Wanting Your Opinion

Kids one Wild:

"Children should be seen and not heard" may be due for a comeback. After decades of indulence, American society seems to have reached some kind of tippin point, as far as tolerance for wild and woolly kid behavior is concerned.....

Last month, an Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that nearly 70 percent of Americans said they believed that people are ruder now than they were 20 or 30 years ago, and that children are among the worst offenders. (As annoyances, they tied with obnoxious cellphone users.) ..... Whether children are actually any worse behaved now than they ever have been before is, of course, debatable. Children have always been considered, basically, savages. The question, from the late 17th century onwards, has been whether they come by it naturally or are shaped by the brutality of society.

But what seems to have changed recently, according to childrearing experts, is parental behavior - particularly among the most status-conscious and ambitious - along with the kinds of behavior parents expect from their kids. The pressure to do well is up. The demand to do good is down, way down, particularly if it's the kind of do-gooding that doesn't show up on a college application.

Once upon a time, parenting was largely about training children to take their proper place in their community, which, in large measure, meant learning to play by the rules and cooperate, said Alvin Rosenfeld, a child psychiatrist and co-author, with Nicole Wise, of "The OverScheduled Child: Avoiding the Hyperparenting Trap."

"There was a time when there was a certain code of conduct by which you viewed the character of a person," he said, "and you needed that code of conduct to have your place in the community."

Rude behavior, particularly toward adults, was something for which children had to be chastised, even punished. That has also now changed, said Dan Kindlon, a Harvard University child psychologist and author of "Too Much of a Good Thing: Raising Children of Character in an Indulgent Age."

Most parents, Dr. Kindlon said, would like their children to be polite, considerate and well behaved. But they're too tired, worn down by work and personally needy to take up the task of teaching them proper behavior at home ...... Parenting today is also largely about training children to compete - in school and on the soccer field - and the kinds of attributes they need to be competitive are precisely those that help break down society's civility.

Parents who want their children to succeed more than anything, Dr. Kindlon said, teach them to value and prioritize achievement above all else - including other people.

"We're insane about achievement," he said. "Schoolwork is up 50 percent since 1981, and we're so obsessed with our kids getting into the right school, getting the right grades, we let a lot of things slide. Kids don't do chores at home anymore because there isn't time."

And other adults, even those who should have authority, are afraid to get involved. "Nobody feels entitled to discipline other people's kids anymore," Dr. Kindlon said. "They don't feel they have the right if they see a kid doing something wrong to step in."

Educators feel helpless, too: Nearly 8 in 10 teachers, according to the 2004 Public Agenda report, said their students were quick to remind them that they had rights or that their parents could sue if they were too harshly disciplined. More than half said they ended up being soft on discipline "because they can't count on parents or schools to support them."

And that, Dr. Rosenfeld said, strikes at the heart of the problem. "Parents are out of control," he said. "We always want to blame the kids, but if there's something wrong with their incivility, it's the way their parents model for them."

There's also the chance, said Wendy Mogel, a clinical psychologist whose 2001 book, "The Blessing of a Skinned Knee," has earned her a cult following, that when children are rude, obnoxious and outrageously behaved, they're trying to tell parents something - something they've got to shout in order for them to hear.

"These kids are so extremely stressed from the academic load they're carrying and how cloistered they are and how they have to live under the watchful eye of their parents," Dr. Mogel said. "They have no kid space."

Paradoxically, she said, parental over-involvement in their children's lives today often hides a very basic kind of indifference to their children's real need, simply to be kids. "There are all these blurry boundaries," she said. "They need to do fifth-grade-level math in third grade and have every pleasure and indulgence of adulthood in childhood and they act like kids and we get mad."

If stress and strain, self-centeredness and competition are the pathogens underlying the rash of rudeness perceived to be endemic among children in America today, then the cure, some experts said, has to be systemic and not topical. Stop blaming the children, they said. Stop focusing on the surface level of behavior and start curing instead the social, educational and parental ills that feed it.

This may mean less "quality" time with children and more time getting them to do things they don't want to do, like sitting for meals, making polite conversation and - Madonna was right - picking their clothes up off the floor.

Are children ruder today than they were twenty years ago? Should the  parents be blamed? Do you agree that parenting today is "largely about training children to compete?" Do you agree that the attributes they need to be competitive are precisely those that help break down society's civility? Do you agree with the  author of  this article?

Comments

[Tara]

That's a bunch of bull. It doesn't take any time at all to teach your kids manners. It starts before they can talk and it continues every single day afterward. If you are too tired to teach them, don't have kids. And if they want to try and use schoolwork as an excuse to mouth off to adults...well...that's just bull, too. Sure, kids get stressed. But so do adults. And it's wrong for anyone of any age to take stress out on other people. Yes, it's the parents fault. When my children are rude, I consider a personal failure.

