Raising kids (split from "Major Change")

Lucid Lounge
1

Split from Do you believe we are approaching a major social change? being both topics complimentar to each other to some extent. :bruno:

I won’t comment on where I believe that the world is headed, instead I would like to share my opinion of the new generations of children/adolescents:

I have been born among the first wave of whiney, immoral, overly-sensitive losers. I believe that parents and society are becoming increasingly neglectful of their duties. Allow me to illustrate: parents are responsible for setting a good example so that their children will be suitable to enter society. However, more and more parents are showing their kids that it is OK to whine like a bitch(forgive me) and turn to their lawyer when they want something. In addition, parents are not disciplining their children, instead they give in to them and lose their authority. I see this everyday, an example is of a 8-year-old I watched throw a temper tantrum in the middle of BestBuy because his dad didn’t buy him an xbox or something. Anyways long story short, the parent eventually gave in to him after he yelled long enough and embarassed his father enough. If I did that my father would knock me senseless, why? To teach me that you can’t always get everything you want when you want it (you learn to deal with it), I thank him for that. Unfortunately we are now producing masses of lazy, ungrateful, disrespectful, unmannered jerks who think that they know it all. I could go on forever talking about the various vices that these up and coming kids posess, but ultimately most people just want to know who to blame. And the answer is simple, they should blame themselves. Sure explicit content is running amok in the music and entertainment industry but in the end it is the job of the gaurdian to decide what is appropriate for their dependents. Now I know that some will say “well don’t listen to him, he’s 19, he doesn’t know what is going on”, but as a previous poster said, I’m experiencing it firsthand…

So what does the future hold for mine and the next several generations? A pile of worthless trash with no redeeming qualites; now there will be exceptions, some will go against the masses and carve their own niche, these are the people who will ultimately inherit the reins.

At some point though, after society has hit rock bottom, I believe we will start over and do things the right way. That’s my .02…

2

So basically you’re suggesting that the right way is to spank your children when they act like brats? :tongue: My Eris! Why?!

I was never spanked in my entire life. I mean: ever. Nor humiliated in public or anything. And what a childhood I had. I was the regular kid—I turned the mall’s staircases off so people had to walk them down, ran out of sight, acted like a brat, got in fights. And you know? My parents, although never having spanked me, managed to tame the little monster. I mean, look at me, I’m a civilized guy nowadays. Compare me to my [step] sister, who now that she can’t act like a brat actually enters depression everytime a minor thing happens that she doesn’t like (I mean it, she’s been more absent at school due to depression outbreaks than I at all, and I do skip the full skipable quota). She has a story of fighting and being humiliated by her parents as a way of being disciplined. Didn’t seem to work for her at all.

What am I trying to say here? That yes, I agree with you, “the” generation is definately full of spoiled brats, but I don’t think the parental moralization (or the lack thereof) is what’s causing this. I have a few other theories. For one, I grew up in the countryside. And everytime I go back, I see a lot of nonspoiled people. No matter if they were educated by your kind of parents or my kind of parents. When I come back to town, I see a lot of whining teenagers that won’t grow up. To the point of the rise of the (stereotypical) emos.

What in the city is causing this? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s the television, something about it. There are lots of theories saying the television brainwashes people. Maybe it’s the social culture. The unspoken. Go figure—somehow, for a series of reasons, everything around kids makes them learn that this is the way they should be. In this case, I can definately tell how come I was protected from that being raised first on a farm and then on an old anglo–brazillian neighbourhood.

I think there are a lot of aspects of this generation that we can look at in order to understand what’s going on with it and why is it growing so amiss.

Oh, and I’ve split the topic by the way. :smile: So that we can discuss just that here, and use it to compliment our posts in the other, if necessary. :smile:

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I could go either way on this. On the one hand, I grew up in the country also, and I know many kids who turned out alright, but of course, there were still lots of misbehaving kids in the country (just as there are in cities) and I think that’s also due to bad parenting. In that sense, Rad is correct, many parent’s today don’t seem to be doing a great job. I see it a lot because my Girlfriend works as a pre-school teacher when not in school, and you wouldn’t believe some of the brats they have to deal with :tongue:
I’m glad my parents disciplined me because it instilled discipline in me. They didn’t beat me or spank me, but they were Stern, and that made me respect them.

