You are entitled to your opinion, but as a father of 4, all of whom are 10 yrs old and under, I beg to differ.
Sure the world today is a modern technological marvel compared to the world of 50 years ago, but I don’t think that what works for parenting children in today’s day and age is all that much different. What worked back then and what works still today, is patience, respect and consistency. Kids are going to act like kids, so patience is a must when dealing with them. This doesn’t mean you can’t ever yell at them. Og knows I’ve yelled at my kids when they deserved it. But you do have t know when to pick your battles. This is a learned parenting skill and one that a lot of modern parents today have not learned. Also you have to respect your kids in order for them to respect you. Take time to listen to them because they may surprise you and have an idea that is equitable and fair. Most importantly parents must be consistent with kids in how they deal with them. If the rule is that if they are good at the store, they may have some gum at the checkout, then stick to the rule… and make sure you follow up on it too. Eventually the kids will learn to be good in the store.
IMHO, kids have not really changed in 50 years, it’s the parents that have changed. If anything I would say that part of the problem of child behavior management is that parents today have overall lost something that the parents of 50 years ago had. Look at society today. The tendency for both parents to work leaves an almost minuscule amount of time left in the day for parents to actually be with their kids and learn how to be effective parents. Where are the kids when mom and dad aren’t around? With babysitter, or in school, or in daycare. So the parents have very little time to learn how to deal with their kids. Parenting is a learned skill, just like juggling. You don’t expect someone who never juggled before to pick up the balls and start doing it successfully. They have to practice every day, consistently and after a lot of practice, they are successful. Parenting is no different and with so little time to practice, it’s practically impossible for a lot of parents to learn to be effective parents with their kids.
Really? Seriously? Is that because you can use a cellphone and a computer? Or is it just because you are too young to realise how much parenting never really changes…well not for parents who want their children to grow up not to be over entitled tantrum throwers.
NEWSFLASH! Teenagers have always thought they were better then their parents…Gen-Next is anything but original in that context. Selfish and tantrumy maybe but hardly original. Every teenage generation thinks it has redisicovered the world.
Standard issue misbehaviour? Kids throwing tantys in supermarkets or the highest level in child crime? Which one did you mean?
Hey I left not only my home but my country for 5 years of travelling when I was 17…I will care about someones clothes when they can support themself in the world.
I had an experience with that yesterday, we’d taken the kids to the beach and my son started one of his HuGE colossal meltdowns. But, because I’d been down this road with him before, I was able to work with him and rein it in. Fifteen minutes later calm was restored and we continued our day & dealt with the factors that had precipitated his fit (and went on to have a lot of fun). It occurred to me that I was lucky I’d had practice.
Of course, the people at the beach had no way of knowing how well I was dealing with him - they probably just resented the 5 minutes he spent screaming & crying at full volume in the bathhouse. What they didn’t know is that he’s fully capable of carrying on in that way for 45 minutes. Last weekend he locked us all out of the house while he stomped around and screamed like a little demon.
It’s not just time that they soak up: There’s no way I could work and still have ENERGY to deal with my kids. When we go on outings I do my best to wear them out, physically, because if they want to test limits with me all night after a long day (which we’ve spent having FUN, doggone it), well, on those days it’s just hell around here.
I can’t imagine mothering on top of working 40 hrs/wk.
To a degree, I agree with the OP that there’s no harm in giving in to small requests from your child. But the key, in my experience, is to decide in advance what will be acceptable and what will not. I have a 7-year-old. She knows that when she accompanies me to the store, if she is well-behaved while I’m shopping that she can have a quarter for the gum ball machine when we’re done shopping.
I’m the first to admit that I spoil my children. But I do not give in to tantrums and whining, ever. It’s a bad road to go down. And I do not teach my children that what they want is more important than what anyone else wants. Now that my youngest is a little bigger, if we are in a play area or at a play ground, if she pushed another child, a time-out would be in order.