[Megan]

Yes. Hell yes. It shouldn't be, but it probably is. No. Yes.

Teaching kids to respect other people, proper manners and that the world does not revolve around them is all in a day's parenting. This is your job, people. It's the kid's job to make something of his/her life after you've done your job.

[Ivy]

The article isnt complete bull. Parenting has been put on the back burner for alot of society. Kids do not need to be reared like they were back in the day. Society has moved forward from the days of "seen not heard" and there was a reason for that. Kids should certainly be heard. But there are limits and its up to parents to set those limits. Too many parents take the "I want to be your friend" approach and forget to parent int hep rocess. Alot of parents are too busy to worry about their kids personal lives. Too busy providing them with things they never had to really pay attention to their child and see they need more than what money can buy. I think if all parents stopped for 10 minutes to stop and look at their children, Their children's behavior and do something about it other than look past it because they are too busy to deal with it or just dont have the energy to deal with it. Things would change. BUT i do believe that it starts at home. My kids have manners. They also have opinions and get aggrevated, ticked, off, stressed out,e ct just like any other adult out there. But its up to me to teach them how to deal with it.

[kimi]

i think children are ruder today but i don't know if it's because the parents are teaching them competitiveness or simply because of our society's habit of indulging our children. i know many people who don't consider themselves successful unless they can put a tv in each child's room and buy them the latest and greatest cell phone. the children of today have a sense of entitlement, they think the world owes them their rights, but they don't do a thing to earn it. perhaps it's the parents who are too competitive...

[Samantha]

I agree with the article very much. Kids today are expected to do everything. My fifth grader came home last night with math homework that I was unable to help her with. My sixth grader has an average of three hours of homework per night, and she is usually on task as a rule. This is not ok. I can't imagine putting a competitive sport or time consuming extra curricular activity in there. We would have absolutely no family time!

I also think that parents are becoming lazy. When I placed an ad in the paper to become a Mothers Helper, I was turning down jobs by the third day, and most of the jobs were just to watch kids while the parents went on dates and social gatherings. (Not that there is anything wrong with parents having social lives, but 3 date nights a week is just ridiculous.) When I worked as a cashier, I saw parents letting their kids run amok in the store, breaking things and bullying other customers, only to buy them a candy bar in line because they "don't want them to cause a scene."

So, in response to the questions, Yes x 5.

[srp]

Kids learn what they hear. If they hear parents curse and use obscene language to each other, to them and to other people, they think it is ok. If parents threaten to sue someone at the drop of a hat, the kids take up the idea. Kids need boundaries, they fight against them but when the boundaries are set firmly, it makes the child feel safe. I don't think being competitive is the problem, it's the ability to handle the results. Parents have to model how to win with grace and lose with grace.

[Phil]

Oh, absolutely kids are ruder today. But I do think Kimi & Samantha touched upon the real root causes . . . parental laziness and indulgence. I'm not saying that ALL parents of unruly children are lazy, but a large portion of them are, IMO. Around here, I can walk into almost any store and see constant examples of it. Parents who think it's perfectly acceptable to ignore their children, allow them to run amok through the store, even assault other customers . . . all because the parent is too busy talking on the cell phone, or picking out Ding Dongs. I can say that as a child, if I had acted half as unruly as these kids, not only would my mom & dad haul my butt out of that store right then and there, but also get a nice long lecture and/or a tanning.

[raehan]

I have been stressing manners since my girls could talk. It is a constant process of teaching and following through. You can't be lazy, but the rewards are great. When I hear my daughter saying thank you or I'm sorry to me without coaxing it is amazing. Like anything, work hard and you'll get rewards. And of course, you can't expect kids to be perfect. They're kids after all and this is all a process.

I think we are a meaner society than we were then when we were growing up. Parents fall into that category, too, and kids are watching their parents and modeling their mean behavior.

Usually I hate hearing advice about parenting from others, but this particular article is a good one.

[Paula]

I don't know. Maybe I live in an abnormal community (Huntington Beach, California), but peeps, including children, are generally pretty nice. My kids' friends say hello, how are you, etc. to me and for the most part act respectful when they're in my home. And since swearing and "bad words" never bother me, I'm good.

I agree that there's too much freaking homework though and it makes everyone tired and cranky.

[Goldie]

I'm with Paula. I just realized that, while my kids and their friends may not have "manners", per se, (whatever that means) they are generally very nice kids. Of course, bad words don't bother me either.

BTW I could never figure out why everyone's complaining about rude kids in grocery stores. Either I'm going to the wrong grocery stores, or I just don't pay attention, or I'm not aware of the Kid In Grocery Store code of conduct. Either way, they all seem fine to me.

