It’s a rehashing of stupid parent tricks 101 repackaged for the 21st century; in other words, a convenient scapegoat for age old complaints since there have been kids or parents in the modern era…
Take example one Josh, yes his videogame obsession and playing at 1:00 am is annoying, a problem primarily for his parents, yet if he were doing yoga at 1:00 in the morning no one would be complaining and certainly wouldn’t be bandying about the word addiction. His having dropped out of school is unquestionably a big deal, nothing to be shrugged off, but should not have produced the panic it elicited from his parents; behavior that warranted action, a plan but minus the chicken little ism. His hitting walls purportedly when his parents took his game away from him will send up alarm bells to readers/watchers of accompanying video; however, we have all heard plenty of stories detailing raising boys where holes got punched or kicked into walls, doors and it had nothing to do with addiction, videogames or violence toward one’s parents. You ground him, hand him the supplies to fix the wall, oversee it’s repair, if he gets an allowance take the cost of materials out of that, if not, give him extra household chores to cover the cost of materials, if old enough demand he look for a job to pay you back for materials and move on… Ratcheting up tensions exponentially in their house, Josh’s unusual attachment and reaction to its removal is that this computer is not something bought for him, given to him by his parents rather a computer he built and put in his room, unknown is whether he used allowance to do so, dumpster dived behind computer stores, worked odd jobs to obtain the needed parts, if he did adding even more ownership to the equation. Either way, by snatching it up so unceremoniously not only have you taken it away for doing nothing wrong, you have sent him the subconscious message his work, his effort is worthless; something, perhaps the only thing he’s good at, shows talent in is meaningless to you, his parents. Then wonder why he came home one day announcing he was dropping out of school to be a game tester, which also sheds new light on his ‘sudden desire to drop out;’ he didn’t just up and quit school, uncaring if he was a wastrel, degenerate with no high school diploma, he up and quit school with a plan, underdeveloped but a plan nonetheless….Easily guessed is Josh’s parents, upon initially hearing his ADHD diagnosis, was it was just another alphabet soup, trumped up excuse for bad behavior, my son will be perfectly normal he just needs discipline, to put his nose to the grindstone, think things through; mimicking their thinking on school, regular school was good enough for me, I survived, I didn’t need extra help a fancy plan to get me through the day, dismissing all other options, him given none eventually chooses to drop out. Answer honestly readers, who wouldn’t want to test videogames versus report to their boring job every day, soporific teachers etched in movie history culled from real educators who should’ve never gotten into the classroom?… understanding home with parents who finally get it, though viewers are probably as skeptical as this writer. Mirroring all kids who emerge from treatment programs regardless form or for what specific youth centered problem he parrots counselors, facility organizers and operators in saying videogames were destroying his life displaying no real insight into his issue apart from saying videogames were extremely relaxing to him, hints the yoga at 1:00 am comment above; pointing to society’s glaring hypocrisy, funny adults routinely have a beer after work to relax, watch TV, no one says anything about that, but when it’s videogames oh you could be addicted and you need a treatment program ASAP…. . Positives aside there is no guarantee when he again has access to a computer, gets his first smartphone he won’t be right back where he started, and not singularly because that’s the nature of addiction, rehab for known addictions drugs, alcohol rarely take on the first try, they failed in teaching him the management skills they thought they had once out of the treatment facility itself, but if his parents’ understanding of who he is falters, his ADHD, the anxiety and depression, despite impressions given by the piece, surely haven’t just up and disappeared, weren’t caused by his ‘addition’ the reverse closer to the truth; his perceived dependence on video games sparked by the insidious combination of all 3 virtually untreated conditions. If once he is caught up with missed schooling, his success doing so undermining assumptions his aversion was academic, they insist on throwing him back in the same school environment, same public education regiment sans the support of an IEP, refuse to try a GED program, online options like k-12, their school districts alternative option remaining within the public school system; they won’t see lasting change. Him still saying regular school isn’t for him is something he just can’t do, commenters quickly alighting that sounds an awful lot like a learning problem, learning disability; maybe he isn’t ADHD rather on the autism spectrum, has a processing disorder, depending on when, what age he was given his diagnosis he could have been mistakenly diagnosed ADHD in actuality possessing mild developmental delay, what we used to know as mental retardation. His tendency toward self-direction in home schooling could mean he’s gifted or needs things presented in a unique format to absorb and understand them; whatever the case, if they stop listening to their son, accepting his diagnosis means he is not ‘normal’ and can’t per say do everything normally including school, that the goal should be he get his diploma/GED, is ready to go off to college, trade school when the time comes, less fuss about exactly how they believe he must do it to ‘be a man’ ‘be their son,’ all his purported progress will evaporate…Brooke is a standard case of the negatives that can happen to teens using social media especially with her naive parents who have no clue the dangers lurking there, thus in addition to not doling out time limits for media consumption, gave her no rules, guidelines on what to do if- how to handle pressures to do risky things, conversations about what she might be asked to do, when to tell them, contact police, how to combat online bullying. Simultaneously unprepared for her to delete, change and constantly create new social media accounts, use blocking mechanisms on said sites to keep out her parents, develop secret hidden accounts or buy and trade phones from friends once her parents had taken the one they gave her away, take a computer to an establishment with free Wi-Fi i.e. McDonald’s achieving access. Why boiling it down to ‘taking her phone away is overly simplistic, removing her money source too would only mean she was borrowing friends phones, sneaking out to use public computers or calculating her penchant for darker behavior resorted to selling her body to get money to buy a phone on the suggestion of ‘friends’ online. However her situation has nothing to do with addiction; what looks like addictive tendencies to the untrained eye exacerbated by her parents’ strategy toward curbing her phone use creating that classic power tug of war between parent and teen, the more they clamp down, the more she acts out, the more they try to take her phone the more tightly she hangs onto it, fights for it… Injecting expanded normalcy of the teenage, raising a teen experience into at least parts of what happened regarding Brooke, they describe possessing no relationship with her, they existed, from their point of view, in her head to provide her food, shelter, money and of course the contested phone; ask most parents and they feel this way during a period of getting their teen to adulthood. Confronting her unique malfunctions, diverging from public assessment of her family’s problem, remember her reported drugs and alcohol usage culminating in suicide note that popped up on her and her parents shared account was no more than that, not to be confused with an unsuccessful suicide attempt, stemmed from social media shaming about her nude, semi-nude photos, the attention she was getting via older guys, not merely ‘having to go without her phone;’ neither did they hospitalize her simply to remove her phone as implied in the flippant comment about parents being too soft on their kids, too weak themselves or white people’s problems. Moreover once she was evaluated she was subsequently treated for mental health issues unspecified other than attachment issues, ADD, substance abuse and lastly excessive use of her phone, this reader at minimum thinking it was no accident which order her issues were placed in, probable order of severity; translation, nearly anyone would have a look of utter betrayal on their face after, hate their parents in the short term being dumped in such a facility. Never mind because of their phone, because when she could no longer take being relentlessly bullied she tried to say, goodbye cruel world to quote the cliché, totally wrong message to send. Her fear of missing out also becoming a large looming reality heaped atop what you put her through, fighting for the only resonating social connection she has at a crucially developmental time it’s normal to need it, not haphazardly want it, what the negative people on social media put her through wondering why she cracked. That they were completely in the dark about their daughter’s mental state, malfunction exceeding her phone ‘addiction’ adds an element of her side being: first you don’t understand anything about me, you tried to cut me off from the few people online who were nice to me, who were there for me when you weren’t, then you throw me in here with unequivocal strangers who will definitely cut me off from the only support I’ve got; which had to feel all too much like being absolutely thrown away by everything and everyone. Yet you still think the dirty look, ‘the almost pathological response’ was about phone addiction; who is it again who needs self-awareness, some basic human behavior awareness, certainly doesn’t seem to be Brooke or just Brooke…