However, this:
If you know your kid is prone to meltdowns when they’re tired or hungry, then freakin’ don’t take them into stores for major shopping when they’re tired or hungry. When kids are old enough to be easily bored in stores, you can do things to help keep them entertained, like take along a quiet toy or a box of animal crackers.
OTOH, giving in to petty demands because it’s “just a buck” or whatever, is a bad, bad road to head down!
Here’s an actual parenting tip for this tantrum situation (if you are “flying solo” with no backup parent/adult to help whisk the problem child away to a more secluded space): the best way to deal with a tantrum is not to make a Power Play (to continue to force the issue one way or another), but to run a Distraction Play.
Small children are easily distracted, and generally speaking, the tantrum is more an expression of self-will or a desire for attention than actually wanting the specific item in question. It’s not “I must have that Hubba-Bubba Bubble Gum”, but a sudden feeling of “I have a need to state, ECCE HOMO, I EXIST!”
That, plus the kid may need a nap.
Anyhow, in a similar situation (small child begins fussing for checkout counter goodie), I would have tried defusing it by offering the child an alternative:
Child: I want that bubble gum. Parent: No, we’re not buying any bubble gum. Child: (Raising voice, begins to cry, insisting on the BG) Parent: OK, how about this? (Grab a box of tic-tacs and shake it)
Tic-Tacs are my favorite decoy because they’re basically rattles. You can tell the kid they can’t eat them until you leave the store (“or we’ll get in trouble”), then once out of the store, you can put it away for later and the kid will forget about it. Or you let the kid have one or two and then put the rest away for later, and the kid will forget about it.
If you don’t want to buy the Tic-Tacs anyway, and the kid accepts the Tic-Tacs, you can further confuse the kid by continuing to offer alternatives: the Green Ones, or the Orange Ones? Make the green ones and orange ones “talk” (like puppets) to make their cases. Give them silly voices. This will probably make the kid laugh. Get silly enough and you can transfer the talking voices to your hands without the Tic-Tacs.
What if the kid rejects the Tic-Tacs (“No, I want the BUBBLE GUM!”)? Well now you make the Tic-Tacs argue with the Bubble Gum about who should be chosen.
Don’t use the same distraction prop every time, though, or the kid will catch on (I’m sure that’s common sense).
I also always give my kids a role in the supermarket checkout process (starting when they’re about 2 years old): they’re responsible for handing the money to the cashier, handing me the change, or (if I’m paying with a credit card) taking the receipt and holding on to it until we get home. This way, if the distraction is winding down and the kid is prepared to start fussing for something else at the counter, if we’re close to the cashier I can remind the kid of their Solemn Duty coming up, and the sense of importance it gives will make them happy enough to not risk making a scene (and forgoing the role in the checkout).
Another thing I learned from mine (right along with what you’re saying) – they didn’t start out saying “Mom, I want to buy that Elmo doll”, they actually started by pointing at the toy and saying “Eeeeemo!” And I’d acknowledge it - “Yes, that’s Elmo!” No discussion of buying/not buying, no reason to enter into a power play - just an acknowledgment of their observation.
It worked for a long while. Grandma screwed the pooch, though, and actually started buying them stuff when we’d go out.
robardin makes excellent points about distraction. When I take my youngest shopping, I engage her in the process (“can you help me find a box of fruit snacks that don’t have a lot of sugar added? Those are the ones we can get. Once you help me find the right brand, you can choose a flavor”)
Yes, she needs to know that I’m in charge, and I call the shots. But she likes feeling like she has some power, some control (that’s a very human thing). So I involve her in the decisions. By and large, she’s a pretty laid-back kid anyway, but this kind of stuff does help.
No foolin’! I can take my kids just about anywhere I would care to go (for a long time, I even had them convinced that the gift shop was just another part of the museum – “ooh, nice puzzle.” “It sure is. Look over here. A geode.”) , but I can’t take my mom into any retail establishment anymore.
