Akinola Akinropo: Teaching the Science of Parenting

Akinola Akinropo, founder of  Parenmark, and a parenting coach with a focus on great fatherhood values, in this interview with MARY NNAH, gives an expository analysis of  why some of our leaders misbehave and can hardly handle the affairs of the state, stressing that some leaders are products from troubled homes

What’s your view of present-day parenting and its effects on society?

Children from troubled homes are often plagued by feelings of fear and helpless among others. As a child from a troubled home; I learned three dis-empowering rules of engagement; I don’t talk, I don’t feel, and I don’t trust. The vicious part of this is that I carried this ignorantly into my family life when I got married, in the same manner, many carried it into other relationships; courtship, career, business, and friendship.

When we juxtaposed it we now found that why some of our leaders are behaving awkwardly and weirdly because some of them are not healed from their childhood trauma and they carry this to their adulthood because every one of us is a product of our early emotional life.

I once lived with this in a fantasy of denial blocking out my problems, thinking everything was alright with me.  On many occasions, I had limited myself from engaging people in a qualitative discussion or getting withdrawn where it mattered most to air my views and opinions. I had difficulties in either paying attention or being unwilling to participate in activities because of the unhealed trauma I lived with from childhood.

As a hurting child, I sometimes exhibited uncontrollable anger and hostility to people around me, no empathy towards anyone because I  never experienced one and didn’t even know what it is, though not that I derived pleasure in doing it but because I wanted to be on the defensive all the time in my relationship with people. In the midst of this, I still hungered for acceptance, validation, and affection by making continuous bids for attention anyhow, anywhere in either positive or negative ways.

In all of this, was I at any time able to seek help from my handlers, especially from my mum when I, later on, moved to her after the issue I had with my dad, I won’t say I didn’t receive a couple of helps from her and some other people, but they,  at my teens and youthful levels tried within the level of their exposure and knowledge but didn’t possess the core professional wherewithal to handle the issues. For instance, the discernment of the reason for my behaviour is not known to them. You don’t subject a child with an irrational behavioural attitude to beating, and more trauma at all. But unfortunately, this is one strategy most of the handlers in my generation knew

All these and many more make the category of this child feel lonely and isolated, they think their problems are unique. The confusion will surely set in because they love their parents and in another way, they feel angry because of what they see and experience daily at home due to their impressionable mind.

What is the way forward to correct this anomaly?

I urge every adult even before they get to the position of leadership to embrace sincere audit of their childhood experiences regardless of the type of experiences. This will help them to view issues through the eye of the reality of now and their childhood pains, and emotional trauma. They should remember that a hurting child will first of all hurt himself/herself, and consequently hurt others.

What is the focus of the Parenmark initiative, and how did it all begin?

It is about having a curriculum that benchmarks your activities every day. There are some churches and organisations that are buying into the idea of creating a curriculum for them and it would continue to happen. So, we created a school. I have been married for 20 years and I started preparing myself for the daunting task of fatherhood a year before I got married. Even though it was at a lower level. A lot of things that I put to use, knowledge, and avoidable and unavoidable mistakes that I fell into during the past 21 years are the things that I put together to create the curriculum.

Fatherhood can be an art or a science. There exists a school of fatherhood. Kenya has a university of fatherhood because they know the negligence that they have faced through the waywardness of their children and they carried out an assessment that pointed out the fact that these guys were not properly raised. They saw that was lacking and made sure that before you go into marriage, please go through the fatherhood university. It’s subtle, they have not enforced it. You get a provincial certificate, meaning that if you come out of that place and you go back to your house misbehaving, they will withdraw the certificate from you, and blacklist you. That has put the men in Kenya in check. We may not have the capacity to start a fatherhood university now but we can start the fatherhood online course.

In relationships what works for A may not work for B or C. Have you factored that into this?

