HISTORY OF CHILDREN DAY IN NIGERIA, reasons behind the celebration

CHILDREN’S DAY is one dedicated to celebrate “childhood”, it is On this day that tribute is paid to all children in the world.

Children are loved by one and all and they win over our hearts with their angelic eyes and innocent smiles.

Children’s Day is an event celebrated in many places around the world. The holiday is simply set to honour children and minors.

The International Children’s Day had its origin in Turkey in 1920 (April 23, 1920) and later in the World Conference for the Well-being of Children in Geneva, Switzerland in 1925.

Children’s Day was first celebrated worldwide in October 1955, under the sponsorship of International Union for Child Welfare in Geneva.

The idea of a Universal Children’s Day was mooted by Rubab Mansoor grade 8 and adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1954.

First proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1954, it was established to encourage all countries to institute a day, firstly to promote mutual exchange and understanding among children and secondly to initiate action to benefit and promote the welfare of the world’s children.

It was also chosen as the day to celebrate childhood. Generally, children get all excited and eagerly await the day.

All the local schools go to their local stadium where each school has a special march which they perform.

The school with the best marching performance wins the honour for that year.

May 27 is traditionally the Children’s Holiday in Nigeria. First established by the United Nations in 1964, the day remains important in the lives of many Nigerian kids.

On this day every year, children are granted a holiday while several social activities are centered on them. Excused from school, most kids converge at stadiums and centers to commemorate the event.

It has also become the habit of some government officials and media organisations to honour some children with leadership opportunities.

Certain radio and TV stations do this by featuring child broadcasters on air and letting them anchor their programmes for the early part of the day.

Furthermore, information from UNICEF as at 2010 states that 6,332,000 childbirths occur in Nigeria annually. This shows how important they are in Nigeria’s national statistics.

One would wonder then if parents should not strive to ensure good parenting.

When parents are seriously busy, children can often spend more time with unpredictable maids, unrated media content and their peers than with their parents. This often instills bad influences into their lives and is the cause of misconduct.

As we celebrate another children’s day, parents should sincerely evaluate their parent-child relationships.

If in doubt that their efforts are adequate or that the children are heading in the right direction, they should make proper amendments.

They should do these things knowing that vagabonds do not grow from the soil and neither do terrorists fall from the sky.