The Role of Parents in Children's Character Education

Family is the smallest component of society. The Family consists of father, mother, and children; father and mother; father and child; mother and child. In the family, the father and mother are commonly referred to as "parents." We know who we think of as parents, but what do parents really mean? Parents are the first educators for children and determine the success of children in the long-term. 

Every parent wants to have a child with good character. What does "character" mean? Character is the combination of traits and qualities distinguishing the individual nature of a person or thing. To have this good character it needs to be done from an early age. All parents have an important role in building this character in their children. Children as a good imitators will do what they see, so that the parent in this case need to be a good role model to their children. 

To build good character in children, there needs to be good cooperation between parents and their environment. The teacher or the educator have a major role in a child's character building because, in the school environment, children will be created into a high-quality humans after the education they receive from their  families. The role of parents in children's education is to provide basic education, attitudes, and  skills, such as religious education, ethics, courtesy and teaching behavior that is consistent with what is taught in school. 

We can conclude from the parent description that the parent plays a critical role in providing education to children. What parents give to children early in life will be imprinted and carried until the children enter the next phase of life. So that parents play a main role in deciding the children's life. But the parent role is not just only for the mother but needs good cooperation between father and mother. As for the role and the function of the parents to the children education divide into: 

# 1. Mother Role

In general, mothers have the main role in the family. Since the child was born, mother always stays beside them. Mothers give their children all their love, feed them, and always hangout with them. A mother's education for her child is a fundamental  education that should not be overlooked. So, a mother needs to be wise and good at educating their child. Some people say that a mother is a nation's educator. It's so real how Hard  it is to be a good teacher and good household ruler. Whether  for the better or for the worse, a mother's education of her children will influence their development and attitude one day. A mother will always be worried and always fulfill what their children want, even if it's not good enough.

#2. Father Role

Many people believed that fathers  only worked for a living to support theirs families, while mothers led and educate their children and did housework. However, in a family, both fathers and mothers have equally important roles in educating their children. The father's attitude will affect the children's personalities because a father is required to be a leader, a braver, and a protector of the family. It has previously been said that children are good imitators, so when children see the attitude of a brave father, they will imitate this courage. 

Children's character education can be said to be education plus, because this education involves various aspects, namely cognitive (knowledge), affective (feelings), and also action (action). Character education that is carried out systematically and consistently will give birth to a child with smart emotions. Character education has many functions, some of them are: a) Development, this has an impact on the child's potential to become someone who has good behavior, b) Improvement, where this education will be responsible for providing knowledge about whether something is good or bad, c) Filter, this means that education will filter out things that are not in accordance with the prevailing values so that children will digest only good things.

Character education that parents should teach include the following: 

A. Religious Lesson

Religious education should be done by the parent as early as it can so that they can take chances to get used to the attitude where it should be taught by the p[arents. The purpose is to lead humans to maturity so that the student will have a balance between mind and attitude and can create the balance of the concrete deeds. So on with the religious education, can lead children to faith maturity.

B. Honesty Lesson

Honesty isn't a character that comes by itself and isn't an attitude that comes by itself. Parents should tell their childrens that honesty will always win and every lie will lose, and we need to say that there's no space for lies.

C. Courage Lesson

Courage lesson is mean to give them understanding, and build them mental to be brave to facing any obstacles.

D. Responsibility Lesson

To create responsibility, parents need to give a variety task or works to children. The thing that to be remembered by parents is the task that children do is not to see the result, this just only to give them a responsibility, that's the important thing. If we seen children do some mistakes while they do their task, don't get angry directly

E. Discipline Lesson

The purpose of the children discipline is to makes children can behave like it been expected by the society environment. Starting with routine tasks and easy to monitor. On giving the discipline attitude parents need to be consistent to be good examples.

In conclusion, parents have an important role in children's character building. This character education will last the rest of the children's lives. This has become a reason why parents should give the best education to their kids from an early age.  Children will imitate what their parents do, and children are good imitators, so parents should set a good example for their children. In other words, parents should fulfill their responsibilities toward their children. The most important aspect of all of this is instilling religious values and morals in children from an early age.

REFERENCE

Ansari, Joko. "The Role of Parents on the Character of Kindergarten Children Aged 5-6 Years In Bima". Universal Journal of Educational Research (2020).

Sunarni, Dwi. "THE PARENT ROLE IN EARLY CHILDHOOD CHARACTER BUILDING (Descriptive Study at SPS DAHLIA DESA SUNDAWENANG KECAMATAN PARUNGKUDA KAB. SUKABUMI )". Jurnal Empowerment, Volume 7 Nomor 2 (2018).