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I dont think there is a good odea to beat youre kids.
At all.

It might end up them beliving beating are ok and/or taking it outon other kids.

I was raised without beating or very strict orders.
Today i dont see myself as a bad person for that.

BUT , I havent got more respect for older peoples than for kids. This was something built in to me for some (is it more than tree years ago already :eek:) time ago.
I was teased in school and teachers didnt lift a finger to help , but treated me as the problem.

Personally i belive they should sell spirit to 18 year olds and beer to 16 year olds OR push the criminal illegal age up to 18/19

I dont see why you perfectly well might be allowed to ruin youre life and not be able to buy beer.

For not to speak of dieing for youre country (army duty= 18 year old) but NOT BUY SPIRITUS !

5

i believe parents do have a right to smack their kids, but like any right it can get out of hand.

i’ve been beaten (by that i mean hit a couple times not in the face) like 2 or 3 times in my life, but it showed me who the boss was, dad. after that you listen to dad. my dad is a spectacular human being, so i’ve tried to follow through with his advice.

i can see how a kid can turn bad when they simply have bad parents. these are the parents that aren’t home a whole lot, and when they are home they don’t spend time with the kids. this is a household where mom is there and taking care of everything, but lets the TV raise the kid instead of their own interaction. oh yeah, TV is a HUGE blame for turning kids out bad.

but its not all on the parents. you can have the sweetest kid in the world, but put him with more kids and they go nuts. even kids know basic human instincts, to show that you are the one not to be messed with. the nerdy kids (me!) will learn it all eventually.

basically kids need to be taught respect at an early age. thats a hard concept for them to grasp, which is why they naturally act up. but when they act up it is time for a learning experience. best way to make them learn is to first get in their face and say don’t do that, second to get in their face and yell, maybe one more round of that, then to hit them.

and petter, when you are legal and you are older and you see how some kids act drinking, you won’t want them legal either!

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About Alcohol : One thing is beer =18 , thats atleast when you are put up as a “grown up” in the nations views.

But SPIRITUS (like vodka) IS 21.
In my view is that just plain silly !
In My opinion shouldnt you be able to go to the army , but NOT BUY drinks above 20 % alcohol.

And about smacking and beating.

In norway today thats not allowed i belive , and im happy for that.

I dont respect the one that beats me , fear ? YES hate ? YES but never respect. I respect a person for its good acts ,If someone is supposed to talk to me (like telling me to STOP doing domething) he must have a good (at least useful) argument.
You cant get me to belive something by beating me and say i shall not because you think it isnt a good idea to do so.
I might be afraid of the beating , I might be feared because of other things you might do to/withme/with my grades.

But I wont respect you.

BUT if he has a good argument , or i respect that person or if i know he/she has much info. about the subject i listen.
If it is an 11 year old or 33 doesnt not matter , if i know they know what their talking about.
I would ratehr listen to an 11 year old that knows what his talking bout than a 33 year old that doesnt when learning something.

An inspector at school got to our school , after a week i told my friend that i didnt “like her” , my stommick told me she was not good at/with us and wouldnt do any good.
I didnt show her that.
A week later she ut down my grade in behavier for being beat down , when all lies was uncovered.
That was strict , but in her opinion fair , she was one of the teacher-kindtha give a damn about their students , that belives thir something lower than themself.
I hate her.
Now she has made a REALLY , (ridicilus) strict system at that school (im finished there , praise god).

in one punishment , where she punished all school or something SOME had done , me and a friend complained , over and over and she yelled at us. The day after she apologized , but didnt lift the punishment (which ahd one day left)
She didnt want to loose authority , with a “known” apology.

