Being 14: Leader or rebellion?

Grace speaks:

First, I really want to apologise for failing to release a Monday edition and for that, I'll be writing a Sunday special. My spirit has been down for a while and I write from my heart so it was basically difficult to type anything at all. I got a lot of reviews that lifted my soul and I am really grateful to all those who read, comment, share my link and all various forms of support towards this project. Means a lot to me and I'm grateful.

Leadership! Hmmppphhh....first off, I'm a first daughter and in the Nigerian society, I think you would understand how much of a great deal being a first child is, you are automatically turned to a parent. Lots of responsibility fall out even from a very young age. My father always says that if the first child does well, the rest will follow suit and therefore, there is no room for FUCK UP.

At 14, I already fixed meals for the family, I could clean my father's house from beginning to end, do the laundry and left just the dishes for my younger sister cos I hated to do that. My other siblings just waited for the food to get ready and go back to the TV if there was light, otherwise, I'd have to keep up with them messing up my hard work and guess what? I shouldn't complain because well, they are kids and I am the Ada.

I had to put up with a lot of things because I was an Ada and as a responsible one, I should never nag or complain. I had no problems with that except on extreme situations e.g my younger sister and her sluggish behaviour at the time-praise please before you come for my head, everybody knows second daughters are extremely annoying. Having established that, with my patience and diligence and sweggy nature, I'd like to say that I'm the coolest big sis in the world.

Asides family leadership roles which I played quite well, not perfectly though but mehn! I dey try biko, I was in ss2 at age 14 and I had convinced my dad to put me back in the hostel so I can be a prefect. My dad had a way of taking spontaneous decisions concerning my matters because somehow, he felt it was the best way to discipline me. This moment I'm a boarder, next moment I'm coming to school from home. This moment I was on low cut, next moment I'm back to making my hair.

After about 2 weeks, he allowed me to return to the school hostel. Before then I had already established a certain level of respek on ma name! Whatever it was, respect or fear, I just loved the way a class or refectory got quiet anytime I walked in. I liked that little junior students ran away in fear whenever I walked on the corridors in the school block...you'd literally hear one tiny child's voice..." senior Grace is coming" and they will all start to run helter-skelter. It was so bad, somebody wrote very boldly on the wall in the female convenience "I HATE SENIOR GRACE".

At the same time, however, I was one of the most social seniors. I laughed with them, had some of the little ones in jss1 line up so I could spin them around, taught choreography and kissed the cute ones on the forehead.

Time to apply for post, everybody was so sure that I would go for either the head girl or social prefect. I wasn't in for any seriousness or stress in my life so I just applied for social because well, a lot of people considered me the life of the party and with my carriage, level of command at the time and my love for social activities, I most certainly was the girl for the job yo! But the school had other plans, Haq! Did I mention I was a little stubborn?

I wasn't exactly anybody's favourite because I liked to do whatever my mind had concluded. I had a lot of feud with my seniors, the ss3 students and since baby boy1 wasn't available to provide immunity to punishment, I served a lot of those and some of the members of the school authority did not exactly like me, especially our very own SUPER!

Super somehow had an upper hand in most of the decision making in school and since I always crossed paths with her, I just knew in my heart that a lot I things would go wrong. Remember how I liked to choose my style? She had issues with that...my hair, lipgloss, hair again, earrings, hair agaaaiiinnn, my socks ( the school socks were white with two black stripes but mine had three), my hair one more time...(kai my hair caused plenty problems, you can see how different it is from the others in the photo) and even had a problem with me representing the school in math competitions because of reasons best known to her.

The day of manifesto came and went, ...time to share post, everything went totally south. Hewooooo...it wasn't just me mehn...till today, that has been the most controversial post sharing abi giving in my school. I was assigned Utility Prefect and I really just couldn't complain. Shebi prefect is prefect...as long as we could lord over these very annoying juniors and go to prep whenever we wanted and get extra food in ref then no biggies.

Along the line, however, I lost interest in all of those things, I didn't want to do all those prefect things anymore, I was more interested in making those junior students love and remember me for good stuff when I leave. I was more interested in sitting on the stairs and pressing my phone during school hours. I was more interested in looking good and building stronger bonds with my friends, taking nice pictures and uploading on Facebook. Baby boy 2 also surfaced at this time and I didn't really care so much about being a prefect anymore.

