Tag: Rules

Kids & Society’s Lowered Expectations
For The Kids

Kids & Society’s Lowered Expectations

mdpauleyLeave a comment

I heard someone say kids are just different these days.
I disagree. Kids are the same. What’s changed is a society with lowered expectations, lack of discipline, and acceptance of disrespect.
Give kids boundaries, expectations, rules, limits, rewards, and consequences. Then they will rise to the challenge and exceed your expectations every time.

Imagine the kids of generations past, who went to church; worked in the fields; helped raise infant and toddler siblings. Their survival, in many cases, depended on their ability to toe the line.
It’s not that children today can’t behave — it’s just that we don’t ask them to.

Children in past generations ate what was put in front of them, because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t get anything else. (Most children, for most of history, were lucky if they were given even one “choice” for dinner.)

So when people say, “My children won’t eat vegetables,” that’s just another way of saying, “I’ve given my children a choice not to eat vegetables, and they took me up on it.” (Right? If there hadn’t been a choice, they would have eaten vegetables. Unless you think your child would have starved himself to death — which some parents must believe is a real possibility.)

Broccoli is just the most obvious example of something children won’t choose.

Other examples include:
>Doing chores
>Being polite
>Finishing difficult projects

If there’s a choice whether to do those things or not do them, children (for the most part) will decline.
Which is why they shouldn’t be given the option.

But, to their credit, parents with low-expectations probably just want their children to be happy.
They are acting on a the belief that giving them everything they want as children will make them happy as adults.
But, if anything, the opposite is true.

The question is: will they be productive members of society; will they get along with people; will they tackle challenges, or run from them? The goal of parenting is to give them tools — which is very different from giving them everything they want. A child who is always given fish, to paraphrase the Chinese proverb, will never learn to fish.