That made her apology to me useless , meaningless and not worth anything.
She didnt want to apology she did not want to loose her “respect” of the teachers and youths.

I hate that kinds of persons , un-loyal , lieing , protecting lies , just in order to look better.

Truth is the clear road , those peoples will loose , just wondering how much "#%¤& they can spread beforehand

7

first, yeah that is pretty weird that beer and spirits are 2 different ages. but i could see some “bad ass kid” (you know the kind i’m talking about) chugging way to much vodka some night and dieing, along with a lot of others. but hey, who says you can’t find a 21 year old friend to hook you up :wink: .

yeah i completely agree with you that you need to talk to them first. i said in my last post to “get in their face” which is basically the same meaning.

i’m holding hitting a kid for a rare exception where they continue to disobey and be stupid. and my thoughts are that kids are basically running around doing whatever they want; they are being kids, its allowed. but they do get out of hand, and thats when they need told. if they keep doing it, told a few more times, and when they refuse to stop, hit them for it.

and with your teacher, yeah that may be messed up, but she had to do what she had to do to keep what respect others had for her. thats the way the power structure will always act. they will screw you time and time again with no apologies to you, but they will try to make them look good to other people. fucked up, but thats life.

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Being sixteen, I have many friends, meaning many different types of families and parents that I know about. From my view, the way parents now adays go about parenting and discipline is rediculous. I’ve grown up in a family with parents that are very fair and easygoing on me. They were never extremely strict, but yet they were NEVER careless. Just…supportive. So when I see other teens parents, and the way they go about htings, I don’t quite understand why they couldnt go about the way my parents have always gone about things. Most I see are just too strict and forcefull, which ultimately will make the teen and parents spread apart, distancing themselves. Because…why would they want to be aroudn people liek that? So the problems of many teens could relate to the parents in a big way.

Though I’m not saying that is the case everytime. Comment removed. What was that flame for? :bruno:

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I’ve got to disagree xcardosox, my grandfather used to discipline his kids much to harshly, even by standards in those days, yet my father and he are great friends.
I still don’t think it’s right to ‘beat’ kids, but disciplining and the occasional smack on the bottom hasn’t hurt me in any way :smile:

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xcardosox you made a great point; supportive. that’s a trait of parents that is very important. you can be a very strict parent, but if you are supportive then the child will most likely respect the way they were brought up. or it could be a very lax style, but if no support is there then they will never know why their parents never cared.

i also think you may be dumbing down the parent-child relationship. most people when they grow up stay fairly close to their parents. even if they live in different states they talk on the phone enough to know whats happening in each others lives. unless it is a BAD parent, they usually grow up fine with a good relationship with their parents.

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I think that it has a lot more to do with respect, support and being fair with children. If you are not treating your kids that way, they will not be able to understand why you are doing what you do. I see manny parents treating their kids more like problems or disturbances then real live people. They give them things so that they will go away, insted of spending time with them. When the parents are not feeling good, they punish the kids. Thats the type of things that cause problems, not nessasaraly hitting the kids. That said, I do think that it is much better to talk to children insted of hitting them. It does require that the children are capable of understanding what is said, but that is also the only way that the children are able to learn about why they should or should not do something as their parents see it.
don

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I didn’t intend to flame anyone, I apologize.
But my parents have always been very suportive, but they havn’t been careless whatsoever. They’ve always given me reasonable chores and duties I’ve lived with my whoel life. But the fact they are goign about everythign in a realyl decent manner, makes me respect them. A lot.

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I still wont respect the guy who beats me , thats the way im nailed.

Anyways , i belive parents have better/more devasting methods than beating.
No tv , pc or going out from room for instance.

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My parents haven’t done those to me either. In fact, I’m not sure what they did when I misbehaved. I can recall a lot of times I did daft stuff, and I became a normal guy (cough well at least one who behaves pretty well)… And I’m not sure how that happened. :shock:

/me starts to think he was brainwashed

No, seriously, I don’t think any kind of punitive action is enriching for the child or effective to the parent. I see my cousins, who were raised that way, and before thinking about behaving well, they try to do something similar to what they did last time, alike in essence, but somewhat different, and test how far they can go without being punished again.

