Quit blaming others for your lack of parenting
What a tragic epidemic of passive parenting! Go out to dinner, a movie, Target, the grocery, you name it – anywhere you go, unruly children are simply out of control because their parents are not in control. Then we send these darlings off to school where teachers are blamed for lack of performance and civility in the classroom.
Parents have two serious responsibilities. First is to love their children without worshipping them. The second is to discipline them.
Parents must be able to tolerate the distress that real discipline causes their offspring. I expect and should have the right to enjoy my outings without your little darling running amok, proving to the entire world how pathetic a parent you are.
Don’t expect us to tolerate your undisciplined kids in the same absurd manner that you accept them. Ms. Dicken said, “Children are only pests that every adult seems to feel entitled to reprimand.” Quit blaming others for your lack of responsible parenting. If your children are not a joy to others, maybe you should ask yourself why.
Joanna Harkins, Fairview
I’m right there with Joanna! I’m sick of seeing out of control kids. Sure, mine test my own patience in many ways, but I still feel like I have the upper hand.
Are you a passive parent? And do you think you’d recognize if you were?
Tags: parenting, passive parenting, out of control kids
I think I’m an active parent. But then I unschool so Cedar’s with me 24/7 pretty much. I don’t believe in arbitrary discipline or rules but that works in my favor because Cedar is pretty laid back and knows that the rules I do set for our home count for something.
Like he has no set bedtime because he doesn’t have to get up for school so we stay up late a lot doing projects or reading; hanging out etc. Plus I trust him to know when his body is tired. But he NEVER breaks our major rule which is you don’t harm others (with words or physically) because I’m dead serious about it.
Also I don’t pay him for stuff he should just do anyway — like help keep the house clean. If you live there you can help and he knows it and usually will help (not 100% but mostly) he gets $ but he does not get it for simply being a decent house member. A lot of parents I know do that and I think it creates issues.
I totally agree. I’m tired of hearing and seeing unruly children.
I don’t understand how you can not have rules. No bedtime? How is a child ever going to learn to regulate hisself/herself? At some point, this child will want to go out and get a job, possibly. There has to be a bed time then, but he/she has never had one so learning to do so later in life is going to be tough. There’s no pattern other than living willy-nilly. There’s no structure. I don’t understand.
“I don’t understand how you can not have rules. No bedtime? How is a child ever going to learn to regulate hisself”
The thing is though if I constantly told him when he was tired and to go to bed he would not learn to regulate his own sleep. Me telling someone to regulate is not the same as self regulation. It’s like eating. If I said to him that he had to eat three specific food items at one time and finish a certain % of it he’d never learn when his own hunger was real vs. what I tell him to feel.
It’s hard to explain. You could check out radical unschooling.com; Sandra who runs the site has three perfectly great kids (teens and above) all raised without school or arbitrary rules. Lots of people do but she actually writes about it.
Also I think the arbitrary part is key. We have guidelines that make sense. I.E you don’t run into the street and you don’t get to hang out with everyone if you’re going to be rude. The kind of guidelines everyone should follow — not just kids.
When kids truly get to self-regulate AND get attention from their parents they manage well. Cedar sleeps he just sleeps differently. When we have to be somewhere early (like a playgroup) he’ll tend to go to bed earlier because so do I. He eats mostly veggies, fruit, and other healthy stuff yet I’ve never ever told him he had to. He just sees me eat that stuff. Kids are smarter, I believe, than many adults I’ve met seem to think.
I completely see your point Jennifer. Although I’ve taken a more traditional approach with my kids. When they were babies, I kept them on a strict schedule. I learned theirs, they didn’t learn mine.
I knew what time they took naps and no matter where I was or what was going on, they were home at their nap time to sleep in their own bed.
Given that I had planned my divorce for four years, I knew offering my boys as much structure and stability in other aspects of their lives was going to play a key role in how well they took to the divorce.
Oh, and it sounds terrible that I ‘planned’ my divorce for that long, but having preemie twins didn’t leave me a lot of options until they were at an age where I could manage on my own – I knew once the divorce was done, I’d be on my own without any help. And living with a cheater for that long was difficult, but it was for the sake of my kids.
Today, they are 14 and very well adjusted. They know I’m there for them no matter what and we talk about everything – even those things that make me want to heave because it’s just too grown up for my babies to be talking about.
The food example makes sense to me. I suppose it’s just another school of thought. When I think “no rules”, I picture in my head children running amok and screaming and yelling at the top of otheir lungs, pinching and hitting people and saying nasty things under their breath when their parents aren’t looking. LOL
We have an 11 year old and, if we didn’t make her go to bed, she would stay up even after everyone else went to sleep until her body just couldn’t take it anymore and she passed out. She always has to be involved in what everyone else is doing and is much like her father in that she’s always afraid she’s going to miss something.
And I totally agree that, regardless of your parenting style (rules, no rules, self-regulation), attention from the parents is vital!
Thanks for the response and explanation.
Gayla; its amazing what we do for kids. I just moved out of my partner’s house and that eight year relationship but it was years coming. I didn’t want to put Cedar in school. I had to figure out how to be home and still make money. I can see why you’d feel more like having a secure schedule with your situation. Separations are hard on kids.
“We have an 11 year old and, if we didn’t make her go to bed, she would stay up even after everyone else went to sleep until her body just couldn’t take it anymore and she passed out.” Jessica, me and other unschoolers hear that all the time.. “If I let him he’d watch tv all day, eat chocolate all day, never go to bed, etc”
It’s rarely true though. Most humans will not do something all the time because eventually it will run you down. Kids will regulate too. But I get that people have different schools of thoughts. You’re right about attention being the key. Basically no matter what you believe as a parent attention should be your first concern. It’s sad that so many parents forget this — which goes right back to the “why” of Gayla’s original post.
Good discussion guys
(I mean gals).
While I agree that parents need to take more responsibility in raising (and disciplining) their children, there are times when kids are going to act out, and at that time, the issue needs to be addressed (i.e. consequences/discipline/etc). Unfortunately, those incidents might occur at Target, Applebees and other public places.