1)
You
are special, and can do anything you dream of. A puffed-up ego or bloated
sense of self esteem leads to resentment at age 25. In reality, a child’s
dreams may not come true, and he/she needs to experience disappointment to get
in touch with reality. “Work until your dreams come true” would be closer to
what is true. Even closer is this statement: “Work in pursuit of your dreams, but realize that life is what
happens while you are making other plans. Tomorrow may never come, or may be
unrecognizably different.” Why are we so afraid of letting our kids
experience disappointment? We confuse self-esteem with courage. To be courageous, you need to recognize the risks
and your own limitations, but you find the resolve to move ahead anyhow. (p.
162) The culture of humility leads
to gratitude, appreciation, and contentment. The culture of self esteem leads
to entitlement and resentment. The
child learns late (often when they’re out of college) that the world doesn’t
revolve around them, and they have a hard time dealing with it. Don’t buy into
the lie that all they need is self-esteem! They need courage and humility.
2)
Your time is too valuable to be spent on
menial tasks. Too often this morphs into “You are too important to do menial tasks.” (p. 168) Chores at home
are vital to teach humility, self -control, and conscientiousness. Of course it’s a fight! But parenting is
not supposed to be easy. Your children should make their beds, wash the dishes,
take out the garbage, clean their rooms, feed & walk the pets, set the
table, do their own laundry, do the vacuuming. They should do this for no pay,
because they are members of the family. Other chores may have money attached to
them, such as lawn mowing, cleaning the garage, and doing household laundry.
Too many parents are not requiring their kids to do these things, and then when
they “grow up,” they aren’t used to doing them. Why are so many kids not
prepared to “adult” when they need to be? Let’s not infantilize American
culture anymore!
3) It’s important to be popular. Helping
your child become kind,
self-controlled, and well-behaved is much more important than being
popular. Being popular often entails being disrespectful to parents, and
embracing unhealthy behavior and attitudes. Limit their use of social media!
The culture of social media is the antithesis of humility. “Here I am, look at
me,” with no thought to those more unfortunate than him. Sleep deprivation,
cyber bullying, and sexting are very real problems. But even without these, the
culture of social media is infantilizing our children.
4) It’s acceptable for you to be disrespectful
sometimes, it’s part of becoming independent. No! It doesn’t mean they have
to agree with you, it’s fine for them to say “I don’t agree, I think you’re
making a mistake.” But it’s never OK
for them to talk disrespectfully with you! (Do your kids swear at you?) You
need to teach them how to disagree respectfully. One strategy revolves around
suppertime conversation. Discuss your favorites, and note how your opinions
differ. With teens, choose a controversial topic from the news. Listen
carefully and respectfully to your child’s position. (Stay away from personal
topics, like if your child should be allowed to stay up late and play video
games or surf the Internet.) The point of this is to teach them to disagree
respectfully. Then you will be able to negotiate more personal disagreements
with less likelihood of them degenerating into an argument.(p. 149)
5) I just want you to be happy and what makes
you happy is different than what make me happy, so I’ll just have to accept
that. Are you confusing happiness
with pleasure? Your job as a parent is to educate
desire: teaching them to desire and enjoy things that are higher and
better than cotton candy. Video games, Instagram, and text messages are the
cotton candy of American popular culture today. Today the assumption which
pervades American culture is the belief that your child’s personal fulfillment
is equivalent to the fulfillment of your child’s desires. How wrong that is!
The mere gratification of desire? What about that which truly fulfills human
beings: service to others; mastery of the
arts; faith in something greater than oneself; discipline in pursuit of a
higher goal; commitment to a cause. The notion of “Live for Now,” which is
being successfully marketed to our kids, is resulting in the infantilizing of
American culture.(p. 151-153)
6) It’s unrealistic for me to hold you
responsible for behavior outside my home. There is a word for consistency
of behavior in and out of parents’ sight: “Integrity.”
Parents should not be afraid to call or drop in at their kid’s friends’ homes
to check on what their kids are doing. That’s one way to teach Integrity. (p.
147)
7) I’m afraid you won’t love me anymore if I
follow this advice. Your main objective can’t be getting love and affection
from your child. In this day and age where we have many single parents raising
children, and many more in loveless marriages, too often the child is placed in
the awkward position of trying to fill the parent’s loneliness void. This is emotional incest. It undermines
the authority of the parent, and is very confusing to the child. (p. 156)
What’s happening to parents is
sobering and alarming, but can be fixed. I have a sign in my office which reads
“Nothing changes until the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain
of changing.” Can we feel the pain of our children? Can we feel the pain for their
future, when they get rejected at 25 and can’t handle it? Let’s start now to
teach them character: humility, conscientiousness, self-control, and consideration
for others. Let’s assure them a future
of fulfillment, of mature living, of gratefulness and contentment.
This is part two from Dr. Leonard
Sax’s book The Collapse of Parenting. (https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Parenting-Hurt-Treat-Grown-Ups/dp/0465048978/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485199424&sr=1-1&keywords=dr.+leonard+sax)
