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A guide to positive parenting
Ms Shwanda shares insights on parenting, the joy and challenges. PHOTO |COURTESY
What you need to know:
- While the author shares wisdom on parenting, she makes it very clear that while parenting is a joy, it is also a road paved with challenges. For this journey, she writes, God is the only manual on which parents can rely.
Positive parenting as the name suggests is a collection of gems of wisdom on raising Godly and responsible children. From its packaging and colourful, glossy cover to the content inside, the medium-sized publication screams positivity and good vibes. It is written like a guide with chapters laid out according to the nuggets of wisdom they offer.
For the author, Hellen Twegye Tumanye Shwanda, this is her second book, following The wisdom of Ages, a book of sayings published in 2018. Shwanda is passionate but she also writes from the lived experience of a well-groomed child hailing from the family of the late Canon Enoch and Ms Florence Mbahungirehe from Rukungiri in Kigezi. Hellen has raised her own children too and it is from this background of experience and knowledge acquired later in life, that she sets forth what you might call a parenting manual.
While the author shares wisdom on parenting, she makes it very clear that while parenting is a joy, it is also a road paved with challenges. For this journey, she writes, God is the only manual on which parents can rely. The theme of spirituality and raising God-fearing children is one that runs through Shwanda’s simply crafted book.
When she delves into the writing, she breaks down the mountainous task of parenting, chapter by chapter, handling misconceptions on parenting, while sharing wise sayings from across time and space to illustrate her point.
The book is simply written and illustrated with many meaningful images, which not only makes it easy on the eye but also a fine read. The author of the book’s foreword, Canon Justice James Ogoola could not have put it more finely: “Such is the gripping story you are about to encounter in the subtle story chronicled in the pages and chapters of this delightful book, beautifully and imaginatively penned…”
One can also choose to read the book depending on the age of the children or stage of parenting. It is an evergreen and timeless guide that you could probably keep on the shelves to consult through the parenting journey.
It would also make a good gift from parents to their adult children as they become parents themselves. In short, it is a guide for generations, from aspiring parents to those with families and finally even grandparents handing over to the next generation.
While it is not voluminous, the book is rich and must have taken a good deal of research to put together. In sourcing for its content, the book’s author looks to the Bible, indigenous knowledge, ancient scholars and religious figures, contemporary personalities like Steve Jobs and a host of others.
The book is not only intended for the benefit of individual families, but Shwanda aims to achieve grander goals like youth empowerment. In the words of Pericles, a prominent and influential politician and general during the Golden age of Athens: “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven in the lives of others.”