Noah intertwines with paragraph 2’s Josh less in his ‘addiction’ to gaming and more the negative results of parent nagging first video clip we see is a parent saying you’re still playing his response: I said I was going to watch this then go outside and play with Josh (his twin brother). She seems to accept this answer sans contradicting him that he is playing a game not watching a video or other film type media, without looking at the video at any time to see how long it is, how many minutes are remaining, then come back to him after that time to either tell him to quit or see if he’s finished, providing no opportunity for him to demonstrate he is willing to follow through on what he said, will keep his word, confront him if he restarted the game/video to have more time on the device. Thinking it’s so hard to get him off his computer game because he might be addicted, not her wrong approach to getting her son to do what she wants (hint it’s not an iron fist and you will do what I say NOW!), dawning comprehension there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it if you want it to be effective, do without the shouting, meltdowns and parent smack downs suggested in the opening. Influenced in no small part by technology bias overwhelming attitude emerging, screens = bad anything else not blatantly physically dangerous = good. Oblivious to adults don’t like being interrupted when they are in the middle of something, put the shoe on the other foot if your child came to you and said daddy/mommy play with me and you say I will son when I finish work I bought home, fold the laundry, do the dishes and every 5 minutes they come back asking the same thing; you’re going to tell them to knock it off or not only won’t you play with them, they will be spanked, grounded, lose a privilege, be punished somehow, Noah doesn’t have that power, so he becomes increasingly loud, upset and almost shrieking at his mother. Neither do adults tolerate very well being bombarded with honey do lists and endless requests when they come in the door from work, being pestered about how their day was, teased to berated about being anti-social, mean due to needing time to decompress relax; interesting is why we developed this misconception kids are any different, go back and re-watch the segment on how to talk to your kids about their school day, take the suggestions That we’ve learned so much about how children are not like adults, can’t be treated like them, handed the same expectations mentally/emotionally apart from the, staring us in the face physical; we’re prone to thinking children are little minis from mars not smaller humans who share key characteristics with their larger counterparts. We’ve forgotten that they are like us in as much as things that inherently annoy us will annoy them also, it’s like that classic scene of Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets where Melvin Udall, established, acclaimed writer is writing literally the last lines of his latest book only to lose his train of thought, the perfect summary words when his neighbor begins banging on his door, he tries to ignore it, continue writing, but he loses the ideal string of words, gone probably forever; chewing his neighbor out respectively, though it is attributed to a combination of Udall’s success status producing profound arrogance and OCD. Not thought through, if he like Josh 2 paragraphs above, was using gaming to de-stress, chill out the same way slightly younger children play with toys in the floor; his mother too is creating a dynamic that makes him cling that much tighter to his game instead of being able to let it go. Part of the problem is 2 desktops are used by both Josh Noah yet no one had suggested saving the games exactly where they stopped to continue playing later, parents unware of that as an option, the fact you can delete past versions of saved games to free up space when needed, letting your kids show you how to do that and accepting it as the compromise, give and take in preparation for the coming turbulent teen years; such compromise and negotiation dismissed by parents as relinquishing their rightful authority rather than teaching/modeling compromise and negotiation skills everyone needs at some stage in their life. Rudimentary basics like pausing a game long enough to complete a task for mom or dad, then return to playing; during the pre, VCR, DVR days it was standard practice for parents to allow kids to do chores during the commercials of a favorite TV program, still applicable in households sans DVR, parents who won’t DVR things for their kids believing it a bad habit, households who had to choose between a rented DVR (the only kind available post cable’s takeover of the market) cable package and the extended versatility of the internet to save money and went with internet. Finding research on how to avoid kids getting too attached to their games and implementing foundational principles laid out in the article below; had his mom done 1 step ‘encouraging natural breaks at the end of a game or level’ she could have sidestepped the whole scene and most of her worries about his videogame fixation. A parent’s job in general is to open their kids age appropriately to new horizons, expanding their knowledge and experience showing them music apps like the i-pad piano, we all saw the commercial of the little girl who was disinterested with tangible paints, offered drawing supplies but took to a drawing program on one of the tablet computer combos advertised that can be connected to a printer, printed out and placed on the refrigerator like their messier counterparts, saving money cycling through musical instruments at minimum until they’ve chosen one to stick with, there’s a stylus on the Microsoft Surface Pro models one user uses to write answers into the New York Times famed crossword puzzle translating into creativity via screen time that doesn’t fit the usual negative parameters, keeping those features in mind when buying a device your whole family will be using…8 year old Jackson and 5 year old Taylor are the classic poster children for public refrain: what is your kid doing with a YouTube, channel/page, why are you allowing your kids not just screen time but device time. Still observing their mother, it’s inconceivable to watchers or herself her complaints about both kids’ behavior aren’t byproducts of addiction, at minimum too much technology, even kids given too much control that should belong to parents; rather her tantruming, meltdown prone 5 year old is exactly that 5, as in a year ago considered a toddler, and were she engaged in any other activity, say playing a game with her brother, playing outside, coloring you would give them a 5 minute warning before they had to come in for dinner or clean up. Not so regarding technology, when you are sick of seeing her with her head in her device you shout het off that now, upset that a ‘tantrum’, ‘meltdown’ follows instead of employing the 5 minute countdown you would any other time. Note the 8 year old is having no such tantrums though believed to be just as addicted as his sister according to their parents, supporting further the idea her response is age related not addiction related. Or that the fit in the car had by said 8 year old was less about the device and more about being in the car, doing something/going somewhere he had no interest in and she was, key here, suddenly depriving him of the thing allowing him to sit still, quit whining exc.; then exacerbated her own woes, did it absent giving him something else to do sing car songs, put on the radio, an impromptu game of eye spy, basic conversation about their school day, an activity they were looking forward to. Dido the 5 year old hounding her mother for her phone to check social media, again they’re walking somewhere probably running one of mom’s errands she has zero interest in, keeping in mind this is the younger of the 2, and wants something to do while mom is doing whatever once more sans telling her anything but no; not even reviving the parent favorite so what be bored, offering her alternatives, giving her age appropriate indications how long this is going to take, placating her with once finished we’re going…to place X she does like, anything. Back in the day 1950’s to 80’s parents didn’t drag their kids on all, a good portion of their errands; now thanks to single parent homes, 2 working parents it has, not negatively per say become the norm, except when 2 parent households forget 1 person can go do errand X, run to the store and the other stay with the kids, forgo giving their kids something to do, limiting outing time to what they child can handle if they insist on them coming along. Again, you