A Family of Value by John Rosemond
Author:John Rosemond
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0-8362-0505-7
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Published: 1995-01-15T00:00:00+00:00
CHAPTER SIX
The Responsible Child: Discipline That Works!
For these commands are a lamp,
this teaching a light,
and the corrections of discipline
are the way to life.
âProverbs 6:23
When I ask teachers whoâve taught long enough to know, âWhatâs different about todayâs kids when compared with the kids of the â50s and early â60s?â they always tell me todayâs kids are generally disrespectful, irresponsible, and undisciplined. Of the hundreds of veteran teachers of whom Iâve asked this question over the last five years or so, not one has spoken in positive terms about the present generation of children. Unless these folks are suffering from some mass delusion brought on by inhaling too much chalk dust, weâd better face up to the fact that we baby boomers were a far more well-disciplined bunch than are our children. This is not a matter of acid rain having damaged the gene responsible for good parenting; itâs that postwar âparentingâ professionals created and released into our culture a child-rearing âvirusââself-esteemus absurdicusâthatâs been wreaking havoc ever since.
Nouveau âparentingâ professionals would have us baby boomers believe we paid a âterrible priceââthey use that term a lotâfor our good behavior. In the course of kowtowing to rabidly tyrannical parents, they tell us, we never learned to make choices or think for ourselves. Thatâs a lie. This, however, is fact: The proper exercise of parental authority (and when properly exercised it is absolute) interferes with neither the emergence of decision-making skills nor intellectual maturity. Iâm willing to bet my entire compact disc collection that Thomas Jeffersonâs parents told him what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. They even told him what he should think! And if young Tom ever became possessed of enough cheek to ask them why they insisted upon this and that and prohibited thus and so, Iâm sure they answered âbecause we say soâ or its prerevolutionary equivalent. The same, Iâm equally certain, was true of Ben Franklinâs parents, and Abraham Lincolnâs, and Martin Luther Kingâs, and Jonas Salkâs, and Thomas Lockeâs, and the parents of all the other great thinkers, groundbreakers, and decision-makers of history. In short, parents who âdictateâ (which The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines as âto prescribe with authorityâ) to their children do notâI repeat, do notâcripple their intellects.
Contemporary parenting professionals would also have us believe that my generationâs parentsâ supposedly heavy-handed discipline caused our psyches to shrivel. Again, not so. All the evidence points to one inescapable conclusion: The 1950s were a better, healthier, more stable time to be an American child than any time since. Since the 1950s, every single indicator of positive childhood mental health has been in decline. As a general rule, we baby boomers were more secure, more respectful of adults, more willing to accept responsibility, more well disciplined, more resourceful, and for all these reasons, far healthier psychologically, morally, and spiritually than are the children of these âprogressiveâ times. The question, then, becomes, How did previous generations of parents discipline children?
Answering
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