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Good article, I’m glad someone has the nerve to tell it like it is these days.

Society as a whole has gone down the toilet, and it’s many of the parents’ fault for not taking control of their own households and teaching values, morals, and a respect for other people.

Keep up the good work. –Felicia

How ridiculous!! I earned two doctorates, but I have little regard for most academic experts, because they rarely have any common sense (which, btw is uncommon). With some very simple guidelines: (1) never spank in anger, (2) use the hand for loving, not for spanking – use an inanimate object, (3) explain to the child that the spanking is merely a way to help them avoid repeating the bad behavior, (4) at the appropriate time after the spanking, spend a few quality relational minutes explaining how the behavior was wrong, (5) spank quickly after the bad behavior – etc. – proper spanking is one of the very best behavior modification tools a parent has. Not spanking is child abuse. My children on more than one occasion came to me afterwards and thanked me. They said they knew what they were doing or did was wrong, but needed motivation to stop the behavior.

So, while I can agree that there are many people in my generation who are not responsible or whatever, it must be noted WHO raised my generation and taught us the values we practice. It must also be noted WHO let the government to grow so powerful and unchecked as to allow it to intrude into family affairs. Again, that was his generation – the one that raised MY generation.

The situation will only grow worse until government power is put back in check, and until people look directly at the source of the problems and fix them at their roots.

Respectfully,

Thomas Lessman
Email: talessman@yis.us
Topeka, KS
http://www.ThomasLessman.com

Believe it or not, a lot of that depends on the children. Some children are predisposed to be snotty little brats no matter how they are treated. Good discipline just modifies where the lines they cross are located.

All I know is, if I am told I can’t spank/punish my kids when I am older, then I’m gonna be angry.

I’ve got bad news for you – it’s too late for that one. I nearly had my first child taken away because he was very active and had a few bruises on him when we took him to my mother-in-law for her to babysit. She called Child Protective Services and he was removed from our home for two months. Fortunately, we were able to get them to allow my parents to keep him during that time. Then we had to have a social worker visit us once a month for the next year and had to sign an agreement that we would not physically discipline him. Now he has no respect for us, because “time-outs” never meant anything to him. In fact, to get him INTO a “time-out”, we had to physically restrain him, or he would just run off and ignore us. So they turned into “time-outs” for us, as well, because we certainly weren’t going to risk being accused of abusing him again by tying him to a chair or something.

Just be their DAD. Not their “best friend”. If you do, spanking will be rarely necessary. And when it is needed, it will achieve its purpose. And to top it off, your children will be the kids on the block that actually love their parents.

Seeing people just below my peer group act like you have described is incredibly frustrating. Whenever I manage to afford to see a movie while getting through a university I have to walk through crowds of teens without parents nearby, late at night, horseplaying near the street shooting their mouths off dressed like who knows what.

Basically, I want the generations growing up to learn to do the right thing, but at this point (generalizing, there are still very many good kids, and parents can be the problem on many occasions) who knows. I want some of them to learn the hard way, but since we’re in the same boat/country, I’d really rather not have it impact the world around me.

All I know is, if I am told I can’t spank/punish my kids when I am older, then I’m gonna be angry.

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I’ve thought about this much myself, being a dad of 4. But I’ve thought about something else too. While the degredation of behavior continues and grows worse and worse, it all started somewhere. Back there somewhere, soon after its beginning, there was noticable disrespect and me-ism too, and the adults noticed it and predicted it would be bad when they ran the country.
Well, we are running the country Bob, our generation, near in the time line to being one of the first generations to take a major step down this slippery slope of misbehavior. Look at how politicians whine, call names, fail to debate rationally…its like children, or its like we were when we were children.
So it is true, the kids will manifest in the future adults. It is worse now, so imagine, just as you said, when they are running things.