waited until you thought your kids were ‘addicted to devices,’ having brought in an expert to enroll them in an after school activity, entice them to try something, expose them to something new, really…Facts not mattering to parents or show producers since post the 4 week parent/expert imposed ‘digital diet’ analysis was the 5 year old was tantruming less, focus increased dramatically and the 8 year old was reading more; begging the question, focus improved, and so remarkably it might be added, according to who, concrete elements missing for their supposed predicament to be of the utmost urgency, there are no relayed comments from their school about problems, threats to hold either child back a grade due to either behavior problems or academic performance, repeated disciplinary reports on brother or sister meaning issues were manifest largely at home with their parents and their mother’s glaring ineptitude supported the pattern asserted all along. Chalking then her much improved focus up to better understanding of the school routine, finding a subject she liked, natural growth and development, moving farther away from toddler tantrums as she matures, increases vocabulary, patients; regarding the 8 year old, hold it, if you wanted him to read more all you had to do was load desired (his choice) reading materials onto the device, to avoid eyestrain adjust the screen brightness or use a tablet specifically designed for kids with those safeguards built in, and let him read it there. Plus at 8 he is at least in first grade if not second, common practice is reading logs requiring parent initial indicating they read X book, Y long or were read to under those circumstances, no mention they had to fight the device, his desire for the device to get him to do his homework; him, probably wanting to read for himself did so, meaning he got weekly if not nightly reading time in, making the comment utterly misleading… Nor is it difficult to pin down why the included father of 4, grown adult man fits the given addiction profile ‘chooses video games over his family;’ it would never occur to viewers, even the news anchor putting together her chosen journalist segment, choosing him as a counter to the kids, highlighting in a small way the phenomenon’s impact on adults that he never really wanted to be a father, never mind to 4 kids. Or that despite his wife’s complaints about how much he plays videogames he still reports to work and makes damn good money in the thing he does well, surprise, surprise IT; they don’t fight about money needed for the kids, the house, groceries, he doesn’t blow his money on games the same way some blow it on booze, cigarettes, gambling, lottery tickets, Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes postage, and he’s coping the best he can with a life he never imagined. Yet we never follow that thread to debates on birth control, flimsy republican political arguments, religious freedom assertions it’s against nature and god arguments to use aforementioned control; their rarely science based excuses for restricting birth control, all but outlawing abortion, action 1 perpetuating more abortions due to people who can’t emotionally, mentally, financially provide for another child, effecting even middle class families, like the one housing this strung out dad. We rarely truly listen, take seriously reproductive and social advocates who don’t stop at insisting women be granted unfettered access to the full range of reproductive options, pushing also to advance male reproductive control options past the condom; too busy as a public shouting there are condoms use them, if it breaks you know it and you put another one on, mood killer aside you’re an adult, exercise some self-control. Oh no, none of that is weighting on this dad’s mind, stressing him out, driving him to videogames; add in no shortage of his wife’s relentless nagging to get off of the videogames, to help with watching 4 blurs of energy, rants about what he’s missing, how alone she feels (valid or not), the demonstrated consequences and you have the mess presented before you. In between talking about what a deadbeat he is, terrible husband, father, what a not man he is we would never trace his story back to cultural, family pressure we put on people to get married, create their own families, fulfill constant requests for grandchildren when that isn’t really what they want, mistakenly thinking said pressure died in the 1950’s. The still to this day prevailing idea you are not a whole man or woman unless you are at least partnered up, if not married, and have minimum one child; childless and uninterested in childbearing, rearing, non-family oriented people are viewed as alien freaks, sexual orientation notwithstanding you have less and less of a place in society unless you are a ‘breeder’, someone who has children, wants children, lives for their children…Again seen is the marginal, lackluster attempt to connect with the person who is so absorbed by their game they are tuning the rest of the world out; she never tries to play with them, find games they can enjoy together and make it their thing as a couple, never tries to ask him anything other than why he plays so much if he’s worried about work , stressed about money, mad at her, feeling depressed, just like the parents and their kids she doesn’t know how to talk to, be there for her husband so he will open up, share with her, connect with her, turn to her not his game. Now because we’re talking about a husband and wife 1,001 reasons will be applied to why this is, why she is justified, well within her rights to take the described approach where parents wouldn’t be; it’s 2:00 AM in the footage she’s seen to homework, meals, baths, prayers and bedtime for the kids, probably done the dishes, folded the laundry, packed tomorrow’s lunches with no help wandering autocratically down the stairs for one last chore before falling into bed depressed she will do the same tomorrow again all alone. She feel like she only exists to provide him with sex, he only pays attention to her when he wants that and he’s disinterested in physical intimacy now too perhaps. They are married, they are supposed to love and support each other, show care for each other, she’s reached out numerous times only to be rebuffed and ignored in favor of a game and doesn’t have the emotional energy to keep doing it; hurt and bitter she keeps putting forth an effort when he remains so indifferent. None of which fixes her problem, the underlying problem(s) causing him to retreat into videogames, facilitates him being more present in his children’s lives; his quick turn around and equally sudden ‘killing it in the kitchen,’ being sweet, remembering her birthday, surprising her with a present counter any addiction documented to date. Could discovering what exactly he was missing in his kids’ lives, one final time the ceasing of his wife’s nagging have made change possible, or more true to reality not TV-movie endings things aren’t as fixed as they appear with this couple and will enviably creep back up later videogames having been replace with another hurdle?…In short 20/20’s real highlights are communication, connection challenges had by parents and kids since there have been parents and kids, the generational tug of war between the 2 going back equally as far, the hardly new generational clashes well chronicled throughout American and other countries’ histories; straight laced 1950’s people and the 1960’s hippie counter culture, the psychedelic 70’s, feminist movement, civil rights. Vitriol exchanged between millennials, gen Y and baby boomers misconceptions on work ethic, laziness and the very opportunities they had current generations just don’t. One of the things to be said about the era 1950’s to the 1980’s at least is for the most part, perhaps they can be forgiven their parenting, select societal faux pas whether it was stranger danger and letting kids wander too much, dunce caps in schools placed on children who didn’t learn as well, even corporal punishment that was just corporal punishment not crossing the line to abuse, because they didn’t know any better, didn’t have access to the news and research studies we do now, there weren’t droves of parenting books, studies on parenting styles and childhood developmental stages past toddlerhood hadn’t been done yet. We know better now, have information a plenty now, classes, support groups and so on to aid new parents who didn’t expect to be parents, young parents grappling with a mistake; it’s time, long past time we act like it. Which means above all else in the climate created by fearful naysayers, having a frank, realistic national discussion, if need be, on what is and isn’t reasonable device time for persons considering all the things you can do with them and end up forced to do with them in your daily life, to save time, gas money, vehicle wear and tear, actually get the sought after rental car, plane ticket, completed benefit application, tax form. Skype, Facetiming with grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, bother, sister, using Facebook to keep tabs on out of town/state family members; social media rendering support to persons with rare diseases to know they aren’t alone, social media instrumental in the Arab spring, critical as an average person on in larger events… Read More
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Technology Addiction In Kids Beyond Blaming Society Or Parenting Is An Uneducated, Misguided Misnomer That Needs To Die
Filed Under: CURRENT TRENDS Tagged With: 12 YouTube challenges your kid will try, 12-year-old commits suicide after months of online torment, 20/20, 5 reasons you don’t need to worry about kids and social media, 6 Most Dangerous & Ridiculous Teen Challenges ABC News Remix, 60 Minutes, 90th birthday reunites WWII vet with 4-year-old BFF, A Child's Answer to Gun Violence, A Colorado group wants to ban the sale of cell phones to preteens, ABC news, Apps for Autism, Associated Press, Autistic teen communicates with app, Business Insider, Buzz60, CBS Evening News, CDC expecting severe tick season amid tick-borne disease "epidemic", CNN, CNNMoney, Digital Diet: Can kids go 4 weeks without electronics?, Don’t call me mama — not today not ever, Excessive use of technology takes toll on families' relationships: Part 2, Father of 4 teen unplug for weeks to break video gaming obsessions ABC News, Fighting Back Against Bullying, Five myths and truths about kids and internet safety, FrontLine, Grocery encounter leads to unlikely friendship between 4-year-old and "old person", How to talk to your kids about their school day, If Moms Talked to Each Other The Way They Talk to Their Kids, If “pro-lifers” wanted to end abortion — rather than control sex — their tactics would be radically different, Indiemusic news, Internet Rescue Camp, Leonard Sax Leonard MD PhD: "Today's Schools Are Toxic to Boys" PhD: "Today's Schools Are Toxic to Boys", LISTEN: Can playing video games make us more empathetic?, Michigan teen who skipped school to play video games goes through treatment in the wilderness, Microsoft Surface Animators Jorge and Sandra Bring Art to Life with Surface Book, Milwaukee Attorneys Jacquart & Lowe Donate Nintendo Wii to Rehab Center, Natasha Sapp, NBC Nightly News, Newsy, Official Apple iPad Mini Commercial – Piano, One Game Too Many, PBS, Playing these 6 video games could help improve your problem-solving skills, Playing video games may improve surgeons'' performance, Researchers Say Kindergarden is Rigged for Girls, Salon.com, Schools deliberately targeting boys-the War against boys, Science: Music turns you on in the same way as sex and drugs, Secular Talk, Sexting Scandal Highlights Challenges for Schools ABC News, Sit With Us, Start your summer screen-time rules now, Student Arrested & Suspended For Writing About "Shooting A Dinosaur", Take Some Screen Time To Learn How Screen Time Actually Affects Kids, Teachers for blind students say iPads are revolutionary for students, Teen Takes Own Life Due to Bullying, Teenager has idea to connect young people to jobs, Teenagers Are Sociopaths Study Confirms, Teens Gambling In Virtual Vegas (Online Poker) ABC News Reports, Teens Text While Driving Because of Their Parents Survey Says, The aim of a new virtual reality game is to reduce violence in Chicago, The Story Behind the Powerful Parenting Sketch That Went Viral, Thigh Gap Surfaces as Teenage Girls New Image Obsession Good Morning America ABC News, Thirtysomething bisexual single and satisfied: Your breeder friends can’t bear it, This Child CEO Is Helping Disabled People Navigate Public Spaces, This kid tried to quit band teacher had other plans, Three different families struggle with the excessive use of technology: Part 1, Transgender Teen's Suicide Sparks Online Petition, USA Today, Video games aren’t mindless — or heartless — entertainment, Viral Facebook video captures a 4-year-old suffering paralysis from a tick bite, WATCH: Psychologist says “Pac-Man” is just as violent as “Doom”, WATCH: Video games are more than violence simulators, WATCH: Why older generations don’t accept video games, Why Millennial Bashing Is Dumb, Wii-habilitation 'could prevent elderly from falls', WWII veteran and toddler: Friends for life, You won’t believe what kids are writing about celebs book characters and other pop culture stars
Here’s Why It Became Not Ok To Tell Other People’s Kids What To Do
Because not every adult they encounter has their best interests in mind, so to protect them from the growing list of even supposed to be safe adults who turn out not to be their parents resorted to, out of necessity, telling children to listen only to them…Removing the parenting ‘trend’, ‘problem’ she’s speaking about usually only happens among affluent middle class, almost always white parents of suburbia, her writing immediately screams well off, children attending a good school, idyllic American life complete with white picket fence, not just by her topic but rather her approach to it. Her clarion call for all the other grown-ups in her children’s lives to please tell them what to do, condition them to the rigors of social order, condition them to following the directions of someone not herself, precursors to everything from accepting criticism to holding down a job readily tells readers she doesn’t have a black or brown child subject to totally different conversations just to go out of the house daily and by the grace of god return to it after the school day, that evening. Doesn’t have to worry about if her child encounters a police officer and not merely because she has taught them the ‘holy mantra’ of respecting and obeying all adults so they won’t have a problem; she doesn’t have to worry about it because no cop will look at her kid thinking thug, thief, up to no good, engage in the negrophobia, adultification common to young, black, especially boys, gun them down in the street for looking like— insert flimsy excuse here. They don’t have an ‘officer slam’ at her kids’ schools chiefly because they don’t do that in suburbia, in predominately white schools only in urban areas, majority black educational institutions; should they have resource officers, they are A- the properly trained mentors they are supposed to be, not authoritah, power obsessed bullies with badges, handcuffs and guns, because parents insist on it. And B- because her child is white he won’t be given a second glance, if he is he will be given the benefit of the doubt not afforded ethnic students too often today. Translation her son will never be thrown across a classroom for refusing to leave independent ‘he wouldn’t have his phone out in class because he’s not allowed to take it to school; ‘see this is what I’m talking about, situation X, Y, Z arises because children listen to no adults apart from their parents,’ ignoring the larger problems of poor classroom management, student engagement and administrative overreaction. It certainly wouldn’t deteriorate into example 2’s restrain hold for a student ‘involved in a fight’ to picking her up, slamming her to the ground leaving a knot over her eye then failing to report it, lying about it to make it appear like an accident; should such a scenario take place, officer would be immediately fired, dido example 3 body slamming a 15 year old student trying to stop a fight involving her sister, resulting in no charges for the obviously errant officer. Further both due to her children being likewise economically stable, no one is going to accuse her son of ‘stealing’ milk, handcuff him, let alone charge him with larceny over that 65 cent carton, regardless of being on the free lunch program and forgetting his milk, the true story of the black teen. If her child was caught in the hall without a hall pass by his school resource officer trying to use the bathroom during lunch his Caucasian, ‘clean cut,’ nice clothes look would automatically make him more believable talking about his medical issue’s roll in why he needs to go to the bathroom now than the black kid with ill-fitting school uniform, baggy pants, ‘bad neighborhood,’ negative reputation, he wouldn’t have to resort to throwing an orange at the wall relieving his frustration at trying to get an adult to listen, forget body slammed to the floor hitting his head unto knocked out; officer then scrambling to confiscate witness student’s cellphone video to cover his violent behavior. He would have been escorted to the bathroom, afterwards his next class or the principal’s office with a side recommendation to bring a doctor’s note to the school nurse to avoid future incidents. In fact, her examples of common parenting conundrums and fellow parents’ compulsive need to fix, ‘to protect from failure’ tells readers she’s never had so much as a mildly negative experience with any of her child’s teachers. Where the teacher was blatantly wrong, overbearing, was mean, incompetent in ways we’ve seen dominating headlines, punishing students for speaking their native Spanish, lowering grades of students for refusing to stand during the pledge of allegiance, this case in solidarity with those objecting to bad treatment of native Americans, appropriate since the student was native American. Writing derogatory remarks on the faces of slow readers, writing humiliating, name calling, inappropriate remarks on graded homework, humiliating younger grade students for mistakes in front of the whole class, student recordings of the despicable things said by teachers about themselves, fellow classmates, one teacher who, in reference to a new 3rd grade class being formed took votes on who to throw out of her classroom, not at all how the school planned to handle the transition. At least in no story, scenario she’s heard about concerning her children, you never know what might be going on your child isn’t telling you about; too scared, ashamed, busy thinking it’s their fault. Here’s a big one, had unrealistic expectations, being well off as she doubtlessly is her and her husband could likely afford pre-school, live in an area where there are plenty of choices for pre-kindergarten education, less prone to huge waiting lists unless it was for a posh academy, won the luck lottery of getting them in to a free option, so her children were right where they were supposed to be, managed most of the things on their beginning of the year assessment, already acclimated to a school setting breezing through kindergarten as basic review, how said teachers are oriented to teach…. Yet even inside the white suburbia wonderland less and less Americans inhabit there is a reason to push back against this return to previous decades’ parenting, the drive not to be the so called neo-parent obsessed about things, supposedly helicopter parenting your kids, encasing them in bubble wrap; gone are the days of it takes a village to raise a child and the idea you can trust your village to help in raising your child instead routinely having to protect them from it. Having a high schooler born as early as 1998 or as late as 2001 and a middle schooler younger than that, Speer is old enough to have grown up in the shadow of Etan Patz and Adam Walsh, if nothing else seeing the TV movie detailing the tragedy of Steven Gregory Stayner and Timothy White, Polly Klaas and JonBenet Ramsey where too few short years before her oldest child’s birth to be forgotten, brushed under the rug. Considering closely speculation on just how Adam Walsh became pray for psychopath Odis Toole, his parents pieced together that while at a Florida Sears in 1981 they shopped while he entrained himself with a store’s video game display alongside some older boys, older boys became rowdy and loud asked to leave by store security guard, Adam 6, too scared to tell guards his parents were in the store, he wasn’t with them ejected from the store too, found decapitated, only thing left—his head. But all adults, adults in specific authoritative positions should be able to tell our kids what to do…have changed in terms of awareness; it’s not merely these old cases, the steady trickle through the years of missing, turned up dead children fueling words written here. Putting aside Jaycee Dugard at11 should have been able to walk the short way to her school bus, Shawn Hornbeck was no match for the gun Michael Devlin shoved in his face to gain his compliance riding home from a friend’s house or that Ben Ownby was shoved into a white van getting off his school bus, are the endless list of new cases yearly, when home isn’t safe the way it wasn’t for Polly Klaas, Elizabeth Smart, baby Lisa Irwin, fathers who’ve impeded the kidnappings of barely school age children. An unmistakable predator who pushed his way into a 13 year old’s home having followed her from school, fortunately able to fight him off, that was May 2016; by July same year store surveillance videos saw the attempted kidnapping of a 4 year old directly in front of mom. Paralleling a nearly identical years older case were a child fought off her would be kidnapper one aisle over from mom, child self-defense class credited with saving her life, letting her know what to do, problem: we need child self-defense, advanced stranger danger classes, but combat blogs by a parent who thinks every adult that crossed their child’s path should have carte blanche to tell them what to do; a Philadelphia abduction thwarted by screaming little brother, both 5 short years ago. It was 2 years ago a toddler was snatched out of his stroller, rescued by older siblings chasing him, his capture down local streets, gotten away from a disturbed teen, all happening when the babysitter turned her back for a minute; fast-forward to 2016 again, attempted kidnapping 13 year old dragged through the Florida Dollar General store, mother doing everything she can to stop him, peeping tom in Colorado caught on home surveillance footage eying teen through probably her bedroom window. Last year too was the year of creepy clowns spotted, reported across the south trying to lure kids with copious amounts of candy, wads of cash in Greenville South Carolina, chasing kids on their way to school in Macon and Dublin Georgia; clown standing in the road causing a car accident there. Graduating to social media threats aimed at schools in Philadelphia, keeping students in at recess location—Long Island, New York, a teen in Kentucky arrested for scaring people in a ditch; clown related Instagram posts out of Huston, Texas threatening to kidnap students, kill teachers. McDonald’s icon Ronald McDonald forced into keeping a low profile, police, cities broadcasting extra warnings, parents doubtlessly keeping their kids in doors, switching their traditional Halloween venue; luckily these clowns frightened children keeping them away, still causing the death of one teen during an altercation while wearing a clown mask. 2017 not without its news making cases, a few months into the new year and we’re hearing about the baby nearly kidnapped from a Dunkin Doughnuts in Philadelphia; following a story last month about a man arrested trying to beckon a 6 year old out of a Riverside California grocery store bathroom, post lingering there tempting her with a treat, thankfully under arrest. Switching gears slightly, technology today plays a huge role smartphone apps, social media pages redefining stranger danger potentially luring a Virginia teen to her death; another father who confronted his daughter’s would be kidnapper the very night he planned to take her after seeing her correspondence on her phone. You can’t help but wonder if Susan Speer is this ignorant about threats to children the moment they step out the door from random adults how diligent she is about informing her tween and teens about apps like kik, if a 30 year old wants to meet you, even in a public place don’t, rules for internet/smart phone usage I don’t want you talking to older people online, tell me if someone is sending you inappropriate things; then again having sons she doesn’t face the increased threat to girls, young women…. Highlighting a disturbing pattern: citizens who believe a person’s achievement in one area, reaching of an albeit fantastic goal, garnering the title, teacher, principal, coach, police officer, celebrity on reality TV even, renders them more trustworthy than the average person despite school exposed trends of ‘passing the trash;’ transferring problem teachers accused in sexual misconduct to different schools, many times equipped with glowing recommendations. Whether it’s the principal suspended post permitting drop out, explicit rapper Fetty Wap to film a music video including dancer on a poll, or the assistance principal arrested for the murder of a pregnant teacher allegedly to hide their affair, Honey Boo-boo family matriarch Mamma June dropping jaws via her extraordinary weight loss as The Young Turks Anna Kasparian reminded viewers while explaining why she was covering, an unusual for them story, less flattering headlines she was once at the center of concerning fiancé/husband Sugar Bear accused of molesting her children and she started out believing him. Repeat public response to Subway’s Jared seen as an icon, inspiration after losing 245 lbs. arrested, pleading guilty to child porn charges, crossing state lines to engage in commercial sex acts, underage sex with younger and younger girls; exposed by a friend who reported him to authorities hearing his inappropriate comments about middle school girls recording conversations for the FBI. Remember Oklahoma City cop Daniel Holtzclaw after years of raping, sexually assaulting women he pulled over, preying on individuals whose criminal records, prior criminal histories made them un-credible complainants, witnesses until he cross the wrong grandmother. Doctors molesting patients under the guise of exam, the influence of in office anesthetics, anesthesia; those were adults but not the gymnasts one USA gymnastics doctor is accused of abusing under the pretense of sports medicine. We have a self-admitted p*ssy grabbing president facing a lawsuit alleging rape of an underage, 13 year old girl for god sakes and a politician who has followed in his footsteps caught on tape groping a woman. But I want adults to unquestionably be able to tell my kids what to do and them, not only listen, but obey; I want someone likeminded to Mike Huckabee giving my son the Josh Duggar response when asked about appropriate boundaries with girls, calling pedophile and sexual predator tendencies youthful indiscretion…. Coming down from the most horrible, absolute worst scenario things that can happen to kids when dubious adults are permitted to tell them what to do, kids are conditioned to listen to adults with few restrictions, it quickly reaches past the ancient grouchy neighbor, the ‘pissy only man who dumped urine on a teen whether or not he vandalized the man’s lawn or the ‘Jimmy Carter look alike’ who started a confrontation with a local skateboarding teen waiting until half way through his accosting the young man to clearly articulate his point about which residents are allowed in skate area X, staunchly refusing to give the young man his board which the older person had snatched from him, only reason he was still hanging around, to by the end of video discover he wasn’t in the sectioned off skate park but the driveway and sidewalks beside