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Going about things with a more gentle and relaxed way will always have better outcomes. In my opinion.

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i agree, but when a kid constantly acts up or does something really bad, some action needs to be taken. words are cheap

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I honestly think it is an act of crulty to bring a kid into this world. Espesly now that the shit is fixing to hit the fan.

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Oh, and physical aggression is very rich and meaninful. :yes: You’re right, sorry. I was completely wrong about my point—but now I see. If we slap kids they will know why we’re doing that to them, and they will understand and obey not for fear, but for conscience, like good human beings with brains do. :tongue:

I don’t think like you, Kavaa. I think too that humankind has been in a really deep crisis. On culture. On morals. On civilization. A serious, deep crisis. But I don’t think erradicating humankind from the Earth will do any good—neither to the World, nor to humankind itself (but the later is pretty obvious :tongue:). You see, we’ve created a huge imballance in nature. Hybris. The whole world is out of its natural harmony, and we’re the ones who control this new, dinamic harmony.

We asked for it, and it was given to us: power. But (and I’m afraid I’m going to have to say the “Spiderman cliché”) with great power, comes great responsibility. If we just drop it, we’ll leave the Earth out of it’s original harmony, and with no–one to manage the new dynamic harmony humans established. It would be doom for life, for nature. Only stupid forms of life would survive, animals would be erradicated. The whole nature would have to be reinvented by time. Not only us, but practically all we know would vanish.

And that’s not nice. :no:

In terms of politics too. We can’t just drop it. Not have kids because we don’t belive they’ll be able to fix it. No! That’s just not the right way of thinking. We must keep raising our children with belief in change, opposed to prostration and passiveness; it is our duty to believe, all of we, in a better world. To make what’s within our possibilities to help establishing this new world. To pass this belief in a better world on to our kids.

Humankind will not sort itself out. Humans will have to be extrahuman as others before them have been, and help humankind. I’m not talking about leaders, I’m talking about fighters. Not fighters by force, but fighters by resistance. People who drop this bitter passiveness of the new world and take an active position. There’s no sense and no gain in giving up.

We may fail, but the only chance we’ll score is if we try. If we drop it, we’ll fail; if we don’t, we might fail—but we might as well not fail. The only path to success is that of activeness. Don’t resignate yourself, don’t take it for grantes that the s——— will hit the fan. It’s not over yet.

19

when did i say you were wrong? and are you saying that i’m wrong? see the great thing about philosophy (or any debate) is that we are all right and wrong at the same time. i understand you don’t agree with me which is cool, but the sarcasim isn’t really needed. (and i’m not offended or upset or anything like that either, just a friendly reminder!)

i hear that. if we just continued to be what we were before we became fertilized, and before we were sperm (i guess enzymes) and before we were even a part of the human body, we would be so much better off. ignorance is bliss. i’m actually going to go start an interesting topic right now…

20

Well. :grin: I still fail to see how can slapping a kid be more morally enriching to them than the only thing that actually separates us from being animals—rationality. From where I stand, slapping and spanking is a lousy way of getting rid of your chores that will actually not teach the kid, just make them scared of punition like an animal would. It’s to judge them as lower beings.

I don’t know. If it’s been proved that through both ways, a healthy education is possible, than to me it seems that opting for the violent one says you’re not really willing to give the best of yourself, but just rather trying to skip the tough parts in child raising spanking them until they learn. It’s quite paradoxical to me, in a horrible sense, that the hand that slaps is also the hand that cuddles and when you say “I love you” to your kid.

What I did there was sarcasm, yes, but with a reason. To me, your point of view, that which says “oh it’s ok to spank kids, you know how sometimes they’re just brats” is absurd. Hence the sarcasm, the reductio ad absurdum. I can make no sense out of your point of view, I can’t see how come we, civilized humans, can still accept this kind of child raising. If I’m missing something, please make me see. :smile: