Parents in most cases want the best for their children, and to ensure this, they are pushed to actively engage in their children’s lives, to ensure that they are making the right choices. Some parents, however, go to the extent of wanting to have the upper hand even when it comes to taking major decisions, such as choosing a career. Local comedian and actor, Michael Sengazi, was obliged by his parents to pursue a career in law, a path he followed when he joined University of Kigali, but deep ...

Parents in most cases want the best for their children, and to ensure this, they are pushed to actively engage in their children’s lives, to ensure that they are making the right choices. Some parents, however, go to the extent of wanting to have the upper hand even when it comes to taking major decisions, such as choosing a career.

Local comedian and actor, Michael Sengazi, was obliged by his parents to pursue a career in law, a path he followed when he joined University of Kigali, but deep down he knew this wasn’t his dream career. This is why after graduating he chose to follow his passion —comedy. His parents failed to understand how a qualified lawyer could decide to go for comedy because they didn’t see it as a ‘well-paying job’. He had a challenge of convincing them to bless his journey. “So, I asked them to give me one year to try and see if comedy would work out for me. I worked hard and my parents realised that I could achieve big things, and they gave me the freedom to pursue the career.”

Bienvenue Muragwa, a career consultant at The Southern New Hampshire University based in Rwanda, says that parents are only allowed to guide the child during the career guidance process, but not take the final decision. “Parents are not allowed to choose or take the final decision for their children as the performance of the student is the assessing parameter of the career to be pursued,” he explains.

Shalom Azabe, a graduate in general counselling at Kampala Christian University, says in most African countries, not only Rwanda, children are overly dependent on their parents, yet this shouldn’t be the case. She recommends picking a leaf from westerners who endeavour to learn their children’s interests, something she says aides them in career guidance for the child. “Normally, a child starts to demonstrate a choice in career at 14 years of age. This is when parents need to sit down and make analysis that would help them guide their child in choosing the fitting option to undertake. This is in fact considered as over-protection as parents want to exercise their authority on their kids unwillingly, yet this affects them psychologically, and when the kid later on fails, they encounter a regret of pursuing studies that were not their choice in the first place,” Azabe said.

(Source: https://www.newtimes.co.rw/)

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