Children face no real consequences:

As we settle into our routines at the start of another new school year, I ponder the horrific events that happen at our schools: bombings, shootings, etc. I don’t recall hearing of such things in my parent’s days of school. I certainly don’t remember anything like that or similar to it ever happening in my school years. I wonder why that is? My mind searched for a reasonable explanation. It dawned on me, there is no reasonable explanation.

Here’s what I came up with. Along the way, having only good intentions and trying to do good for their children, some first time parent do good-ers got a simple idea their child is an equal. A child is equal to them, so all children should be treated as equals---as small adults. The whole idea snowballed into a don’t abuse, don’t accuse, don’t use and the idiot idea of all time---give them a time out campaign. Don’t spank. Don’t correct. Ask them how they feel. Ask the child what you as a parent can do better next time. Ask the child what he thinks his punishment should be. Don’t raise your voice or your hand. Count to 10. Be their friend until the whole parenting process resulted in you standing there feeling like a lousy excuse of a parent while the child took control and you lost it. You feel lousy because all these new equal ideas you learned don’t work. And if that’s not enough, thanks to other busy body do good-ers, your child also has a list of 800 numbers to call if you even threaten to give him the good old fashioned crack he obviously so richly deserves. Instead we send them to their rooms to think about what they’ve done.

This is the room filled with Nintendo, Gameboy, a telephone, a television, etc. No wonder they don’t care. Children today are not made to take responsibility for their actions. There are no real consequences for their acts. They are not equals, but ignorant children in the learning process. They need parenting from people not afraid to parent. I’m not saying abuse your child---though someone might enlighten them as they scream it so ignorantly. A parent should spank, however, they shouldn’t beat the child senseless. A child should be afraid of a spanking ( a consequence) rather than a parent being afraid of being turned in by a child for spanking. The premise has been “they are children,” “they’re young” and “they don’t know what they’re doing.” Make no excuses for them. Don’t forgive them merely for being a child. We need to take back control, not lose it. In the effort to protect, we gave our control away in the process.

©1998Nancy Lee Destiny