[blackbird]

I agree with this article.
Too many of my peers accept terrible behavior from their children while demanding incredible success from them at the same time. It's paradoxical that so many parents I know will allow their children be disrespectful and rude but demand that they be enrolled in programs for the gifted or insist that their children have incredible talent. And everyone has an excuse -- they work outside the home, or the behavior is a phase, or they don't want their children to dislike them. And then they micro-manage their kids lives from the moment they wake up in the morning, through their class placements, and into their ultra-intense after school activities.
Grrrr. I'm signing off before I get too riled up...

[kenju]

Children who are rude and ill-mannered come from parents who are too lazy (and too busy) to teach them the proper way of life. If you are too busy (or too distracted, or too un-caring) to teach children how to be good people, then don't have children!!

[the bec half of glamorouse]

The biggest compliment I get about my kids is that they are kind and caring to other children. The next biggest compliment I get is that they are polite and say 'please' and 'thankyou'. They certainly don't manage it ever single time, because they're still little, but even toddlers pick up on the 'magic word' rule pretty quickly - all it takes is for parents to repeat it oh, 20 or 30 thousand times... btw, we both work full time so it's not about being too busy per se, it's about focusing on the kids when you are with them and yes, setting LIMITS and being consistent. Phew. And finally, I've never read anything useful about parenting in a book. Most of what works comes to me directly from voices in my head: my mother's voice, that is!

[the bec half of glamorouse]

PS - manners are a passport. There may be 'rules' that don't matter so much in your own home, but if you don't teach your kids a certain standard of politeness and etiquette you are limiting their capacity to be accepted in other homes, workplaces and communities. You can always 'dumb down' good manners, but if you don't have them to start with you will struggle.
My goodness Michele, what a soapbox you have plonked down in the park today!! I promise I'm stepping down off it now and going back to my usual trivial concerns!

[Denise]

I'm going to chime in on what bec said just above me: you might not think that proper manners are important but many in the world still do and you might be limiting your child's ability to be successful as an adult by not enforcing them while they're a child. It's not that tough to ensure that they say "please" and "thank you", that they know how to conduct themselves at the table (don't interrupt, use table ware properly, wait until everyone's finished or you've been excused to leave the table), and that they understand that they will sometimes have to stand in line for things without whining or trying to force their way ahead of someone who's been waiting longer.

Wow, I guess I really DID have an opinion on this - thanks for asking the question!

[Keb]

Are children ruder today than they were twenty years ago? Yes.

Should the parents be blamed? Partially.

Do you agree that parenting today is "largely about training children to compete?" I think in some cases this is true.

Do you agree that the attributes they need to be competitive are precisely those that help break down society's civility? Not necessarily.

Do you agree with the author of this article? In some ways. In others I do not.

Personally, I believe that a huge problem with society today is a lack of personal responsibility. If parents took it, forced their kids to take it, and stopped blaming others, we would have a different, kinder society. At least, in my humble opinion we would.

[Plumkrazzee]

I am a total freak when it comes to bratty kids. (Too many years doing daycare) Once again, I think it's because people do not realize when they 'want a baby' that they are actually raising adults. And I DO intervene when I see "kids gone wild". Of course I do this in a very passive-aggressive way, just enough insult to embarrass the naughty one, and maybe the lazy parent also.

[Goldie]

"It's not that tough to ensure that they say "please" and "thank you", that they know how to conduct themselves at the table (don't interrupt, use table ware properly, wait until everyone's finished or you've been excused to leave the table), and that they understand that they will sometimes have to stand in line for things without whining or trying to force their way ahead of someone who's been waiting longer." -

I dare say you can achieve the same things by teaching your children to be considerate of other people, rather than just train them to go through the motions for no apparent reason. Teach them to respect others, and the manners will follow. I guess I just don't believe in teaching good manners in and of themselves. Sounds kind of artificial to me. And don't we all know mean, nasty people who have immaculate manners.

[Mamacita]

Parents. Parents who choose to allow their children to run wild and do as they please. Parents who think their own children can do no wrong. Parents who refuse to allow any aspect of school or society to "crush their spirit" or reign them in. Parents who have fallen for the 'self esteem' line of scheisse. Parents who would rather be pals with their kids, than be the adult who requires proper behavior.

As a teacher, as a citizen, as a shopper, as a restaurant-lover, and as a parent, I know it is the parents. And for the life of me, I can't think of a single excuse that would rationalize it.

[Thumper]

Kids are rude. Parents are rude. We're all just becoming a rude little bunch of homo sapiens, and we should all be taken out and spanked.