it. Children, teens, young adults, nor their parents for that matter, can predict when they will be verbally attacked, physically intimidated, if not assaulted, easily something worse; hints their caution in broadly telling their kids to mindlessly obey authority; be it the ranting woman in the skate park who called police about teens allegedly cussing in said park (though video provides no evidence of that) the child screamed at by an ‘elder’ for selling candy outside a Target probably for a school function, fundraising for band equipment, field trips, 4H, maybe enough for groceries, the light bill at home. Gentleman who bought the $80 worth of candy to settle the confrontation sadly correct when he said if it had girl scout cookies, been a white girl selling them it probably would have been a different story; eliminating race, girl scout selling their cookies period would have netted the girl a pat on the head not a lecture about how she should be ashamed of herself, was breaking the law, police were on their way….. But bringing in only ruthlessly practical reality, extrapolating from the original authors point, teachers can’t teach, coaches can’t coach and managers can’t manage now; however, it has nothing to do with special snowflakes never taught to take direction, criticism, instruction from people outside their parents, allowed total disrespect, disregard for authority, rather their own ineptitude. As alluded to above her kids statistically had the benefit of pre-school, were normal not special needs, she’s of average intelligence herself all boiling down to, no one is going to handcuff her 3rd grade child for kicking a school resource officer in the course of a trip to the bathroom gone horribly wrong, hardly limited by both her children being past that age or taught better than to kick anyone, but singularly because blessedly, her children don’t have those neurological deficits manifesting in behavior problems. Thanks to listed factors complementing nicely her authority loving, always back the teacher no matter what attitude, no one is going to label her a problem adult, problem parent when she reminds them of her oldest son’s diagnosis and IEP, when she gets special ed. to test her second child for next grade readiness overriding his classroom teacher wanting to hold him back for his ADHD behavior exacerbated by a delayed medication adjustment courtesy of foot dragging by the local neurological, behavioral health center and backed up appointments, found first grade ready just so you know, or when she tells her 3rd son’s kindergarten teacher he doesn’t need extra help he needs to be taught like he’s never seen this stuff before because he hasn’t seen it before not having gone to pre-school, facts his kindergarten assessment clearly showed. Her child’s kindergarten teacher didn’t belittle him for his ‘messy’ handwriting that was simply beginner handwriting correctable with time practice and, most of all, encouragement; instead my friend’s little boy 2 years later still hates writing in part thanks to his encounter with said teacher. She doesn’t have to fall on her sword, humiliate herself explaining relentlessly she is LD, dyslexic and therefore cannot/should not help her children with subjects like math and English unless they want misspelled words and transposed numbers, depending on teachers to help, damned if she’s going to let her children with diagnoses suffer what she did; not to mention parents today less and less capable of helping their children with homework, regardless their intelligence, completed education level because of expanded things being taught in earlier grades parents never had, curriculum content they don’t remember. No one berates her for cussing, grown adult that she is, when slamming into the brick walls of incompetence, people who must be reminded she is the same age, just a year to 5 years younger than them therefore should be treated on equal footing with them, she never gets that frustrated, doesn’t combat that problem advocating for her children the way no one advocated for her. No one challenges her freedom of speech argument when she chooses to use all the words in the English language including swear words either because to do so is beneath her middle class standards versus poor working class persons or ‘out of place in a school;’ forget its last ditch effectiveness at getting these people’s attention, offending people who should be offended by their own ignorance, failing competence and the child’s life they will ultimately ruin if they continue down the path they are. She isn’t charged with understanding, making them understand picking her battles, that cussing comes with ADHD and she will not excessively punish her sons, any of them for being factually accurate or protesting, through using their words not their hands, BS at the hand of a teacher who deliberately frustrates them, provokes them, asks for chaos they encounter due to their inability to connect with children, compel them to want to behave, want to follow directions by possessing some knowledge of children, their development, perspective, sans fear, violence, threat of punishment. The plight of my friend dealing with her autistic and ADHD sons respectively, teaching all her sons to speak up for themselves lest they become victims like she, children she babysat for became…. it’s hardly the child’s fault when their teachers’ preferred method of classroom management is taping student’s mouths closed at one school in Texas for talking out of turn, talking too much, cutting off one student’s braid to get her to stop playing with it, the excuse for allegedly throwing another student’s, present at another school shoes in the trash, only for teacher one to still be teaching in the same class after reports of the impromptu haircut. When teachers are documented on video doing what this older teacher was doing to a kindergarten/first grade student for failing to seek permission to go to the bathroom, taking too long, playing too long in the bathroom, upon coming out he is lifted up, back shoved against the wall, grabbed by the face; then according to school witnesses, hauled into the bathroom for a loud, screaming rant heard and reported to officials by 3 lunch ladies. It’s the PTSD moment Dr. Drew Pinsky had right there on air at HLN remembering his own adjacent experience roughly the same age, too ashamed to tell, thinking it was his fault, never talking about it that proves with reverberating finality adults shouldn’t have that level of power over children. As if already detailed material hadn’t, in addition to the middle school teacher caught dumping pencil shavings from a pencil sharpener into a child’s mouth apparently because he was slouching, leaning back with his mouth open during the lesson, no proof he wasn’t still listening though. Having seen video and/or news stories depicting exactly what teachers are doing in the process of educating our children, dragging a 1st grader across the floor to the front office after he was ‘disruptive,’ reinstated after a legal battle citing improper, non-existent training, using a belt off their own pants to hit children supposedly breaking up an unseen fight, interrupting learning with terror ensuring nothing else got done that class period, confronting ‘unruly’ 3rd graders by telling them you plan to leave the classroom/school outside doors unlocked letting in a potential shooter to shoot or kill them….And that doesn’t include the disturbing, injurious violence students are subjected to by teachers, administrators—a 20 year veteran teacher kicking a 5 year old in the head for going to the bathroom without permission during nap time, like the 7 year old who received a broken, jaw, several missing teeth for being ‘disruptive,’ the teen who had to have his leg amputated post a fight where he was slammed to the ground, could not walk, was delayed medical attention for want of ‘adults’ realizing how serious it was, lying about events, video showing frame by frame what happened. What indeed does happen to documented special needs students in specialized schools or programs… Managers can’t manage currently absent what type, generation worker they’re dealing with chiefly because they, business owner/manager don’t have the foggiest idea what they are doing as evidenced by ‘reality shows’ Kitchen Nightmares, Tabitha’s Takeover, Bar Rescue on air sensations, alive and well in re-runs comprehending there are real businesses, real employees, real supervisors behind them; most who couldn’t function in a regular working environment and saw their ‘way out’ as opening their own business channeling the worst of The Devil Wears Prada, one secret behind the 50% new business failure rate. Managers can’t manage because the average ‘manager’ brought in to oversee a company, project, store doesn’t adequately understand product, inner workings, procedures exc. of the business in question, good/service they are trying to manage, marching in with extensive plans on how things are to be done going forward, failing to listen to employees who’ve been doing it 30 plus years; previous management position a McDonald’s, Starbucks, Wal-Mart and they’ve been tasked with managing a non-profit job placement facility, equally juxtaposed venue. Managers are abysmal at managing having long ago lost the battle with how to motivate their employees to do what they want, perform their best or see the value in how the boss wants things done; the Jetson’s infamous Mr. Spacely goes all the way back to 19 62 and things haven’t changed much. So many already dysfunctional moving parts before throwing into the mix this generation holding it’s unique set of indecipherable quarks. Factors key in millennial disconnect so prominently pronounced, because workers fluently using current technology don’t have to be the boss’ lapdog 40 hours a week to be productive, produce desired results; mangers/bosses who haven’t gotten over their incredulous jealousy at ‘how easy’ current generations have it, paradigms that refuse to shift, research data proving workers allowed to set their own hours, determine their own schedules, work from where they wish, take opportunities like flex time work longer and achieve more…
