I too was a latchkey kid in the early 60's when my parents divorced, my dad skipped town, and my mom went to work to support her 5 kids. I was 10 years old, taking care of my 8 and 6 year siblings after school, plus cleaning the house, and cooking easy meals. Did I develop some bipolar mind disorder? Hardly, I went on to graduate with honors from high school and college and have a work ethic that few people can hope to achieve.
Parents need to stop blaming their kid's problems on everything except where it truly lies.....themselves (the parents). They're all too quick to resort to medicine or God forbid...it's the school's fault. Wake up and smell the coffee parents, it's YOUR fault your kid is screwed up. Time to take some responsibility for how your children turned out and not blame it on everything else in the world to make yourself feel better at what a lousy parent you are. Maybe if parents would act like parents and not their kid's best friends and buddy, we wouldn't have half the problems that we do in our schools today.
Excellent post and spot on. I particularly like the point you made about parents being parents and not their kids' friends. The problem is, that in this egalitarian age, many parents don't believe that they have the right to tell their children what to do. So they try to manipulate their children into behaving. And, of course, when children are allowed to run amuck at home they naturally think that they can run amuck at school and everywhere else.
Parents need to stop blaming their kid's problems on everything except where it truly lies.....themselves (the parents). They're all too quick to resort to medicine or God forbid...it's the school's fault. Wake up and smell the coffee parents, it's YOUR fault your kid is screwed up. Time to take some responsibility for how your children turned out and not blame it on everything else in the world to make yourself feel better at what a lousy parent you are. Maybe if parents would act like parents and not their kid's best friends and buddy, we wouldn't have half the problems that we do in our schools today.
Good for you! Today's kids are too pampered. We have bears in our neighborhood. One day recently a bear knocked over a neighbor's garbage can and dragged the garbage into our yard. Havnign cleaned it up several times in the past myself and being tired of it, I went next door and asked the mom if she could send over one of her boys -- ages 12 and 14 -- to clean it up. Her response was that she could ask, but that the boys wouldn't do it. I was amazed!
When my kids get home from school, they know they have their priorities: (1)homework, (2)chores, (3)goofing off. Each day they have a couple chores that we list for them: emptying the dishwasher, taking the garbage cans out front for trash day, cleaning the cat litter box, etc. It takes work to teach kids values and responsibility. Most parents don't want to put forth the effort to do it.
Thank you for saying it. After 18 years with three kids in the public school system, that is exactly the conclusion I came to.
I loved just about every child my children befriended, the parents were constant problems. The latest example, a parent mixed up four screw drivers and served my 15 year old daughter till she threw up. Then told her not to tell anyone, it would be her and my daughters secret. Turns out she had been doing that to high school kids for 5 years and the superintendent and principal had known about it for years.
Thank God there is no more public school system for my kids. Now I have to deal with University of Oregon, but no parents!!!!!!!