Although children are not exactly blank slates when they come into this world, they are extremely malleable. Perhaps you meet someone and fall in love. Then you marry and proudly have children. Your adorable little bundle of joy is nature’s newest creation. It also has the potential of being someone else’s burden. Will you rear an angel or a beast?
An Angelic Little Beast
Last week I attended a holiday dance recital with family in a 1920s refurbished auditorium. I was excited about having a comfortable seat on the balcony with a great view of the stage below. It was a sentimental nod to my grandmother, who had an impressive dance studio for half a century and a soul that lived for everything that was dance. I intended to enjoy every moment of this performance.
As I made my way to my seat, I found myself positioned behind a mother and daughter. The little girl appeared to be around three years of age and was maybe thirty pounds. She was adorable with curly dark hair and she was wearing a little red dress with white tights. I greeted them and complimented the little girl on her appearance. She looked at me while shoving a handful of popcorn into her mouth and sticking her nose in the air. Usually, a telltale sign of good parenting is when the parent turns to the child and says, “What do you say?” or “Can you say ‘thank you?'” This mother glanced back at me and turned back around without a word. Was this little girl going to be an angel or a beast?
Disturbing the Peace
As soon as the performance started, the little girl began bouncing around in her seat. She bobbed from one side of her chair to the other, and then she crawled around on the floor. She then stood up and started singing all of the familiar Christmas songs at the top of her lungs. Then she would yell and laugh and dance, and then the jumping commenced. My attention was drawn away from her for a moment in the concern that thirty pounds of jumping weight was actually shaking the balcony. I soon forgot about that as she ran across the row and down the aisle, and then proceeded to throw herself on top of the balcony railing! We were horrified! Her mother allowed her to do anything to her little heart’s desire without any consideration for either her child’s safety or for those around who preferred to see a show.
This disaster continued for the entire first half of the performance. Not only was it visually obstructing and audibly disrupting, but she drew the attention to herself because everyone was worried for her safety. The mother was watching the show and often looking at her phone, but she was not parenting. At intermission, the mother and daughter duo was found sprawled out on the hallway stairs, making everyone step around and over top of them to get by them. Fortunately for the audience, the child had a loud temper tantrum and wanted to leave, so the mother accommodated her. What evidently is out of the mother’s hands or interest now will be insurmountable in about ten years.
The Beast Has Broken Its Chains
These formative years, when parents depend on electronic babysitters and distractions, determine whether they will have an angel or a beast on their hands. Children need discipline and encouragement, not distractions. Electronics are intended to entertain the child so that he will not annoy his parents, but the device robs the child of important lessons.
Similarly, when children are given electronics at the table, they are missing extremely important learnings that shape their characters. The time at the table should be to form bonds with family and friends, to learn patience, social interaction, manners, and to pick up on social cues. The dinner table is an important time for children to learn about the world around them, and to stay connected to home and family. The babies of today are the grown-ups of tomorrow. Every day and every moment counts. Herein lies the reason society has become a dysfunction.
The Most Important & Neglected Job
Before Feminism pulled women away from home and nationalized education, mothers were the main teachers of social propriety. They were the ones who instilled in their children morals and values, manners and etiquette, piety and productiveness, education, personal refinement, respect, and more. When women went to work and children went to federalized school, the critical link in the domestic and familial chain was broken.
The consequences from that broken chain have grown steadily worse. Each subsequent generation finds itself at even more of a loss for a sense of direction. Mothers have traded the most important and rewarding job for work in the outside world. They have championed finances and delegated their motherly responsibilities. Some of this is out of necessity because they split from the father, and have to embrace these duties. But women must have a rounded understanding of Feminism before they can recognize its deliberate assaults on their lives.
Practically all of our issues can be traced back to the mother figure of each generation. She has been duped for more than 100 years. What could possibly be more important than rearing a generation of healthy individuals? What in the world could be so distracting that new cars now notify you when turning off the car to look in the rear seat? How can anything be so important that a mother would forget that her child is in the car? People were not always this way.
The Beast Takes the Reins
Years ago, people understood that it took a village to rear a child. All adults came together and reinforced each other’s training and discipline. There was little question about whether a child would become an angel or a beast. His or her place was known because it was understood that bad behavior at school would have consequences at home.
Parents Reinforced School Discipline
I remember the children in my class having a healthy respect for the principal’s office when I was in elementary school. At that time, the principal kept a paddle in his office and he would use it when necessary. It served as double punishment because we all knew that if our actions took us to the principal’s office, we would have further punishment when our parents found out. Parents reinforced teachers at that time.
Today, teachers can get in trouble for anything when it comes to students. The reinforcement team has been broken and parents have sided with the children for better or worse. Children can do whatever they please, which turns them into beasts. Today, parents generally have a biased support of their children, even when they are completely in the wrong. This kind of devoted support is extremely damaging to a child’s formation.
Discipline Viewed As Abuse
Many parents turn away from disciplining children today. They seem to view all discipline as harmful or abusive. Discipline can consist of a stern voice and shaking or spanking a child. But if children know that there is nothing behind your threats, you will permanently lose all credibility and control. Discipline establishes ground rules and commands respect. This is why “Wait until your father comes home” was so effective; a father’s return had force behind it and every child knew it!
Force is the one thing that is universally understood, whether it involves children, bullies, foreign enemies, or even governments. If there is no show of some kind of force, if a child has no fear of consequences, he or she will do anything and become a beast. When there is no fear of consequences, there are no governors. As with training an animal, childrearing will produce an angel or a beast based on the type, frequency, and nature of the training.
Since schools and daycares do not teach morals and ethics or discipline, and the mother prioritizes a different job and often the father is absent, is it any wonder that children are this way? People have become problematic because they are the adults who were children without discipline. Children now play in the road and make drivers swerve to avoid hitting them. They interrupt performances that people have paid to experience. They talk so loudly in restaurants that other patrons cannot hear each other. Children have gone wild and something must be done to rein them in.
Calling In the Reinforcements
Better parenting involves prioritizing parental attention to the whereabouts and behavior of children, not in prioritizing attentions to and distractions for children and protecting them from the consequences of their actions. Allowing bad behavior and defending children from other adults who take part in training and influence only reinforces the bad while discrediting all adult control. This makes all the difference in the world between rearing an angel or a beast.
Wise parents always keep in mind that their plans will have the potential of being thwarted as long as their children accompany them. Either the parents stay home, the children are well-behaved in order to accompany the parents, or there should be a babysitter. Adults set good examples by considering other people and that is one of the first lessons a child must learn in order to become a considerate adult. Parents are thoughtful of other people and remove their child from the premises if the child is a disturbance and cannot learn manners and appropriateness. Children need to learn the consequences.
Discipline is the one thing that determines whether parents will have an angel or a beast. Distractions for children will override discipline. If children know that there is nothing behind parental threats, they will do whatever they wish. It is far easier to control and reform beasts when adults reinforce each other and stand together as a village.
Image Credit: Sabrina Belle, AI Generated; Danica De La Mora.
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