We have factored it in and that is why we talk about assessment. Even our courses have assessments before any student attempts them. In a class, you would see the variation in scores and from there we put it in perspective. The course outline is generic but the application is not generic. So, what we tell them is how you can make use of what you’ve learned in your day-to-day fatherhood journey. As a father, you are a seed handler.

We tell people that children are not the same. That is why we run psychometric tests for intending couples. It is important to know the personality trait of your spouse before you marry. Also, knowing your personality trait is not an excuse to bully your spouse. Your personality trait is not definitive, it is descriptive. We have a template but that template is not generic. It is not cast in stone, you have to apply it. We have a project and in that project, we would say go home and we will create a family constitution for you. So, the family constitution I created with my coach, for my home, differs from what other participants created. There is no one size fits, but any method you want to use at all must be with the concerted effort of everybody in the house. You will also review from time; the purpose is to raise a wholesome and adjusted family.

Some family starts nicely but deviates because of some pressures. At that point, what should be done even if you have a constitution?

When pressure comes up the husband deviates to alcohol, the wife too takes solace in her friends, and the whole house is not catered for. One of those things that we tell participants to do is to have all-encompassing training. There is an aspect of emotional intelligence in fatherhood training in the online course.

Again, we try to create family values. This is so critical and what that means is that if they crush me, they would still see anger in me. I have not dealt with anger issues. I am on a journey to rediscover myself. The awareness there is to know that this thing you have done,

you are not supposed to do it and you call yourself back. Once in a while fathers would fall into shouting bouts or slapping their children.

It is wrong but the way we have been brought up, subconsciously we do it. Those things will always come but the perfect thing for you is to call yourself to order. If I am engaging my son, the boy would just say ha, the coach is vibrating. Immediately he says I would say my friend would you keep quiet? That is part of the vulnerability; we have to be open to ourselves. But the manual is to put us in check.

Who are your targets?

Our message is for everybody, including the singles. And that is why in our class you won’t see us using Bible passages. If I would use a Bible passage at all, I have to ask for their permission. What I would use is not discriminatory. It is not something that would put other people in jeopardy or think less of their religion. So, the target in that area would be non-denominational. So, we reach out to everybody but the real target now is mainly from 25 to 40 years. I discovered that the age range is 25 to 45 and those in the 45 range don’t need it, they are my friends.

The reason why I said this is because some of them believe that nothing can change about them. Then those around 50 and above are just my cheerleaders, some of their children are out of school. But for those who are 25 years to under 40, some of them are either not married, just got married and those are just fresh. You can still say some things that you can catch up with. It’s so easy for them to retrace their steps and all the mistakes that they have made. So, those are the target audience. We go to churches and mosques and if the Ifa worshippers have a center, make it open then we will go there. We have different curricula for these people.

Some of your targets may be drugs and other vices. Do you look at all this in your curriculum?

Yes. The fear of the future is mainly the reason why a lot of them go into vices. They came out of school and look around, see what the leaders are doing them and they also have their gadgets too. So, they just decide to let me live my life anyhow. We create hope for them and

this is how we do it. We have a curriculum for teenagers. I also have a certification for Generation Z from Atlanta, USA. We did a lot of research before they gave us that certificate. I focused on the West Africa, South Africa inclusive. So, what we do is present the future to them. When they see the future and we arm them with the necessary curriculum content to guide them.

What happens to someone who is already embedded in drugs, and all manners of activities?

That is not my area but I have colleagues who deal with them on how to bring these guys back to normal. There are therapists in that area. We have six different assessments for pre-marital counseling. We don’t ask direct questions but they will fill in innocently, then we review them and

then call them for a meeting.

We have not been encouraged at all. Almost zero encouragement. My coach advised me not to get deterred and not to make it free. Maybe a 30-minute course, a webinar. But where you give them a curriculum, it should be paid for. Keep pushing, and keep gathering till you get your target audience. That is why we have a free WhatsApp group with fathers sharing experiences or if you do not want to share openly you can reach out to me.