Kids have always behaved badly, it's the parents who've changed

Woodmonkey · 08-20-2005, 19:52

Quote:

Kids have always behaved badly, it's the parents who've changed

Quote:

Every day we are assailed with stories of kids gone wild. If they're not drag-racing cars, they're drunk or ingesting ecstasy at rave parties. If they're not brawling in junior football, they're assaulting teachers and playing too much Nintendo.

From toddlers to teenagers, they rule the roost at home and only a jackboot super nanny can stop their backchat.

Young people, it is moaned, are rude, disrespectful to their elders, dress immodestly, chatter inanely on mobile phones and MSN, fail to give up their seats for adults, are fat, slovenly, spoilt, materialistic, illiterate and downright foolish. Gosh, it wasn't like that in the olden days.

But if you know ancient history you'll know the more people change the more they stay the same.

"The children now love luxury; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise," said Socrates 2 millennia ago. "Children are tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when their elders enter the room. They contradict their parents . . . gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs and tyrannise their teachers."
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He sounds like an Ancient Greek Jo Frost.

But an excellent new book, Parenting For Character, from which the Socrates quotation was taken, points to an essential difference in modern times. It is not that children are different but that parents have lost confidence in their ability to mould character and instil the perennial virtues that will ensure a happy adulthood.

Author Andrew Mullins, headmaster of Catholic Redfield College in Sydney's north-west, says the age-old "understanding of the link between good habits, character and happiness has been discarded in the last 50 years". He describes his book as a "manual for building good habits in children" and has drawn on "universal principles" in the writings of the East, great books of religions and classical literature. Over 27 years of teaching in Sydney schools he has also gleaned the wisdom of parents.

As he says, it is easy to make children happy for now: "Just take them to McDonald's or put on a PlayStation." But that won't help them achieve happiness in adult life. For true self-determination, says Mullins, they need the four cardinal virtues: wisdom, self-control, justice and courage. Mullins calls these the "foundation habits for happiness".

We live in an era in which notions of sin and personal guilt are a joke and virtue is a dirty word, where we try to build self-esteem in children artificially, by shielding them from disappointment and failing to teach them the resilience that will help them deal with failure in adulthood. But good parenting is about raising children to "let them go", he said on Friday. "If children reach adulthood without resilience and self-control they can become beholden to material goods and won't be very good at permanent relationships."

Parents often feel helpless in the face of powerful forces outside the family. Hence the recent Federal Government push to teach "values" in schools. But, says Mullins, values as good intentions are not enough without virtues. They are like ethics without a moral framework.

The biggest danger to children is the "collapse of family life" - not simply divorce, but the failure of families to connect. It is a struggle for parents to "get enough weight in the home to outbalance the media and the peer group". But this book just might help tip the balance.

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AT3Weins · 08-20-2005, 21:43

Interesting point. I know none of use were perfect angels :icon_evil

I have noticed a lack of confidence among parents ever since I got out of the Navy. But nobody wants to admit it. I can't remember how many times I've been yelled at to 'mind your dam business' when I brought this up to parents I knew.

BrianK · 08-20-2005, 22:18

At least some pretty good looking female teachers are finding a way to use up those raging male homones. Could almost imagine decent class behavior in those class rooms.

Betty Boop · 08-21-2005, 08:40

Parents - and parenting - have dramatically changed in the last 50 years. While I never remembering hearing my father or mother use four-letter words growing up and definitely never directionally towards my brother, my sister, or myself, they did not hesitate to use a wooden-spoon applied to the backside when appropriate. As dad used to say, "sometimes you have to get the mule's attention first" - and then we would talk and resolve. Today, it is not uncommon to hear the frustrated four-letter oaths as adjectives directed towards children and teens from the very same parents who would never have considered a spanking might have been the better approach earlier on in the child's development. Frankly a paddled behind usually recovers a lot quicker than the words burned into one's memory growing up. Out of control parents can produce only one thing - Out of control children and teens. We all learn by example.

BrianK · 08-21-2005, 14:38

Kids have always behaved badly, it's the parents who've changed.

I think the time frame that Cal mentioned fits pretty well. I guess that could be evolution at it's worst. What began as a thought process by Dr. Spock of non violence use time outs has evolved into what society is experiencing now.

Guidance, rules and continuity can't be taught if a child is put into a non communication situation like a time out. Dealing with whatever has happened and getting the childs attention 1st. didn't mean abusive beatings it meant a swat on the butt to get their attention.

Now that kids know that they can dictate they do. Will the trend get better? Only if evolution stops and that isn't likely to happen.

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