You see you people that beat your children because of school work? I was that child. I was always beaten because I was never doing well in primary school. I’ll come back home with my school uniform tattered and muddied because I was a hyperactive child and could not concentrate.

My mother prayed on my head every day while my father just said “see your child”. I didn’t understand what was going on but I knew something was wrong with me. Lesson teacher after lesson teacher, the remarks were the same; “Chizy is intelligent only if he focuses.”

During a PTA session, another parent overheard my mother’s discussion with my teacher on how I was failing as usual. The parent pulled my mother aside and suggested my mother get me LEGOs.

Back then LEGOs weren’t common. You basically had to import them.

My mum had tried everything so she thought, why not try LEGOs ? What’s the worst that could happen?

And it worked like magic. When I got the first LEGO set, I had to be dragged away to go eat lunch. I didn’t care about anything else except those blocks.

I would not stop, eat or drink until I had finished the LEGO set. I was a totally different person when I was building with my LEGOs. My mum was so confused as to how I could focus so intensely for hours on end.

The next term, my improvement in school shocked everyone. I went from 24/25 to 5/25. You see, the LEGOs trained me to focus which would come naturally to everyone else, except me. I had to train or learn how to focus.

And so began my love journey with LEGOs. I would build and build and my mum kept buying LEGOs. At a point, I had about 4/5 sets of LEGOs to build.

But LEGOs were expensive for a middle class couple then so at some point my mother’s money couldn’t keep up and I began to struggle

Then I moved to Corona Gbagada. Till today, I’m forever grateful to Corona, Mr Kenneth and Mr Okachi. Where other schools and teachers punished and flogged me, these two men showed me love and care.

I have never been excited to attend school as I was when these men taught me. I lacked focus so Me Kenneth will teach me with a reward. If I pass the tests, I could go for break early. This positivity helped my learning.

Because I was able to address my shortcomings early, I was able to manage them properly.

Bottom line is; be patient and learn where your child has shortcomings. Imagine if I kept on being flogged, or punished for coming last/failing school.