms, beliefs system, cultures and traditions that have no basis with the reality of the day. Take for instance, our education. When are we going to have a functional home grown curriculum that is fashioned after our peculiar need as a people? Must we follow American and British curricular that are fashioned after their own unusual need and think such will work for ours. Imbibing the culture of sanity is for parents to begin to raise children in the consciousness of being solution providers and not in raising another set of billionaires whose primary goal is money and money.  We must let them know through our conduct that real success is not in quantity of material acquisitions but quality of service to humanity.  Today’s children will one day become administrators at the helm of affairs one day in the country. The definition of success as given to them will drive their culture of service. Culture of sanity involves us from all walks of life to buy into the vision of Nigeria. If you asked me what this vision is….please look no further. Just check every aspect of Nigeria’s socio- economy and align with any of your choice with the mind to solve problems. Culture of sanity takes away plague of fear in our polity. That is when we all begin to focus on humanity as against individual pockets.

Cultism used to be in tertiary institutions. Now you see it in secondary or even primary schools. What is the way forward?

The truth is that when you have more than one person coming together as in close friendship, you have a cult. The distinguishing factor is the motive behind the relationship. The social media has allowed people to interact even if they are far away, which has also increased the growing level of cultism we are talking about. Today, we outsourced parenting to external and third parties, so the vacuum between biological parents and the external ones must be filled and this is where a friend becomes a parent and this is where children receive instructions and, more importantly, this is where they derive hope instead of in the arms of their parents. A young boy can hold on to the words of his friends more than those of his parents because the friend is always there for him unlike the parents who are not always around as they are hustling for money. That is why we are working deliberately with schools, families. We need to reinvent that process and place of family value.

Akinola Akinropo studied Accounting, but his passion and calling that fathers should take their rightful place led him to his new skill; parental development coach and the establishment of a parenting school. In marking this year’s father’s day, he tells Adetutu Audu why fathers must come out of their shadows.

YOU studied Accounting. At what point did you decide to be a parental development coach?

10 years ago, I had a calling from God and what he told me was parenting. I subjected myself to critical knowledge acquisition. I registered with some schools and a lot of people in Nigeria are my coaches. The major resource for this project I will, however, say is the day-to-day encounter with youths. I have lived over 30 years in Ogba and I am familiar with most of the youths in the area.

I asked questions like – how long have you been away from home? Why did you leave home? And every answer suggests parental negligence.

Many things I also suffered as a child, I can relate with them. I didn’t enter the university until age 22, although I finished secondary school at 17. I had only four papers and had to go back to form four to re-sit the exams. I didn’t have quality training, although my mother was a teacher. I didn’t get it right until when I entered the university and I realised some of my course mates were between the ages of 17 and 18.

I went through the challenge till I got married and continued my reckless and wayward lifestyle until I met God.  Upon my realisation, I took stock of those who influenced my life while growing and the roles they played.

Everything that we do does not just appear at adulthood; it is a result of one deficiency or the other.  I made up my mind that I will not allow any child to go through what I went through. The role I missed while growing up, the mentoring, nurturing that should have shaped me into a better person, and I missed from my dad.

He was never there, he was a police officer. He was only punishing instead of disciplining us. He would treat us like criminals while my mother was the one shouldering everything because of the polygamous setting.

One day, I was discussing about my 11-year -old son with my mentor. My wife asked him to wash the dishes and he looked at my wife in the face and said men are not supposed to do dishes. My wife terribly felt bad and reported him to me. Rather than punishing him I took it upon myself to do the dishes and other house chores. We even went to the extent of going to the market and he was grumbling and telling me we can get these things at the   supermarket. But in the end I was able to pass my message across and my son do dishes now without complaining. My mentor now encouraged me to write a book on it, with the title, ‘Daddy where are you?’

What message are you trying to pass?

The fact that you are responsible is not enough. Some fathers believe once they can pay their bills, they can buy time. Among the spheres of life, we have media, finance, telecomm, hospital and social order. Under social order, we have family and parenting. If people can go to school to study other spheres of life, why not parenting?   The Parenmark School serves as a needful solution to today’s parenting. Everyone is a product of a home. And all that is happening around are results of deficiencies in families.  We should not have the mindset to raise successful children without value. Value is never taught, they are caught. If you shout at a child, he later becomes a bully. That is why we thought of a structured classroom where parenting can be taught.  For instance, Rafael Nadal was once asked why he has not married like his colleague, Federer. He answered that he would not be able to raise his children the way he would have loved to because of his active professionalism. He said he will only have time to raise them when he retires.

What do you think is the way forward?

We don’t have to keep complaining. Fathers should know their assignments, place and priority. Money is not enough. It is not enough to stay at home 24hours. If you lack content, you will be a burden. Seek knowledge and acquire skills on parenting. Every father musty come out of their shadows and own up. I have been doing life classes in Port Harcourt, Osun, Oyo, Kaduna and Imo and we have been to schools to sensitise that curriculum should be futuristic. Most of the school’s curriculums are still tilted towards industrial revolution. Everything rises and falls on parenting. Parenting is the hub of nation building; nothing works except and unless parenting has taken its rightful vantage position in our society – Nigeria. We need functional government policies that ere family and children-friendly.