All the while I really learnt a lot about leadership, there is a huge difference between respect and fear. There is love in respect and a great percentage of spite in fear. The former is greater I must confess. Humans are not all the same but love is the key to great leadership. Even for the stubborn ones, while you chastise them, do that in love. Somehow by default, even the most difficult people bend to continuous show of love. I learned that might is not right and I'm glad I was able to fix a lot of wrongs I did to those kids.

P.S, super later called me to her office and asked that I take the social prefect post but I declined because it didn't matter anymore and I was just fine😊. Also, exclusive details on baby boy2 coming up on Friday's episode.

I hope you had a great time reading this piece and I'm sure Krystal baby has even more spice just for you🙃

Krystal speaks: 

Being 14: Leadership

I was the Headgirl for a larger part of my senior secondary education. I got that post a few weeks after we resumed for the second term and handed over in my ss3 third term!!!!!!!!!!!

 Yo!  I was already writing WAEC and had written JAMB by then so it's probably the longest prefectship duration ever. Asides that, I think a proper way to start this leadership talk would be to highlight that I am an ADA. 

An ADA is the first daughter in an Igbo family and not only am I an ADA, but I am also a first child. 

As the first child of my family and by the mercies of the almighty God who found me worthy 😭🙌💖, I am the big sister and Adanne to my siblings and trust me, there are responsibilities that come with it.

I started realizing this when I was just seven.    

My mum had weaned my baby sister and had to resume work. Getting a help didn't seem like a safe option and a relative wasn't just part of the plan.

My mum called me one afternoon and told me she had to go to the market, that I should watch my younger ones till she gets back.

She showed me the giant flasks of food, gave me a Nokia torch; of course, I've had her number crammed since I was four, and she blessed us all, handing us into God's hands. The instructions were simple. Do not open the door for anyone even our grandparents or relatives unless she calls to say so and do not go out either!!!

God helped me and she came back to see that her young child had swept and mopped the whole house, cleaned baby poo, fed my siblings and all was well.

She decided to experiment for a whole day and all was still well, it went on and on till it became a routine.

My siblings and I really bonded over this time. Till this day, we would sit back and reflect over all our memories back then and how even with power outage we would create our own fun. We had this game called "invention invention" where we would, for example, use our old bicycle, tie some polybags around it and pour groundnuts inside the bag. Then the person who created it would come and explain to the rest of the siblings what the invention in what he or she created was we would all clap.

Personally, I made one by putting shoes under the bicycle then I drove it a bit to reveal the shoes😂. My explanation to this "invention" was that the bicycle produces shoes and of, m intellectual audience applauded me for such brilliant work. Guyyyyy we did our assignments together, watched all our favourite shows together, I got to know everyone's likes and dislikes at such a tender age and truth is we are happy people🥰💕.

We made adverts for Nestle and Faro table water and we still sing those songs till date😂😂😂. We have numerous jokes and our annual "Woloms" day celebration (pranks day actually 😂😂😂) was every 8th of August. Each sibling was tasked to prank both mum and dad at least once. Whoever had the best pranks would win. 

Trust me it was amazing, but the task of leading the young ones had its challenges. I had to force them to eat so they could be healthy, administer drugs timely if any was sick, wash up after they used the toilet, clean them up, make sure they observed their siesta and so much stuff. Over time the roles evolved and I become the one to cook the meals and share the chores.

I would also supervise that books were read and holiday assignments are done. My parents would discuss our day with us when they got back from work and they have always been actively involved in our lives.

With this experience, I didn't see the Headgirl post as difficult because I felt I was doing a hopeful job at home, but things ran out of hand pretty quickly.

  

  Some juniors were quick to disrespect me because they felt I was too nice, some felt we were age mates so what the!!!! Others just chose to make things difficult for me. 

I tried all I could to even take up leadership methods from predecessors but it failed awfully so I decided in my heart that I was going to do my duty and mind my business. 

It wasn't exactly easy but I tried my best and whether it was good enough or not, I still don't know.

Then the university!!!!

Ahhh this part bahhh

So I joined the Bible study unit in church and no sooner I was made the coordinator. Till tomorrow they are legit people who deemed me unworthy, and unfit and it could show with their every demeanour, mannerisms and side talks. I tried to keep it cool for as long as I could and God knows I tried my best so when it was eventually time, I got fed up with the judgements and refused to be involved with the unit. 

