Prioritise boy-child upbringing, Lagos tells parents

Forum 7 months ago

Prioritise boy-child upbringing, Lagos tells parents

The Lagos State Government, on Tuesday, charged parents to also pay attention to the welfare and upbringing of the boy child as much as they do the girl child.

Speaking at the 2023 Boy Child Initiative’s Parenting Seminar held on Tuesday in Lagos, the wife of the Lagos State Governor and Convener of the initiative, Dr Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, disclosed that “the essence of the parenting seminar is to enlighten parents on behavioural management of boys, social inclusions, consequences of poor parenting and drug abuse.”

Launched in October 2021, the governor’s wife said the Lagos Boy Child Initiative aims “to lead conversations about the welfare and interests of our boys. The limelight had always been on the girlchild, and we felt it was also appropriate and important to look in the direction of our boys.”

She urged parents to pay close attention to their male children and help them develop and deploy their talents.

In his goodwill message, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who was represented at the event by the Permanent Secretary, Youth and Social Development, Mrs Toyin Oke-Osanyintolu, expressed delight at the “novel initiative”, which, according to him, “is focused on the effective upbringing of the boy child. It is a noble idea because the issue of the girl child has always been on the front burner to the exclusion, albeit inadvertently, to the exclusion of the boy child.”

While commending his wife for championing the initiative, Sanwo-Olu noted that “It is a fact that most of the violent crimes including other forms of criminal activities in our communities are perpetrated by young male adolescents.

“One of the key reasons that have been established is the lack of good parenting and societal perception of the upbringing of the male child. It is therefore very imperative that we have a change of mindset and come to the realisation of the fact that every responsible and well-brought-up girl child will also need to be complemented by a responsible and well-brought-up male child.”