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Unreal. Absolutely unreal.
I wonder: will this mailing list bear any legal responsibility when the day inevitibly comes when one of its members decides to let their young child decide to refuse cancer chemotherapy or an emergency appendectomy because he/she is afraid of needles?
I have several things I’d like to share
About six years ago I was in an accident involving my car and a 3yr old. She was riding her bike along a very busy street, on the side walk. Her mother was not paying attention to her because she was to busy with the other two kids. Well the little girl went into the street rather than going back on the side walk after crossing the street. Just then I notice her slammed on my brakes and my car hit her on the drivers side of the car. She came out into the street from the passenger side. I was so shaken up because I thought I killed this little girl. Thankfully all she had were scrapes on her. My bumper hit her back tire so she made it across a full lane before I hit her. What kind of parent takes their kid bike riding on a major street… A fucking stupid one. Her parents new that is was not my fault in fact when the father called me that same night he apologized for his wife’s lack of supervision. I was just glad the little girl was ok.
About kids not caring about other peoples cars. I took my nephews to wal-mart. I unlocked the doors and as we were getting in the car the oldest one opened door so hard that he put a nice white scratch and dent in the car next to us, this is not the first time he has done this… I yelled at him and when we back to his house he told his Mom and she gave me shit. So now I won’t take with him me any more because it is embarrassing when you have to yell at a fifteen year old in the parking lot of the wal-mart. As I’m yelling at him the owner of the car walks up. I was so embarrassed.
Thinking about this I’m off to start my own thread.
Feynn, you’re a butt hole, making little girls cry. Tsk, tsk. 
Now that I’m in my mid-twenties, I can look back and see what a great job my parents did disciplining my brother and me. There were clear consequences to misbehaving when we were young and they didn’t hesitate in saying “no” to things that all the other children’s parents let them do. They also used a lot of common sense when we were teenagers – to get use of the car or permission to go out, we had to tell them the specifics of where we would be (including phone numbers of the home), who, and when. They also didn’t let us go out without specific plans (i.e., no riding around downtown which was a big thing in my small town). It never occurred to me (or to my brother when I asked him about it a couple of years ago) to lie about our plans – the lessons that we had been taught about respect and telling the truth when we were little really stuck.
Not that we were goody-two-shoes all the time. We both did a few silly teenager things but they were very few and relatively minor. We were also pretty good about taking the consequences when we did do something – I remember having been caught in an “off limits” area while at boarding school and having the school tell me that since it was the end of the year part of my punishment would be waved. I told them that I would be back at the school the week following exams to do the custodial work that I “owed” for the offense. I felt much better “volunteering” for my punishment on my own than having my parents do it for me.
On the other hand, I could tell you some tales about parents and the children that I see coming through the hospital. Some people just don’t think to restrain little Sally despite the fact that she is running and screaming in an area where there are sick people trying to rest, the potential to be hurt by medical equipment, or doctors trying to perform procedures. I’ve even had to call security on a mother who didn’t see anything wrong with her brat going into the surgery suite (a restricted area for obvious reasons) because “exploration is essential for learning!”
Originally posted by clipper
:eek: :eek: :eek: 
:mad:
There are no words…
I do think there is more bratty/disrespectful behaviour from kids these days, but it’s not that the parents are stupid, it’s a consequence of modern living.
Working parents feel bad for being away from their child all day, and don’t want to waste their precious time arguing with the kid. After a full day’s work they might not have the energy to argue anyway.
Single parents sometimes feel guilty about ‘depriving’ the child of a parent, and are thus more lax, and also without the support of another parent they are more likely to back down.
If the child flips between Mum and Dad’s households and parenting styles, even if one parent is strict, the other parent can undo that by being too lax. And that parent may be too lax because he/she sees the child so rarely and feels guilty … etc, etc.
The prevalence of small nuclear families over the past couple of generations also means that many new parents now haven’t had that much contact with children or witnessed parenting styles other than their own parents’.
Thus guilt + exhaustion + inexperience = lax parenting.
