Are you just intending to send your child or children to their grandmothers place this holiday? If this is your plan, please abandon it.

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Now that schools have closed, most parents send their children to stay with their relatives over the holiday and as such they have no time for them.

Good parenting involves knowing your child well so that you are able to observe and detect any changes in terms of behaviour and even biological changes.

This can only happen if you spend enough time with them. With many parents having busy schedules, it's difficult to have time with children during the days and the weekends too are fully packed with a chain of activities.

This creates a rift between the children and the parents and this distance can only be filled over the holiday. However, this is not usually the case with most parents.

Instead, they send their children for private tuition and also to the village so that they also have some time to relax with less duties or that the house help may also go on leave.

While this might appear to be the good time moment for the parents, it may in the long run affect the child.

For the children in boarding school, they spend most of their time in school and by the end of the term, they usually are missing their parents badly only to be told to go to the village for the holiday.

Even if such a child has been experiencing difficulties in school, they have no time to tell it to their parents.

The child might also have changed in behaviour such as drug abuse and unless you spend enough time with your child, you may never know it until you're called by the school principal to be informed that your child has been stealing ethanol from the school laboratory.

The girls especially need to spend time with their mothers so that they are taught about body changes and how they should handle them.

The girl needs to be told that it's normal to have a bulged chest so that she doesn't feel ashamed about it and adopt a bent posture.

If her mother doesn't spend time with her, she might never know how to relate with the opposite sex and she may end up being a victim of early pregnancy.

This holiday, it's important to stay with your child, advice them and also discipline them. It's also the best time for them to learn other things besides academics such as cleaning and cooking.

If you have a house help and your children are teenagers, send her home so that your children may also learn how to do things on their own.