Venting - way OT & alittle wordy....

[salsabike]

Not having children surely doesn't disqualify anyone from noticing some of what works and what doesn't work with respect to teaching kids how to deal well with the rest of the world. Everyone has access to the knowledge they gained watching their own parents raise them as well as different approaches they see used by friends and relatives. Thought that kind of "you have to be one to qualify" thinking went out with "You can't be a good drug counselor if you weren't a heroin addict first." Guess some people still believe that.

Having been a school psych for a chunk of years, I noticed a long time ago that by far the most disturbed and frightened/frightening kids I meet are not the ones from abusive homes but the ones from homes where the parents have abdicated and left their kids in control.

I don't think most people, childless or not, automatically judge when they see a whining, crying kid in a store (heck, I was one of those "I want that CANDY" kids myself. Come to think of it, sometimes I still am---although quieter). Kids whine, kids cry. The issue for most people, I think, is whether the parents are letting those kids ride roughshod on the people around them. And since we all share the same space, I think everyone has the right to weigh in on that one, and that all that info is genuinely worth considering. I really do.

[SadieKate]

I am now reading Talk to the Hand, The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door by our beloved Queen of Apostrophe, Lynne Truss. She states in her intro:

Once you leave behind such class concerns as how to balance peas on the back of a fork, all the important rules surely boil down to one: remember you are with other people, show some consideration.

I think permissive parents forget this basic rule in an effort to not squash their darlings' potential, forgetting that the rule teaches each of us about "I and Them." The little darlings instead learn that "I rules Them. Yes, I am not a parent myself but I've taken care of neighbors' children who had the rude awakening when under my care. It has been rather funny to get reports from parents about the children behaving themselves when with me.

[mimitabby]

I have a cousin who deeply believed that she should never say no to her kids.
Well, those two girls were absolute monsters until they got to school
and their teachers trained them. The younger one was so bad that they had to take everything out of her room except a mattress because she would throw things to break them when she was mad.

For a while, it was NOT pleasant to be in that house. the sound of my cousin trying to reason
with a screaming kicking 5 year old was more than I could take.

[lph]

I have a cousin who deeply believed that she should never say no to her kids.
Well, those two girls were absolute monsters until they got to school
and their teachers trained them. The younger one was so bad that they had to take everything out of her room except a mattress because she would throw things to break them when she was mad.

For a while, it was NOT pleasant to be in that house. the sound of my cousin trying to reason
with a screaming kicking 5 year old was more than I could take.

Oh yes. My only nephew is the same age as my son, and stayed at home with his mother until school age. Which could have been just fine in the right setting, but they truly believed in treating him like an adult, reasoning with him no matter what, never raising their voices, plus they had hardly any contact with other children. Poor kid turned into Spoilt Devil Child and Lenin rolled into one. When my talkative, ultra-sociable, well-meaning son had to "be nice" to him at a birthday party it was almost more than he could take. And I freely admitted to him after they had left that yes, THAT was a very hard child to get along with, and yes, he behaved very badly.

Devil Child (sorry, the name stuck) has now turned nine, and is gradually entering the world of normal human people.