How Children Bring up Their Parents (Continued)
Some time ago I stayed a friend in the UK. He was a professor in psychology - a 'thinking' person. His 17-year-old son had a problem with school and was frequently being disciplined. He had a stud in his tongue, against school rules, which he had to take it out whilst at school. The son maintained that it was unhygienic to leave the hole without a stud and so refused to comply. Like all thinking people, the parents were non-judgmental. If he wanted a stud then he was within his rights.
The phrase 'non-judgemental' is often used, especially when dealing with adult
/ child relationships. In practice, being non-judgemental usually means to have
no standards. If we decide that certain standards of behaviour are better than
others, than what do we say when people don't meet those standards? And if we
don't say that certain standards of behaviour are better than others, than children
will follow the example set by their peers.
Many, if not most, parents have abrogated their responsibility for bringing up their children. When I heard about the stud causing problems at school my thought was 'why didn't someone attempt to persuade him that it was a bad idea?' Confrontation is not usually a good method to employ when dealing with kids, especially teenagers, but at least someone should have advised him not to do it. Unfortunately, even advice in this day and age is considered inhibiting to development.
Another cause of dispute was school uniforms, and this is a common cause of
complaint. Uniforms, the argument go, force conformity and their 17-year-old
wasn't going to be forced into conformity by the school. In practice, where
there are no school uniforms cliques are formed and kids wear clothes to identify
with a certain groups. There's the 'nerds', the 'Goths', the 'hippies', the
'trend-setters' etc, all with their particular styles of dress. The individualists
who don't belong to any group are bullied. School uniforms, rather than stifling
individuality, actually take away the stifling conformity imposed by peers.
It's a common refrain that standards of behaviour have declined over generations. For a good illustration of this it's worth reading the article "Girls, Stop This Soul-less Sex!" (See the link on the right).
If nothing else, parents have a duty to encourage what is good and constructive and discourage what is destructive. If you don't provide moral guidance for your children, or let them be guided by their friends, then what I would say is that you are letting the Devil take control. Unfortunately, the word Devil has particular associations so I will need to explain what I mean, but this will require a separate article.
