The Shepherd, October 2007
HEARTFELT LETTER
FROM A CONCERNED PARISHIONER
“LOVE your children but do not put them in place of God,” said Bishop Ambrose in his sermon on the 9th September in Brookwood.
In the past it was mostly the peer pressure from other children that undermined good parents’ authority. At times it was also the “experts,” some childless, others busy writing books on childcare while somebody else was taking care of their children.
Fifty years ago in Soviet Union the books of Lenin’s wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, were recommended to parents to help them in bringing up the young communists.
Thirty years ago all educated parents in the West lived by the book of Dr Benjamin Spock, “Baby and Child Care.” His insane suggestion of putting babies to sleep on their front led to numerous cases of cot death.
Now in Britain we have the official authorities and the law telling parents what to do. Several years ago “smacking” was outlawed in Scotland. In England, common sense prevailed and the judgement on if and when to “smack” to date is left to the parents. Personally, I believe that the proverbial “smack on the wrist” delivered at the right time and for a right reason, could do wonders to bring the unruly child to their senses.
When children become disruptive at school the very same teachers will suspend or even expel troublemakers and hold the parents responsible. To reinforce this position new legislation came into force recently by which parents could be prosecuted and fined for their children’s misbehaviour in school. A few years ago another law made it possible for the parents to be prosecuted and even sentenced for their children’s truancy.
Youngsters, who are disruptive to the point when legal actions become necessary, are usually of an age and of a physical size when parents can do little to correct them. Authorities can lock them up, fine and even imprison the parents, but can they correct the damage? I wonder what is the point of prosecuting parents, who, by the time when their children are playing truant and disruptive, have already lost control over their off-spring and are feeling desperate?
When we deal with much younger children, on the other hand, the same authorities that want to prosecute us, the parents, for teenagers’ truancy and disruptive behaviour, tell us that we should love them, be attentive, meet their every need and under no circumstances ever smack them. Not a word about how or when parents are to teach their children discipline, discipline that will ensure development of the self restraint needed when they are tempted to indulge in bad behaviour later in life.
All parents teach their children to take care of themselves and avoid being burned, do themselves damage with sharp objects, poisons, being run over by traffic. All parents, regardless of their child’s personality and temperament manage to teach their children basic safety rules. So why do some parents fail to teach their children to behave well at home and in public? Why do they allow them to scream like wild animals in Sainsbury’s and run around in the church?
When I tell some children that they should walk and not run in the church, they look at me with a bewilderment that indicates to me that a demand being placed upon them to behave in a certain manner is an alien idea to them. I am not saying that they had never been told by their parents how to behave; I am saying that their parents never demanded of them to behave.
From the very beginning of their lives children, who cannot yet understand words but have a great need to be cared for by their parents, are very sensitive to their parents’ tone of voice, facial expressions and the manner in which parents touch them. This allows parents to communicate with the very young children. Older children, although they use words, remain sensitive to non-verbal expressions. Even adults, as the books on body language will tell you, are responsive to non-verbal signals but will only remember as little as 7% of information conveyed by words alone.
When we tell a two-year-old not to play with fire, we express concern at the very idea as to what might happen and the genuine fear in the parents’ voice, projected in the tone of that voice, convinces a child that this is important.
Parents themselves need to be convinced that common sense, discipline and good behaviour are as essential to a two-year-old as the idea of not running across the road without looking. A parent who is certain as to what they expect of their child would not mumble: “Please do not shout, darling,” while “darling” pays no attention, but would be firm, consistent and use the tone of voice and body language that leave the child in no doubt that they should take notice.
Consistency and clarity of the parental demands (demands, not favours that the child may or may not grant them) should be very clear. Yes, we may get tired of repetition, but, and I speak from experience, it works. My grown-up “children” now often preach back to me some of the values I had been “preaching” to them for the last thirty years. They did listen after all.
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