Personally, I have this slow but overtime withdrawal from stuff. It'll be slow but consistent and by the time you look around, I am totally done. That's exactly what I did slowly and steadily (I don't exactly feel proud but I just didn't fit in Sha) my mind had zoned out from that place entirely. I low-key think the excessive thinking over this had some bad effects on my mental health but I eventually handed over peacefully and moved on.

There will be time for details on my church life and all, but never ever has it been recorded that leadership is easy.

I know they tell you things like "once your followers are loyal and cool all will be well" my diaaaaaaaa calm down! It just makes it easier, not that the weight of the crown reduces. You just adjust to the weight and get ready to do all you have to do to improve the team.

Leadership has sort of always found a way of coming to me and these days instead of running away, I accept it and hope I don't mess things up. Messing things up doesn't have to just be with your followers or the team, it could be with your self. Self-leadership is essential if anything has to happen right for you.

I was going through relationship crisis but I knew at 14 that if my academics crashed, everyone would blame it on the post I held and not my adolescent stupidity so guess who God helped to still cart away 8 prizes on the speech and prize-giving day that same session. A leader could be going through major breakdowns, crisis and could be facing harsh challenges but being able to lead yourself to a better place and realize that whatever is going on with you on a personal level could affect some other people is very necessary. There is a need to seek help for yourself, get strong and recover from whatever blows you've received so that the people you are leading won't go through the exact same thing.

I would go to my hostel and cry but show back on Assembly like a boss and admonish peoples children to be serious with their studies. I was reading seriously too not only for myself, but so they could feel motivated; I talk with some juniors who knew me back then and they still think I had all my shit together. I didn't!!! But in my own opinion that's the kind of thing leadership makes you do.

 As a 14-year-old, I wasn't extremely overwhelmed with becoming my school's Headgirl because I had some experience, however, that exposure trained me in so many ways. To some, I might not have done a killer job with it but the experience, the lessons, the self-development, the confidence boost, ideas on situation management, and so on has made me who I am today. I would never regret most of my experiences in life and I thank God every day when I realize those bruised were intended to be victory marks. When we get to talk about being 17 or 18, the stories might flood in heavily but for now, leadership is still our topic and for the typical 14-year-old, it's okay not to know how to go about it. 

This is why you have God, your parents, good teachers, Godly relatives, Sunday school teachers, good friends and healthy teenage books around you. Surely you'll be able to come up with stuff. Some ideas I used as a Headgirl came from my parents. During visiting days I would discuss my challenges then both mum and dad would offer suggestions and guide me through based on their own experiences. They helped me excel so now you get why I love them till the end of time😭♥️❤️

Not every 14 years old had huge leadership positions and when something big came or things even smaller things like assignment group Leaders, they lacked the patience, strength, understanding, courage and team spirit to carry on. 

Handling 3 kids when they were 1, 2 and 4 taught me a lot of patience if not I would've killed my parents' children in anger😂. I had to be long-suffering to the point where my long-suffering felt extremely suffered and guess what??? It totally paid off!!! My parents gave me the greatest gift ever!!! Bonding with my siblings, developing a genuine love for them and accepting/understanding them despite their annoying moments 😂. 

I was eventually the senior who would rather talk and admonish than beat, but the bible recognized that although children can be foolish, a good beating is necessary to set them straight, therefore, warranting from time to time few strokes from my hanger, punishments on a milder note, or a greater degree of beating.

This story might seem mixed up, emotional or certainly funny😂, but I need it to be insightful for you. I need you my darling to understand that you need to follow so you can lead right. Follow the people you are leading so you can understand them better and you'd do a better job.

 Leadership experiences before I turn 20 sums up to the fact that there is no perfect leader. There is just a leader committed to making a team successful so he/she does all they can and all they know. 

 Nobody has it all figured out and it's okay! Don't kill yourself but do all you can do so that you'd say in Akon's words "and no matter what happens at least we can say we came, we saw, we tried".

Leadership is fun, it's amazing, it's trying, has it's perks but, you'll get a hang of it. 

I'm glad you took your time to read my stories and see my life the way it's, BEAUTIFUL 😍💎💙.