Because few things are worst than a person who does not accept the idea that NO means “NO”. NO does not mean “If you whine or cry or hit me hard enough, I will say yes.” Parents have to be in charge.
People who don’t take NO for an answer make other people’s lives miserable and very very scary.
See, now this I like. We’re sharing our ideas on the subject matter.
I’m totally down with Dragwyr’s position. Yes, there is a large factor of the changing world effecting how parents raise their kids. But look at another thing that’s always puzzled me; Why is there a majority of baby-boomers who are so overtly confused and/or terrifyed of computers and other technological jumps since when they were a kid? Everyone keeps jumping in saying ‘Oh, he’s a young kid and so smart because he knows what he’s doing with a computer’. Often that’s because we grew up with the computer as most baby boomers grew up with cars. I’m too antsy to even change my own oil or flush my radiator, but I can drive down to my Mom’s and she’ll crawl under my Firebird and have it all fixed up for me while I tear boatloads of virus’s and Adware out of her computer. There ‘has’ been a major hike in technological and scientific advancement over the last 50 years. Not major; ‘incredible’ hike. And with that you have parents and their children looking at the world from two totally different perspectives, thus affecting how they learn and what kind of information they’re exposed to at a young age, thusly making Next-Gen a little bit Tech-savvy, but in many cases, socially stupid. A person’s behaviour and personality over the rest of their life is based, for the most part, on what they pick up on as they grow up with or without their parent’s direct interferance.
I’ll admit, I’m a total puts in public and I hate being around other people at bars and night clubs or even at the store. I wanna get in, get my shit, get out, go home. And I find a lot of my people are the same way.
As for those that are thinking me a child; I’m 24. So I’m not ignorantly young, but I’m certainly not world-travelled. I’ve had my experience with kids and not just an after-school baby-sitting job. All I may be missing is the emotional attachment to what’s mine.
If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But I’m certainly enjoying hearing other people’s unbiased, realistic, unprovocative opinions.
FF–If you are trying to say that parents should choose their battles, I’m in agreement.
IMO, the checkout scene should go like this: (before you leave the house) “kids, we have to go to the store. It will take about X time. Remember to use inside voices. I’m going to need some helpers-who will be my helpers? Ok! And what else?”
Kids,“no whining, no running and no begging for stuff!”
Me, “sounds like we’re ready to go!”
Do this enough times (ie relay your expectations to them) and you prevent the “gimmes” at the checkout. I am far from a perfect parent, but this kind of stuff–it ain’t rocket science. It requires attention, consistency and as was stated above, respect for the children, along with age appropriate standards.
In contrast to the OP, I see no reason whatsoever to buy any child gum/candy/tictacs or whatever at the checkout. An impulse buy that has meaning for the child (like the cake story above)? That’s fantastic–I would do that in a heartbeat. But no kid NEEDS the crap sold at the checkout. If you feel they MUST have it (you can be sure they feel they MUST)–provide them their own money via chores or allowance.
I wouldn’t substitute one candy for another, either–that teachs them that asking/whining is ok, and perhaps if they up the ante a bit, you’ll cave on the desired item. They may even get devious on you and whine for X, while really lusting after Y; you offer Z, but are talked into Y…(this would be slightly older kids).
Heh. I actually had the Nietzschean context in mind when I wrote that (a masturbatory exposition of personal existential philosophy), rather than the (original) Biblical context.
I’m going to go against the crowd and agree with you here. Not the “born smarter” thing, but I do think they are smarter soon after that. Not that I think it’s an evolutionary thing, mind you, because evolution (that is, genetic change) doesn’t happen that quickly. But I do think we push our kids to know more, younger, because…well, I’m not sure why. Partly because if all the other 2 year olds know what a cow says, you feel like yours should, too. Partly because there is just more stuff to learn before school starts - I’ve said it before and I’ll stand by it - Kindergarten now is what first grade was when I was a kid, and that pattern keeps on going at least through junior high. Toys today are more stimulating on more sensory levels by design. Kids watch more television, which exposes them to more ideas and more cultures and more sounds than before. So yeah, your average 3 year old of today probably does have more neural input, more active teaching and coaching, more knowledge than the average 3 year old of 50 years ago. So what? They’re still uncivilized little monkeys (apes, actually) who need to be taught not to fling their poo at passerby. Sometimes that poo is literal and sometimes it’s metaphorical.
