Monday, September 10, 2012

Parenting (Part II)

Signs of over-parenting are not only when mom or dad are involved in every aspect of their children’s development, but also when they bail their kids out when things go wrong. For example, a mom will call a professor or teacher to change a grade their son or daughter received. Over-parented children do not know how to survive in the real world since mom and dad did everything for them. As a result, they are not self-aware and lack responsibility and character. These children are often spoiled and do not have to do chores or a job and often live at home after college. They are isolated and do not want to stray too far from home for college or employment. What is frightening is that these children are the future leaders of the United States. If compromise and progress are non-existent in our government today, it certainly will not be any better once this over-parented generation moves into power. In fact, things will get worse because over parented children’s personalities are amongst the weakest in terms of good leadership skills. They will not be good politicians, managers, or parents because they lack the essential personality and mental qualities to be successful. Although these individuals have opsimath personalities in terms of learning and education, their success lies in whether or not their personalities can change and overcome all the negatives outlined above.

The so called experts refer to this generation of over-parented children as “Generation Y”. This is the generation of children where they are all rewarded with a trophy. Nobody ever loses and everyone is a winner. That sounds great, but does this really prepare children for the real world? Absolutely not! This leaves these children ill prepared to deal with everyday occurrences when they are adults. They are unable to cope with anyone with differing view points. Therefore, they cannot resolve conflicts or have the ability to compromise because their egos have been reinforced throughout their childhood that they are a winner and always right. Thus, they lack self-awareness to realize every action of their being is all about gratifying their self at the expense of everyone else.

Poor parenting can also lead to other dysfunctional human characteristics. The crux of the super ego problem is accountability. Children growing up today are not being held accountable for their actions. We live in a society of excuses. A super ego is developed when people grow up never seeming to make a mistake because there was always an excuse; hence, they were never held accountable for misbehaving. Children who are not held accountable in their youth get progressively worse the older they get until they have a full-fledged super ego. For example, today there seems to be a medical excuse for just about any bad behavior. It is okay if someone is anti-social and does not know how to play with others because they have a medical excuse of being depressed. If someone is a daydreamer, it is not their fault because they have ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Most of these disorders usually have medications that can help alleviate the problem, but it is probably debatable how effective they are. Besides, these drugs usually have side effects that create other problems. Many of our kids are filled with so many drugs their bodies are probably confused and do not work properly. The bottom line is that children are not disciplined and are not held accountable for being disruptive or for inappropriate behavior. Discipline has been taken out of the schools because they are afraid of lawsuits. So the responsibility of discipline resides with the family. Families are not going to discipline their kids if they feel they have a medical excuse. Many parents are not around to witness their children’s behavior. This is something that has to change, but unfortunately, this problem does not have an optimistic outlook. First, most parents are oblivious, and second, no one has the authority to tell parents how to raise their kids. Hence, nothing will change. A step in the right direction would be to have at least one parent stay at home and raise their kids.

My Book: Is America Dying? (Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com)

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