Nigerian comedian and actor Bovi Ugboma has shared insights into his parenting approach, emphasising the importance of understanding and empathy over corporal punishment.
Speaking about his experiences as a father during an interview on The Honest Bunch podcast aired on Monday, Bovi explained that when his child became upset, he would throw things, often breaking items like the family’s television.
He said, “I don’t advocate for beating children. You should let children be. My son dey break television for the fun of it. If he vex, he go throw stuff and break it. He got to an age, and I saw the remorse. Thank God for capacity; if I couldn’t afford another TV, then the approach would have been different. That’s why I tell people, most times when we hit kids, check: are you really trying to correct them, or are you frustrated?”
He added that a time in 2021 when he posted about the incident was the third TV the child had broken.
Bovi also addressed the issue of bullying in schools, expressing his opposition to the hierarchical system where older students, often as young as 16, are given authority over their younger peers.
“No child should be given authority over another child in the name of ‘senior student.’ They are children,” he said.
He argued that teenagers punishing their peers fosters a culture of abuse and unhealthy authority.
“When you follow our educational scheme, a 16-year-old is in SS3. What does a 16-year-old know about authority? It is wrong. It’s creating a system of abuse and hierarchy. It really has to stop.
A teenager is punishing a teenager. Do you force respect on people? Can anybody confidently sit and watch a 16-year-old flog their child because the child did something wrong? Will you let him because he’s the senior?”
He further criticised the culture that encourages respect through fear, arguing that it starts in secondary school.
“The white man left us and created a system for us to colonise ourselves. So everybody is waiting to get to that top to show themselves to everybody.
That’s why somebody can tell a fellow man, ‘Do you know who I am?’ It starts from secondary school with a glorified torture where a student beats another student.”
On the topic of parenting, Bovi discussed the importance of understanding that each child is different, and a “one-size-fits-all” approach to raising children is flawed.
“You can’t raise four children the same way. That’s why you see some children say, ‘I love my dad,’ and the sibling is saying, ‘I hate my dad.’ It’s because the father used the same template for all of them,” he said.
