You can’t have everything you want

There are many things that children do in order to get what their parents deny them and yet they feel they badly need to own them.

Thomas Okide, a student, says sometimes one cannot help it but tell lies because when you ask your parents for something non-scholastic, they decline to give it to you yet it is essential.

“It feels bad when most of your friends have something and you are the exception. This mostly applies to the electronics that are on trend,” says Okide.

Jasmine Iradukunda, a mother of four, says she recently found out their son had been telling them lies when his father went to school to give him money to buy texts books. Unfortunately for him, his father encountered the head teacher who was shocked to know that the boy was using school requirements as an excuse to get money from his parents.

She says his act earned him an expulsion. “When asked him why he did that. he said he needed to buy a phone. Something we had discussed about and agreed that he would own one when he completes O-Level,” says Iradukunda.

This made her feel like most of the money he asked for in the name of school requirements was a lie. She found many things she neither nor his father bought for him.

Stanley Okiror, a parent, says parents should start having agreements with their children right from the time the start understanding.

“A child will grow up knowing what they can ask for, at what time and they know what they can be granted at what age depending on the conversations you have with them,” says Okiror.

She says this only happens when you make it clear to them right from the start so that you do not have to argue with them over what they already know.

Dalton Basalirwa, a parent and counsellor, says children just need to know when the right time for them to acquire what they want is.

He says when they ask for anything he knows will distract them, he tells them they cannot own it until a particular age and he gives them reasons. (Daily Monitor)