Has it occurred to you that this might be a symptom of the kind of parenting you’re promoting? I think we can probably agree that there are more working parents out there than 50 years ago. Studies (which I can’t cite but are all over my Parenting magazines) show that working parents consistently relate to their children with *things *- things that cost money, which they have, instead of time, which they don’t. Working parents (tend to) feel guilt about working, and so they try to “make every moment count”. “Quality time” was the buzzword of the nineties - you could be a good mom and work 60 hours a week, because it’s not the *quantity *of the time you spend with your kids that’s important, it’s the quality, we were told, over and over again. Well, if you’re only spending 4 waking hours a day with your kid, you’re not going to want to spoil that with whining and arguing, so you buy the kid whatever he demands so your time together is enjoyable.
Problem is, it didn’t work. Those same magazines are now publishing articles about studies showing that, oh, yeah, quantity of time is important, and quality isn’t achieved through bribes to keep the peace. Being your child’s buddy isn’t healthy, and it doesn’t teach him how to be a civilized human being and succeed in the world.
You’re that kid. You, the Gen-Next generation, are the kids who got the pack of gum when they started to whine. And you’re the kids (so you say), who “what we need and we need what we want and we’ll crush anything that stands between that and we find ourselves constantly saying ‘Why!’ to rules and common senses that our parents/grand parents have always come to terms with.” Connection? I think so.
The more authoritarian, don’t-give-in-to-tantrums style of parenting is coming BACK because giving in to tantrums to keep the peace didn’t work too well. “Because I said so” was virtually banned from the parenting vocabulary by popular demand for about 20 years, and I’m so happy we’re allowed to use it again. Explaining to a three year old that the gum will end up in his hair or smeared on the car seat or he’s been a little tyrant and doesn’t deserve a treat just is not going to make him not want it anymore. Sometimes, the reason really is “Because I’m the Mommy and it’s my money and I’m not buying gum with it. Get over it!”
That being said, yes, there is a sometimes conflicting parental edict: Choose Your Battles. I *really *like robardin’s Tic-Tac distraction; it allows the kid to get something, but not the thing he was whining for. Mom and Dad retain the power of yes and no, whining didn’t work, but the kid gets something that heads off the tantrum.
I loathe screaming, tantrum-ing children, but even I know kowtowing and giving in to them to shut them up is the worst thing you can do. Stand firm, by all means, but also - for the love of Pete - remove them from the immediate area and let them have their snit elsewhere (obviously, airplane-bound tantrums fall into a different category)
And it (IMO) had led to a sense of entitlement a mile wide and high. It will be very interesting to see how these people parent (not saying they’ll mess up, but no generation does it perfectly).
Children are very easy to control if you start early. Now parents think they should let their kids be free to do as they please when they’re young and cute and can’t figure out why they have no control when the kids get older.
Once I went to the store with my friend who’s daughter was the best friend of my son. They were maybe 6 or 7. The daughter was having a tantrum over wanting something and my son just looked at her like she turned into an alien.
A few days later he asked for something in a store and I said no, out of nowhere he stamped his little foot and started acting like his friend did the other day. I looked at him like he had turned into an alien and he stopped right away. I could tell his heart wasn’t into the tantrum, he was just trying it out in case it worked. He’s a very bad actor. I think that was his first and only tantrum.
Point being you can’t give in to the tantrum because it’s just 25 cents, thats the way a monster teen is created who sneaks out of the house at 14 and goes joyriding drunk in a stolen car.
