This goes for what is right and what is wrong as much as it does for French, Math and Backgammon. (My 9 year old is almost getting as good as me at Backgammon, which scares me).
But it doesn’t scare me as much as the information in this post by Steve Janke. I highly urge you all to read it and the comment from Correctional Grunt.
The Supreme Court of Canada, in a judgment sure to spark political controversy, has refused to boost the sentence of one day in jail for a Winnipeg teenager who beat a man to death with a billiard ball wrapped in a sock.
In a 7-0 ruling Thursday, the court said the Youth Criminal Justice Act, as currently written, doesn’t allow for increasing a sentence just to send a get-tough message to the public.
Steve’s post goes on about the “get out of jail free” aspect that aboriginal Canadian youth have. I would like to add to this by noting that we are all letting the youth of today off with a free pass in many more ways than just murder, although letting them get away with murder just sounds priceless. This article at CFRA’s website has some interesting info on how we treat underage drinkers who put, not only themselves, but others at risk.
Two young men are in hospital being treated for alcohol poisoning after a grad party got a bit out of hand in Gatineau last night.
Firefighters were called with reports of a fire in some bush at the end of McDermott Avenue around 11:30.
They found more than a hundred young people gathered around a bonfire.
Paramedics say two of them had to be sent to hospital.
Gatineau Police say they had no problems getting the other kids to head home.
(Bolded highlighting mine)
They just dispersed the crowd. These “kids” were drinking in a public place. They had open alcohol, and it was very likely many of them were underage. They had a bonfire going in the middle of the woods. Like that’s safe. And they were just dispersed with no repurcussions.
How can we expect our kids to grow up understanding that bad behaviour has bad consequences? I can just see a conversation at the bush party now.
Fireman: You kids better get going.
Drunk Teen 1: Awww, bummer. We can’t enjoy our drunk with the fire?
Fireman: No, you should hop on your bicycles and ride home.
Drunk Teen 1: Bike? Ha!. Hey Joe, how many fingers am I holding up?
Drunk Teen 2: Tree?
Drunk Teen 1: Two, close enough. You drive. Take me home.
At minimum these kids should have had the cops called on them and the authorities should have administered breathalyzers and anyone with ANY alcohol level who was underage should have been tossed into the back of a cop car, hauled off to the local holding cell and made to wait until their parents came and picked them up. The rest should have been ticketed and forced to go get buckets of water and put the bonfire out.
When my son does something (for example) like leaving a cabinet door open, instead of closing it for him, I get his ass up from whatever he was doing, make him climb up the stairs or down the stairs and close it. The inconvenience is a big part of the learning curve for children. Make it a bit tougher on them to do the wrong thing and they will start doing the right thing.
Yes, it would be far less painful for me to simply close the cabinet than it is to repeatedly get them off their duffs and deal with their aggravation, but if we make the wrong way the easy way, they will always do it. By making the right way the easier way, they will learn the difference between right in wrong. In this example, close the cabinet when they are done taking what they need out of it.
You might call me a hardass, but I’ll be damned if my kids don’t grow up with good manners, good habits, good work ethics, and most importantly a good sense for right and wrong.
Because that sense for what is right and wrong will let them deal with the numerous situations they will face in life which we as parents cannot predict.
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“The inconvenience is a big part of the learning curve for children.”
It’s not just their inconvienence, it’s your’s. I get the impression nowadays that most parents couldn’t be bothered to go to the trouble.
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Peter, you are dead right. But that is part of being a parent. You can’t be your kids best friend all the time and it IS a full time job keeping them in line. They may resent you at times. In fact, I KNOW my kids resent me now and then.
This is where the love factor comes in. You have to love being with your kids. You have to make the good times outnumber the resentable situations by a mile. Rent a movie and watch with them, play a board game with them, go shoot a few hoops with them, take them for a swim, enjoy an afternoon at the park every week or two, teach them to whistle, watch a TV show they like with them and get to KNOW it because there is a lot of trash out there. One of my favourite things to do is to let my daughter push the cart at the grocery store. She loves it and it makes sure she stays close at hand.
You notice the above items are all pretty much free or under $5, so it doesn’t have to be expensive. Once in awhile splurge on that cotton candy at a local community fair, or take them to an amusement park, or pull that quarter out at the store and get them something from the gumball machine once in awhile.
Just make sure the good fun outnumbers the resentable situations and they will respect your choice to discipline them far more than if you just yell at them and tell them when they are wrong.