Lack of Proper Discipline
They are everywhere, in the malls, the grocery store, airports and even public parks. The nation is being over run by spoiled screaming children, who know if they scream loudly enough their parents will give in and give them their way just to keep them quiet. The reason children are allowed to behave this way is because parents fear they will be charged with abuse if they speak harshly or dare pk a child.
Innocent parents are constantly being reported to the child protective workers for simply pking children with their hands or picking up a squirming hard to hold onto child and removing them from a store. The witness assumes that because the child is making all manners of noise the parent is causing them harm. Once protective services are called, the children can tell any type of horror story they want to make up and the workers will automatically believe them, because they could not imagine that children could lie.
The children have learned this and know that a parent will never discipline them in public places, therefore the child causes scenes in public places to control the parent. There is and should be a limit to the amount of discipline a parent can inflict upon children and child abusers should be punished. No parent who intentionally inflicts injuries such as cigarette burns or broken bones to a child should continue to be allowed to raise their children.
The problem is however, that the child abuse laws have become strict to the point that normal caring parents do not dare to set limits for children for fear of losing their children. Many people every year have their children removed from their homes at least temporarily due to mistaken reports and children telling stories to turn innocent disciplinary practices into reports of child abuse. This fear has led parents to allow children to control them, children who grow believing they can get away with breaking laws as they did parental rules, and a society of people filled with disrespectful people.
In past generations, parents disciplined children when they misbehaved, thus teaching the children to follow the parent’s rules and to obey what they told them. Unfortunately, during those generations parents sometimes went to the extremes with discipline to the point that the children were injured and actual abuse sometimes occurred. Due to this abuse, laws were created to protect the children.
These laws were important and well intentioned. However, because of the laws, parental disciplinary practices were forced to go from parents being allowed to do whatever they needed to in order to make their children behave to being reported for child abuse if they even speak harshly to their children. There should be some middle ground. Parents still need to be able to make their children mind within reason (pking with hand, scolding, and physically removing from places or situations). Children in current society know that their parents are afraid to pk or in most cases even scold them especially in public.
For this reason the children throw temper tantrums in the malls if the parents tell them they do not need the expensive toy they want. The parents could continue to say no and the child would then continue to argue until the frustrated parent gives in and gets them the toy. The same thing happens in the grocery store for the best snack and in the park when the child refuses to go home when the parent tells them it is time to go. This allows the child to be in control of the parent rather than the parent in control of the child.
Because these children learn that they do not have to listen to or obey their parents, they grow up with the belief that they do not have to listen to anyone. This leads them to take advantage of other people and make decisions based only upon the advantages that can be gained for themselves regardless of the effects these decisions may have on others. This complete disregard of rules often includes such things as the law. If they as teenagers or sometimes even adults see something in a store they want, they may be very inclined to take it.
They have never been taught that they have to earn things and they can not just take what they want, therefore they feel entitled to take anything they want any time they want it. They are more likely to cause harm to people who attempt to keep them from achieving their goals or cheat others out of opportunities. This has helped lead to the increased crime rate in the country. Crimes such as shoplifting, assault and in some cases even murder come as a result of spoiled undisciplined children growing into spoiled undisciplined adults.
In the generations when children were still disciplined for not listening to parents, children were taught to respect their elders and other people as well as rules. The children of the modern generation learn to respect no one and nothing, because they have no rules to follow. They simply learn that no means they simply need to throw a bigger fit or do whatever else they need to do in order to get their way.
As adults, these people yell at others and call other people names any time they want to for no reason. They push and shove their way to the front of lines even if it means stepping on all of the people in front of them. By taking away the rights of parents to teach their children to be respectful of others, society is creating a whole group of people who do not care about anyone.
This is the society where people run over and trample each other in malls to get the last hot children’s toy in the store before Christmas. Stampedes like those of frightened cattle herds leave people injured or even dead, when large groups of people all try to enter popular events or exit buildings in a hurry. Once people would stop to assist others, but now if someone falls down, the others simply step over or on them and go on.
It is sad to discover that laws designed to protect children have effectively led to an entire society of people who do not care about anyone but themselves. The laws were needed, but some people have said that violence leads to violence and therefore children should never be subjected to physical discipline. While it is true that extreme and unnecessary punishment is abusive and may lead children to imitate violence later, there is a middle ground between the two extremes.
A swat from a parent’s hand on the seat of the pants does little more than embarrass the child in public. This would lead the child to be less likely to throw screaming tantrums in public, which embarrass the well intentioned parents who did nothing more than choose to take their children out into public with them. Children who are raised with some degree of discipline and well defined rules that are followed through with, grow up to be much more well-rounded, respectful and realistic adults.
If a child is allowed to raise a parent instead of providing the parents the right to raise the child, then the crime rate will continue to rise and people will become increasingly more disrespectful. People have begun to look at hand outs and even luxuries as entitlements rather than things that should be strived for and earned. These declines in society are caused by over zealous people, who as well intentioned as the may have been have taken away all leverage parents once had to teach their children that rules are made for a reason and the word “no” actually means no not “scream louder”.
Most people who become parents take the first look at the helpless new life and want to give the child the whole world. They do not wish to inflict harm or create hardship for the child in any way. They do however want that child to grow into a happy healthy, well adjusted adult. In order to be a well-adjusted adult, the person needs to respect laws, rules and other people. No one learns this automatically, it has to be taught, and the parents, who want the world for their children should have the right to teach this.
They need to be able to set limits and follow through with discipline. Loving parents who care for their children should not have to live in fear that if they discipline their children in order to teach them to respect rules and people, they will lose their children forever. There should be more specific guidelines as to what constitutes abuse and it there should be more evidence to substantiate it rather than just taking the child’s word that Daddy hit me for a child to be removed from a home.
In addition to this parents need to be informed as to what these guidelines are in order to insure they are operating within the limits of the laws. Although the days in which children should be seen and not heard are gone forever, the entire mall should not be subjected to hearing a child simply because the parent is afraid to discipline him.