Also I personally wouldn’t judge anyone’s parenting skills based on one experience with them. They might just be having a bad day, you never know. (I’m not saying that’s the case in the OP, it does sound like they’re more likely victims of the guilt-exhaustion-inexperience trap).
So I really can understand how some parents can be too lax with their children. What I can’t understand is an organisation that thinks that this laxness is the right thing to do, and encourages parents to continue with it! Yes, children should have some say in what happens to them, depending on their age and the situation. Their own preferences should not be disregarded. This is rather different to saying that children should always do what they want.
Think of the child as a trainee adult. Trainees in any field are supervised, given advice, told what to do and how to do it, and if they make mistakes they are chastised in a way - they may have to stay late to redo the work, they may miss out on a promotion, they certainly miss out on praise. No-one would expect a first year medical student to know how to perform open heart surgery - the student doesn’t have the requisite knowledge and experience. Similarly, a four-year-old doesn’t have the requisite knowledge or experience to decide whether or not her head-lice should be treated. Simple. The experienced surgeon performs the surgery, the experienced parent makes the decision.
This is considering that a medical student is at least working with the same material as his/her tutors. A child is not - their way of thinking is totally different to that of an adult’s. They are more egocentric and less empathetic. That’s a fact. Someone like that is not capable of making decisions.
(FWIW, I’m a single parent to a four year-old myself).
Damn. This is scary. I really don’t understand this bratty trend at all, and I see it everywhere I go. Now, a certain level of brattiness is normal and acceptable- they are kids, after all, and there’s plenty of bratty adults out there. But destroying neighbor’s property? Stealing? Yikes.
Being a kid, you don’t usually have too firm a grasp on “right” and “wrong”, so it’s possible for a kid to do something immensely stupid just to test it out. Once. And when mom or dad catches you, god help you. And should you be dumb enough to do it again, there are no gods powerful enough to save your ass from the whuppin’ that’s coming.
There is such a thing as healthy fear. Kids should in fact fear their parents’ wrath. They should fear the wrath of authority figures. They should fear the wrath of neighbors and their friends’ parents. This will teach them two invaluable lessons: 1) don’t step out of line; and 2) if you do step out of line, make damn sure you can deal with the consequences. Not punishing your child, be it through time-outs, grounding, restricted privileges, increased chores, or just a swift kick in the pants, will teach them that they are not responsible for their behavior, that they don’t have to follow rules, and that there are no consequences.
And we all know how we feel about adults who behave this way. We’ve all seen what the world generally does to people like this. A lot of it involves prison.
If you don’t discipline your kid, you are setting that child up for a life full of failure and misplaced rage. You are also fucking over everyone who cares about the social contract. Children are not equal to adults. I know how bad that sounds in this touchy-feely age, but it’s the truth. Imagine the horror and chaos that would ensue if children were legally equal to adults. I think it’s kinder to discipline your child. Because the world eventually will, and it has no pity. I’ve watched undisciplined friends crash and burn through college and career as a result of never being made to do anything they didn’t want to. Is this what these parents are striving for?
clipper, the four year old going into the surgery suite reminded me of an episode of ER where this one bratty little kid was just running all over County, making messes, bumping into people. Weaver at one point said “No running!” And “Don’t touch that.”
The kid replied “My daddy’s rich!” Weaver then muttered “brat” under her breath.
Hehehe.
Sadly it appears that some of these brats have reached breeding age. I wonder how far this type of TOLERANCE can go before someone goes ballistic.
Reading this thread has made mo so thankful for two parents who loved me enough to kick my ass ten ways from Topeka when it needed kicking.
I’m also thankful that they taught me the LOOK.
Now that I have a 7 year old, I’ve learned the value of the LOOK and it’s value in causing anything she is doing to immediately cease.
I’ve been physical with my daughter once in her life-the second time I caught her playing with an electrical socket. Her fingers were slapped. If that’s bad parenting, then I plead guilty.
First of all, props where they are due:
CRorex - YOU ROCK! Had I been a patron witnessing your come back, I would’ve shaken your hand!
HapaXL - Discipline isn’t the absence of love; it’s the presence of giving a fuck.
SciFiSam - Another one who deserves a handshake! I was going to post a rambling reply about children and what they know/don’t know, but your “treat them as trainee adults” sums it up beautifully.
Ratty - Your line, “I think it’s kinder to disipline your child. Because the world eventually will and it has no pity,” should be tatooed on the foreheads of some parents I’ve met. Maybe then it’ll sink in.
Anywho, I’ve no kids but I o have seven neohews, ages 5 months to 13 years, so hopefully that gives me licence for some input here;
The best ways to deal with kids doing something wrong (unless its dangerous), is in this order:
Talking to them and explaining things in kid-terms. I’ve found this DOES work with my nephews, though the up-bring by their parents may have more to do with it.
Time outs if that doesn’t work.
Taking them “in hand,” such as promtly and forcefully removing them from a situation. Skip directly to this step if the kid isdoing something dangerous, like playing with matches or they’re about to touch a hot stove. Insert explaination when situation cools.
Spanking. I put this last because I’ve seen too many folks simply swat their kid with absolutely no explanation to the kid as to WHY they were getting swatted, the the three-year-old is suppossed to be a mind-reader or some such thing. They NEED to be told what they’re doing is wrong and why.
When I walked out of a store with an unpaid lollipop in my hand at age six, I’m sure I didn’t realize at the time what I was doing was called “theft” and it was bad, but I sure as hell learned it was when Mom took me back to the store and made me tell the manager what I had done. Now that I think of it, I was with my 9-year-old sister, Kim, who was suppoossed to pay for my stuff as well as hers, but she didn’t notice me for some reason. Still, I needed to be told that, accident or not, I shouldn’t do it.
Now I’m going to the TCS webpage ya’ll are talking about and see just how insane these people really are!
Patty
If I had ever threated to call the police or social services on my dad, the answer would have been simple: Go ahead, here’s the phone. It’ll take them at least 10 minutes to get here. I’ll make sure in those ten minutes that they’ve got a reason to put me in jail.
If he was like that, perhaps you should have been calling social services.
It is possible to discipline kids without making them live in constant fear.
I’m constantly praised at how civilized VunderKind is for a 15 year old. Haven’t spanked him since he was about five, and when he’s in BIIIIG trouble, his imagined expected punishment is usually worse than what I actually give him.
I want to tell the short tale of VunderBob in the immediate care clinic, and the mis-behaving urchin.
The hour before I got there, I was on a diving board at the local Y, and suffered an incredibly painful injury that turned out to be a torn calf muscle. I couldn’t get out of the pool by myself, and walking was extremely difficult. Took VunderKind home, and picked up VunderJane along with a cane I had to help me walk.
I registered, and was told to have a seat, the doctor will be with you shortly, blah blah blah. There was a white trash mom with a baby seated on the other side of the room, and her 5 year old who was raising holy hell.
He decides that it would be great fun to crawl through the waiting room chair legs, because they made a tunnel. After about the third trip, he also started messing with the occupants above. Pinched my wife’s butt, and then he smacked my leg, right where it was injured. I just about passed out.
The urchin is now coming back the other way, and there was a gap between my chair and my wife’s. I waited until his midsection was lined up, and THWACK! Got him in his ribs with the cane. He came out from underneath like a cat shot out of a cannon, and I gave him the best grumpy old man speech about how he was to sit down, be quiet, and not to bother the other patients. White trash mom even mouthed a quiet ‘thank you’ to me for doing what I did.
VunderBob
I just found this via pk’s current thread. That family sounds a lot like our upstairs neighbors. Two parents and four boys in a two-bedroom condo, the boys have a tendency to raise hell after the parents have gone to bed. Lately it’s sounded like they’ve been practicing to be furniture movers, at various times between 10 PM and 4 AM.
I may have a few greivances about my mom, but I would NEVER EVER have talked to any grown-ups that way. I don’t even talk back to my mom! Yeah, I have an “attitude” and I can be rude at times, but always to people my age, and they brought it upon themselves. I hate people that don’t care what thier kids do. I hate kids that don’t behave. This might sound a tad politically-incorrect, but alot of times when I’m babysitting I just want to reach out and smack the kids. When they blatantly misbehave, and mouth off to thier parents I just cringe. I know this one girl I babysit, I’l say “Amanda, get your hands out of your milk please, you’re making a mess” and she’l look at me and smile, then stick her hand even FURTHER in her cup. She does the same thing with her parents. But her parents, who are actually my godparents, are wonderful parents. They just aren’t good with discipline. They’l “talk” with the kids about what they did wrong instead of giving them a time out. I don’t think they’ve ever been threatened with a spanking in thier life. Call me young, but I think that spanking is a good form of discipline. I’m not saying that if they draw on the wall you have to spank them, but they should always know that there’s the possibility of a spanking… I know that made ME behave.
Ditto what Miss Magic8ball said. It’s absolutely appalling what kids today can get away with. I don’t even want to think about what THEIR children will be like…::shudder::
Boy howdy…
I learned a few important lessons as a child. One was the power of No. Now, my grandparents were pushovers, but grandparents are contractually obligated to be pushovers, especially if the kid’s parents aren’t. So I could ask them for the cute pink plastic purse and the various and sundry other little drug-store toys I loved.
But I knew better than to appeal a “No.” Not even “Pleeeeeeeeease?” would help me in that situation. Now, I was more likely to get what I wanted if I said “May I pleeeeease have” in my original request, but anything beyond no was “Not now, not tomorrow, not at all.”
Ice cream? No. You’ll spoil your dinner.
New toy? No. It’s not your birthday, it’s not Christmas, and we can’t afford it.
Kitten? No. We have a puppy, and they wouldn’t get along.
I usually did get reasons for the “no.” I was really ticked when I didn’t get them.
I think I might have thrown one tantrum in a store when I couldn’t have something. IIRC, Mom plucked me off my feet, carried me to the ladies’ room, and placed a few well-aimed swots on my bottom. Never did that again; it was painful and embarrassing and I didn’t get what I wanted, either.
And I ended up becoming a very thoughtful, sensitive child who got on famously with adults. Unfortunately, since I’d never been a hell-spawn, I didn’t know how to deal with other kids as well. I couldn’t understand why anyone would be purposely hurtful, when they knew how it felt.
I’ve noticed that a lot of the kids I knew in school were poorly treated…and I have an idea as to why. I’m a military brat (Go Navy!) and went to schools on military bases up until 7th grade or so. Now, not all military brats are, well, brats, but I noticed a very appalling trend among the parents of these kids. See, Mom and Dad get married young, and Dad’s already in the military or he’s about to join it. Mom and Dad love each other very much and figure that they’ll be fine apart for the months at a time that Dad may be deployed. Dad leaves on his ship…and Mom’s stuck at home full-time, all by herself, with a little one to look after, for half a year. Paying for food and all that is not easy with only one income, and it’s reasonably likely that Mom doesn’t have a college education. She’s in a phase of her life that’s difficult in the best of times, and she’s having to be almost a single mother on top of it.
Depending on what sort of person Mom is, this can go many ways. She can become motivated, join a few community groups, volunteer someplace kid-friendly, just give herself something to do. She might become a depressive, an abusive mom, ridden with headaches and anger and guilt and grief and loneliness. Or – and this was most terrifying to me – she might just go on the way she did before she married, attending parties and staying out all night. IIRC, one of the local moms locked her four-year-old son in his room at 8 pm and arrived home 10-12 hours later. No sitter, no one to watch the kid.
Child abuse ran pretty rampant, which was why groups like Navy Relief existed – both to give moms something to do and to counsel them on how to live their lives. And then Dad would get home, and if he was lucky and charismatic then the kids would give him a modicum of respect…