Just a little bit of Crazy

At the beginning of this week, my daughter's school sent home a flyer about the upcoming PTA meeting, which took place yesterday. The school set up for a "certified parenting coach" to give a thirty minute seminar before the beginning of the PTA meeting.

This really got me thinking about society today. Seriously, what has gone so wrong that parents today need the local elementary school or a "Nanny 911" to teach them how to parent? Times have really changed in the years since I was a child. Not that I would've been one of the difficult children- but you never heard of ADHD, and you did not inappropriately act out. If your parents dragged you to a friend's house and you were bored for hours, you never said anything to the contrary because that was disrespectful. You were thankful. McDonald's, or any food that was not prepared in your kitchen was a rare treat. And if an adult other than your parents treated you to something, you were extra thankful. And God forbid you were a brat in public (including someone else's house).

In those days, parents were not afraid to tell their children, "NO." They were also not afraid to hurt your feelings- physically or emotionally. Kids got spanked, even by the school principal. Having rights to play with your favorite things, or friends was not a guaranteed right. It was a privilege to be earned with good behavior.

Today's generation of parents, like those before them, want to give their kids the things that they did not have. There is nothing wrong with that, but today's generation of parents have forgotten to teach the responsibility, respect, and discipline of having those things. It is not the child's God given right to have and play video games, toys, cell phones or etc. Is it nice to be able to give those things to your kids, yes-- BUT what happened to making them earn those things and taking them away when they do not exhibit the responsibility of having them?

In my experiences of parenting, I have found that this common sense logic is easily demonstrated by three easy concepts: Follow through, your kids thinking your a little bit crazy, and the fear that you are crazy enough to follow through!

Follow through is important. If you throw a threat out, you must either be prepared to follow through or you kids must believe your crazy enough to follow through. Example, the whole one, two, three concept. Most parents never follow through on this, they get to 2 and 3/4, and finally to 3 and the threat of three is never followed up. I find the 1, 2, 3 effective on Braedon, but this is because he knows that when I get to 3, I'm not kidding around-- his world is going to fall apart. If I tell Paige that if x doesn't happen, then she won't get to play with whatever is coveted at the moment, I follow through when x doesn't happen. Common sense, period.

Now onto the crazy. I'm not speaking of loony bin crazy, nor am I speaking of anything that would harm your child. I'm talking about the kind of crazy that they think, oh my God, she's crazy enough to do that. I have two prime examples. First, I once told Paige that if she did not get her room cleaned then I would toss everything into a trash bag and take it away. She did not think I was crazy enough to do so, but she learned that Mommy was indeed a little bit crazy when those toys ended up in a trash bag in the garage. She then had to spend a week earning them back by showing that she was responsible enough to have the toys. The next occasion that she was dragging her feet, all I had to do was shake the trash bag out and she was working at warp speed. She learned that Mommy was crazy enough.

The second example occurred just this week. Braedon was dragging his feet about getting shoes on because he wanted the pair that wasn't complete. We were in the morning rush and I needed to get the kids into the car to take Paige to school. So I told him that that was fine, I was leaving with or without him. (Just note here that I would never leave him home by himself-- not only are there legal and safety issues, we are talking about the 3 foot half pint who easily turns a tube of lotion into a weapon of mass destruction). The key is, he thought I was crazy enough to do it (probably since there are times he gets left with Todd and he likes going anywhere). I had no more than turned off his bedroom light, walked into the hallway and grabbed my purse when Braedon appeared with the complete set of shoes on his feet and was happily ready to go.

I just don't understand why parents won't discipline their kids today. Society suffers as a whole. The public is forced to have to tolerate little snot faced brats. Also, once these brats grow up, they are shocked by the real world experience of not getting everything you want as a right. Must also be part of what's wrong with today's politicians... hmmm....