Reactions to ‘disciplinary issues,’ easily downgraded to things you run into while operating a school, perhaps the untold story of ‘school infractions,’ easily rephrased to common situations you should manage appropriately, but not take too seriously unless they involve safety, when you run a school, teach in a school, are a resource officer, aide in a school; our framing of incidents the missing piece to fully grasping spiking occurrences, ‘behavior problems,’ holding equal importance with subheadings a-la ‘the astronomical number of kids acting out, running around like maniacs in school,’ ‘engaging in egregious actions like hitting, kicking or spitting on teachers.’ Far less the impact of newfangled parenting low on discipline, boundaries, too much emphasizing children as special, communicating rules don’t apply to them and directly tied to our failing responses; no, not a call for more authoritah, more militaristic, police state style regulation of classrooms, in fact the opposite. Interesting viewing every one of the violent altercation headlines from the South Carolina student thrown across the classroom to the student shoved then choked by a teacher’s aide, educators weighed in through comment sections across the internet…Or understanding maybe the problem isn’t your child, it’s the rules, the setup itself that kindergarten, research shows, is rigged for girls based on a popularity contest between teacher and student, do they like your child or not, how good is your child at social graces, effort, following directions, cooperating with others; you’ll note too, the lion’s share of students constantly in trouble are boys arguably miserable, hating school when gotten in trouble for talking about shooting a dinosaur in a writing assignment, writing from the perspective of a Nazi soldier to the point of suspensions. Kindergarten isn’t what it was when we went half day, milk and cookie for snack, sequencing, dot to dots, ABC songs, clock reading and simple words the, that is, a, at and plenty of free organic play/learning time; replaced now by all day instruction with teacher led academics, sight words, writing journals, independent and buddy reading counting to 100 by intervals, 30 minute nap/quiet rest period and 15 minutes of recess at the end of the day for the article linked below’s school, after lunch for my friends kids currently and during their kindergarten year. For all the problems with bus lines generating national headlines shouldn’t we have come to the conclusion by now there is a need to change or eliminate bus lines, engage younger kids in Simon says, car songs, something to keep their hands and minds occupied not tempted to run around, resorting to hitting teacher when they try to threaten, manhandle them back in line, make standing like a statue a game. I saw a parent in Wal-Mart this week cleverly get her kids to walk straight and orderly out of the store using the tile on the floor, no screaming, yelling, threats of losing privileges, getting a spanking by telling them to pick a line of tiles and follow it. Or that the expectations for learning have drastically increased since any parent attended school translating into school environments where they are supposed to sit like little drones, rarely so much as twitching, teachers dearly wishing they could duct tape the little tikes to their chairs, yelled at, admonished if they wiggle the least little bit; my friend forced to tell her ADHD son’s teachers let him have a stress ball something small to put/ do with his hands and he’ll focus more, listen better, unknown is how many other boys, students generally, not ADHD would benefit from the same technique. Countering teacher agreement with Speer telling her she doesn’t know how many times she’s hand a 5 year old kindergartener when told to do something say ‘my mom/dad I don’t have to, you’re not my boss’ rending gasps from readers, but question, do you have to sound like a boss to get that kindergarten child to do what you want? Can’t you say to a child excited about show and tell, story time, art, whatever: I understand you’re excited about…but for that to happen I need you to sit on the carpet with everyone else? Use phrases known to entice kids to cooperate, give them some ownership, control over what’s happening in a place where adults control everything, kids possess no, few choices; think: can you be a big boy/girl and show my how you…?…There remain multiple articles, studies, research endeavors proving select things taught in school turned out to be dangerous applied to the real, working world. But I’m still going to convey the message to my kids these adults have ultimate power over them in light of what Bill Cosby did to of age and underage young women, forget Roger Ailes, Bill O’Riley, Dennis Hastert’s molestation of high school boys, boarding school sex scandals, the Seattle mayor accused of decades ago abuse, pedophilia in churches, anyone else tempted to shout I don’t think so? Imagine what good would have come of adults speaking up about Jerry Sandusky and the oddities they saw, if students had been taught to be brave enough to report the teacher duct taping their eyes and mouth, putting roaches on their face, making them eat things that tasted funny (his own semen on crackers); horrific abuse might not have gone on for 30 odd years… Of course it’s ok for kids to fail and they should under minor, everyday life circumstances; still this is where the author’s stories don’t line up with the crux of her argument, main point, adults all and everywhere in her children’s life should be able to tell them what to do their response: to snap to, a complete non sequitur to her encounter with the lab partner mom who just wanted to fix it somehow post both their sons flunking their lab project by failing to turn it in on time. It has nothing to do with the dorm mate who falls to pieces because ‘mommy wasn’t there to manage their life’ and utterly disregards anything else that could be going on with that person, i.e. onsets of several mental illnesses known to strike this age group, significantly undermines survey collected data by college students whose biggest worries are about incurred debt and will there be a job for me to get upon obtaining my degree. Addressing trend commentary regarding the uptick in students seeking colligate mental health services and self-reported personal crisis, A- did researchers bother to define crisis in the relaxed, slang terms students did, did they again bother to check in with students as little as a week, a month later to see if what they termed a crisis was still effecting them, reporting suggests not. B- God forbid we’ve finally made marginal headway in destigmatizing mental health problems, seeking mental health treatment no longer taboo; one colligate center for mental health executive director dismissing right out of hand the Speer assertion explaining everything from college being more accessible brings lower income students availing themselves of first time access to mental health services ever, to there being more services available on campus than in the surrounding community, concluding saying you don’t get a 38% increase in demand for services from ‘a lack of resilience’ and warned against criticizing them for lacking a characteristic, judging them for seeking help naming it victim blaming, he would be more accurate to call it parent shaming…. Far more dangerously insidious than she’s smart enough to fully comprehend she’s being, we think there are no, only positive consequences to the type of parenting Speer advocates, to the old school, to children minding society’s adults all (note the expansion to every social ill listed in the comment section by readers of the original article linked below)—suppositions proven totally untrue. Take little Zachary Williams (pronounced za-car-ree) removed from school by a confused grandfather because school staff mistakenly thought the man was his afterschool care, thankfully this was simply a confused grandfather not a predator taking advantage; however, his mother was perplexed as to why he would go off with a complete stranger, confusion deepening when she asked him why and he smiles shyly saying I don’t know, not answering at all. Readers may be asking by now why mom is so muddled arriving at the conclusion she told the kindergartener to mind his teachers the same way he minds mom and dad, a seemingly reasonable request, age appropriate explanation of behavior expectations during school, until something like this happens. Upon seeing stories like Zachary’s, we immediately go to either that would never happen at my child’s school citing policy or the recurring parent mantra ‘my child would