This day, as does every day, belongs to everyone, young and old, rich, or poor. However, there are too many adults abdicating their roles, responsibilities, and authority as parents, leaders, and guides to their children. These adults allow many of our children to not only run amuck, but to also believe that it is all about them and no one else matters. There are too many of our young people who are allowed to disrespect themselves, disrespect their parents, disrespect their friends, and disrespect anyone in authority. As a matter of fact, many of our children have no clue as to how they got to where they are, because many adults in their lives are so busy trying to deny who they are and want to live vicariously through the lives of their children and other young people. Unfortunately, rules and regulations seem to have become the exception, rather than the norm.
It seems as if no matter how bad some of our children behave, they know that nine times out of ten, their parents or some other adult will rescue them and not hold them accountable for their behaviors. They are also fully aware that they will probably not face any consequences for their poor attitudes and their poor behaviors. Many of our children have negative attitudes because such negative attitudes have been modeled by and exhibited by the adults who serve as their role models. On the other hand, many adults have negative attitudes that prevent them from seeing the negative attitudes of their children, especially when it comes to mothers and daughters.
Ironically, too many young men have developed disrespectful chips on their shoulders that permeate into their relationships with females, young and old. The tragedy is that there are adults who don’t seem to see the problems that manifest from their own negative attitudes and negative behaviors, eventually negatively impacting their children. Children often model what they see and what they hear.
The negative attitudes and negative behaviors of many young people are constantly being enabled by their parents, often not to their benefit, but to their detriment. Please note that I am keenly aware that these negative behaviors don’t fit every young person and every adult has not been caught in the cycle of enabling such behaviors. However, there are entirely too many children and too many parents that fit into both categories.
Sadly, many adults have lost control of their children, and young people in general. But why is this so? It’s not so much that parents and other adults have lost control; they have given away their control to their children! They have also thrown out their values and beliefs with the bath water. It sometimes seems as if many adults are afraid to maintain control or to take back their control. They are so busy trying to run away from how they were reared by their parents, believing that things were ‘so bad’ for them, that they have decided to rear their children in a different manner…many times overcompensating by giving their children things and opportunities that they don’t deserve.
Too often, some parents are caught in a cycle of trying to ‘please’ their children by giving them what they want, in lieu of providing them with what they need. They dress their children expensively on the outside, with expensive technical toys, while they expect less from them on the inside. Not only are these adults constantly giving to their children, but they are also not expecting anything in return from their children. And they are not holding their children accountable.
As adults, until you start expecting and demanding respect, gratitude, positive attitudes, responsibility, and accountability from your children, you are contributing to their negative attitudes and negative behaviors, at home, at school, and at other places. You are also contributing to a generation of downright arrogant and entitled young people who are unhappy with themselves and with life in general. In addition, more and more parents expect schools to be responsible for ‘fixing’ their children when it is not the responsibility of the school system. It’s the responsibility of parents to ‘fix’ their own children before sending them to school and other places.
Education starts with parents and in their homes. Schools are a microcosm of the macrocosm of society. As a matter of fact, it’s the responsibility of parents to work with schools to help teachers to manage the negative attitudes and negative behaviors of their children as they strive to effectively educate them. No one wants to be with or work with a spoiled brat!! And if you don’t believe you can handle your child, how in the world do you expect someone else wants to try to handle him/her? The negative behaviors, negative attitudes, disrespect, arrogance, and sense of entitlement your child(ren) displayed when they were very young, which you laughed about and thought were cute, have now come to haunt you during their adolescent, teen, and young adulthood years.
It is time for you, as parents, to take a stand and formulate a stance as to whom the adults are in your home. It is also time for you to provide guidelines and boundaries for your child(ren), no matter what age. You must not only provide models for your child(ren), but you must also serve as a role model for them. Being disrespectful to, as well as yelling, screaming, and cursing at your child’s teachers, coaches, or other adults in their lives is most certainly not indicative of modeling positive attitudes and positive behaviors for your child(ren). It does take a village to rear children, including yours!
Parents, I challenge you to take out a pad and pen to monitor your own attitudes and behaviors for two weeks. Assess your role in not holding your child (ren) responsible and accountable for their negative attitudes, negative behaviors, and disrespect toward themselves, disrespect toward you, toward their teachers, and toward their coaches, friends, and others. It’s time for you to decide how much you are enabling your child (ren) in their negative behaviors. I am not asking you to carry guilt or to beat yourselves, but I am asking you to be accountable for the role you play in your child’s sense of entitlement, lack of responsibility, and lack of accountability.
As parents, not only do I challenge you to monitor yourselves for two weeks and document your enabling roles with your child (ren), but I would also like for you to develop a written plan of action for you to rectify your enabling behaviors with your child(ren) to rectify their negative attitudes and negative behaviors. Develop five (5) action steps that you CAN and are WIILING to implement to help save your child(ren) from self-destruction and the destruction of others.
As you assess your own attitudes and behaviors for two weeks, assess the attitudes and behaviors of your child(ren). Sit with your child(ren) and share your observations and concerns regarding their negative attitudes and negative behaviors that you have observed, while providing praise for their positive attitudes and positive behaviors. Allow your child(ren) to help you to develop five goals with five action items you expect them to work on in changing their negative attitudes and negative behaviors. Remember, you are the parent; you aren’t asking your child(ren) to change their negative attitudes and negative behaviors, you are making them responsible for and holding them accountable for changing their negative attitudes and negative behaviors. They don’t have a choice in the matter!
Remember, the way you start rearing your child(ren) will, in a large part, determine the young person and ultimately the adult they will become. Either you change your parenting behaviors NOW and work with your child(ren) to change their negative attitudes and negative behaviors NOW, or you will pay dearly later!
Attitude Plus Gratitude DOES Determine Your Life’s Altitude! I challenge you to take on Nike’s slogan and “JUST DO IT!!!” Change your negative attitude and negative behaviors as you challenge your child(ren) to change theirs!!!
©2022; J. Morley Productions, Inc; P.O. Box 1745, Decatur, GA 30031; 770-808-6570; www.doctorjoyce.com
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