never do that to be shocked by Dateline, other news show set ups putting kids and their parents to the test producing negative results to the exact contrary of what parents swore their children had been taught, life lessons believed mastered. Further we’ve deluded ourselves believing those instances in childhood, the ingrained respect for adult authority has no, only positive lasting effects on our kids once they mature to adulthood, again untrue; who remembers the 10-12 year old phone scam were someone calls a fast food restaurant claiming to be the police asking mangers to call in a female employer for a strip search on allegations of stealing an ordeal for one victim profiled by Primetime that included jumping jacks, naked spanking and oral sex on the male manger, scenarios playing out across the country were even the subject of a Law and Order Special Victims Unit episode. Psychologists speculating, in regards to the compliance, that the regimented structure of the fast-food work environment made people easy to manipulate, younger workers in particular; victim’s response to both the reporter and by extension online commentary pegging her stupid, asking how she could let someone do that to her, was to say she was taught when an adult tells you to do something you do it, important to remember she was maximum age 18 when it happened likely on her first job. Dovetailing into the sexual exploitation of teen fast-food workers by their managers who felt forced into sex to keep their jobs; it’s the argument in favor of corporal punishment, scoffed at correlations between childhood spankings and domestic violence, protestations that children grown into adults know the difference contrasted beside abuse cases rampant even in teen relationships. We keep ignoring reincarnations of the Milgram experiment, where people would do terrible things if a person in high enough authority told them to, not in a research lab but in the real world, habitual patterns of bad things resulting from our pathological respect for authority, obsession with respect…. Facing brutal practicality head on talking about kids and failure we must come to the realization then failure doesn’t carry the same connotation it did back in the day, small failures inconsequential on the road of life compared to having an arrest record, getting into drugs, going to jail, having a felony on your record; absent those things you may not able to ‘lose your shit pick it up and move forward’ treating it like a recipe for an omelet, isn’t that what the 2008 financial crisis taught multitudes of older workers thrust back into the job market? Once more don’t parents, we, larger society own part of what we think is happening to emerging adults; their lack of maturity, their ‘fragile’ sensibilities not in terms of helicopter parenting but in the cutthroat nature we’ve cultivated around college admissions, not boiled down to the best person with a mix of academic achievements and extracurricular activities getting in, but taking that to its ultimate extreme, almost the sole, entire reason parents are trying, if at all possible, for the posh pre-schools, a certain elementary school feeding to the ‘it’ junior high/middle school, high school, enhancing their chances of getting into an Ivy League college, nationally famous college, perceived leg up in getting a job, college degrees fulling the market at such a rate where you went to college mattering more than many older adults might think. Speer and the rest buying her mantra painfully oblivious to facts these are parents holding 1, 2 college degrees working jobs, not careers, professions that barely make ends meet, don’t allow for a college fund for their kids, these are parents still paying off their own student loans, maybe they didn’t finish high school and their offspring are not only on track to finish but have a chance at college, something they never had. Don’t we own, as parents, our children’s fear of failure in a different way; in the big deal we made out of good grades, common phrases we drilled into our kids about what we’d do to them if they ever drank, did drugs, think pot, came home pregnant, got a girl pregnant, failed a class, instilling the concrete idea we would stop loving them, shun them, hate them if they did any of those things and more besides? But counselor commenting said kids need to know they can be human, can fail; yet the failure they can’t handle is the very failure they shouldn’t have to, losing your love, which they won’t but you didn’t make that clear enough to them. Catalyst behind babies born, left in toilets, shoeboxes, trashcans; parents who wouldn’t have been happy at the news but would have preferred it to their teen’s actions, them spending years in jail for killing their child because they didn’t know what else to do. The very failure they can’t handle is one that shouldn’t be and isn’t covered in the ‘adulting’ coping class, where minor mistakes can derail everything never to recover, be able to reasonably support oneself. Don’t we as parents, community members always calling everyone without a job a dead beat, degenerate, unless they are old or disabled, then own the pressure we place on students to do well, never fail, sending them off knowing just how much it costs us to grant them higher educations; aren’t we partially then responsible for the high suicide rate, the pressure students put on themselves going to institutions a-la MIT? Don’t we own, society wide, the problem, not regarding harsher analysis of helicopter parenting, flagging initiatives to stop it for the greater good, but collective contributions to the broader issue in our unending insistence on negatively stereotyping this generation to the nth degree, relentlessly calling them unskilled, stupid, useless, primarily because they do things differently, house different priorities than generation yesterday, directly feeding into what they think they can and can’t do, the skills they are programed to believe they are lacking but learned differently; independent how many are working, have careers not merely jobs but struggle to get ahead thanks to student loan debt, work in the gig economy where nap and game rooms, free coffee are their only perks in lieu of paychecks, given worthless equity packages in ‘the company?’ Astronomically important on the other side don’t we own, as a society, individual business owners, hiring managers, if you are, the fact that increased demands are placed on k-12 education, college to fulfill tasks it was never meant to while employers refuse to engage in the most rudimentary job training consistently complaining they can’t find workers? Don’t we, society, the public own the reality getting a job is about every possible thing under the sun but can you do the job, are you the most easily trained person for the position; instead eager employees are constantly caught in the catch 22 of need experience or certifications to make degree serviceable in the job market, no place to get those certifications, experience, employers who refuse to pay the full price for say child psychologists holding PHD’s choosing interns as an alternative, potential employees told they will be bored with the job, the thousand and one legal, harmless, silly things we can be fired for….. Yes it is ‘common sense’ there is no running around pools due to the concrete installed to prevent slippage and the serious injury you could do yourself if you run, slip and face plant, yes that then makes pool dad an undeniable jerk, difficult person to deal with but, when, trailing back to the 1950’s did, ‘wondrous society’ never mean having to deal with difficult people, how millennial, gen Y, snowflake can you get?…. Maybe if all rules made as much common or otherwise sense as the pool dad scenario, we would have far less rule breakers in society big or small, but too many city and state laws fall under what could easily be called the pet peeve ordinances… But for people, parents like Susan Speer it’s still all hail ‘the rules;’ maybe for the sake of not having one more rule to both follow and enforce it’s time pool surfaces got an upgrade similar to the padding of pre-school playground equipment turf , maybe it’s time we stop couching lawsuits as frivolous against McDonalds or Starbucks over serious hot coffee injuries equal to 3rd degree burns resulting from flimsy 5 cents to make cups and 2 cents to make lids that collapse and break so easily, in McDonald’s case serving warm beverages well above a safe degree level, and made the cups better, lids fit properly. Maybe for the sake of our future not looking like a scene for the D movie flick Demolition Man fining people money for violations of the verbal moralities code to satisfy blue haired old ladies thinking they are enhancing their chances of getting into heaven, grumpy old men just mad they couldn’t get away with sagging, flip flops in their youth due to social norms on ‘respectability;’ that fictional city letting loose a dangerous criminal with the opposite of rehabilitation, mental reprogramming to deal with their one remaining problem ‘degenerates’ who lived off their grid, occasionally surfaced to ‘steal’ food because they would rather keep intact their freedom of choice than surrender all will to what state, federal government, school or parent says is best, a little questioning, fighting back against arbitrary rules isn’t a bad thing….
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