It is a scientific fact that children are born smarter than their parents.
It's evolution and there's nothing we can do about it.
It is also a fact that our society today is in a downfall. Moral values, basic manners and education are almost an extinct concept.
Who are we to blame for this? Ourselves.
However there's always time to rectify this and start making corrections.
We as human beings are part of a society. We live among other human beings, and as a society there are certain rules we need to follow to be able to live in harmony.
We also live in a “new age” era, where manners are considered a way of the past.
Let me ask you something, what is it about the past that we don't like? I remember I was taught that when I called a friend I had to say “good evening, may I please speak to…” now a day there's no respect. Kids call their friends and no matter who answers the phone it's a simple “is Monica there?”, what was so bad about the way we were taught?
Or what was so bad about standing up when an older person came into the room and say hi?
These manners are slowly getting lost and we are allowing it by not educating our children.
Life has become more complicated, the concept of a “stay at home mom” is almost gone, because we as mothers also need to work to help with living expenses. But have we become so lazy and tired as to teach our children the basics? These children are the ones you will later complain when you are slammed by a door at a grocery store because the teen ager before you couldn't hold it for you. But it won't be his fault. It will be ours…for not teaching them how to behave towards others.
How To
This doesn't require an etiquette seminar. All you need to do is to remember what you were taught and if you weren't then think of how you would like to see your kids behave towards others. You have to teach them. They are not born knowing this.
Start with basics, like saying Please and Thank you.
Teach your children how to respect adults.
How to say hi and goodbye when they enter a place. Teach your kids friends.
Teach them how to hold a door for an adult if they are going in first.
Teach them how to answer a phone and give a proper answer.
The problem in our society today is that adults are too lazy to teach their children about respect. This doesn't mean you have to beat them up to do so. Start by respecting your child. Respecting their ideas. Don't laugh at them when you hear their opinions. Correct them if you think they are not right. We as parents are teachers. The most important education our kids will get will not come out of school, but what we teach them at home.
Build their self esteem, praise them, and support them. Believe in them.
Disciplining Your Child
Discipline doesn't mean getting physical with your children.
It means calling them on their mistakes and wrongdoings.
They need to understand why a certain conduct or action is not right. Talk to them, and use alternative punishments like: not allowing them to watch their favorite TV show, taking away their video games for a while, time out, taking their phone privileges, taking their weekly allowance away, not letting them go to the party they have been waiting for, etc.
We need to teach our children at a very early age that their actions have consequences. The worse consequence should be in the list I mentioned above, and not jail, or ending up as another statistic.
We as parents are responsible for what we teach our children and how we teach them.
Take the time out of your busy day to correct their actions, but to also show them how much you love them and care that they become good people.
Open a channel of communication with them. Let them know they can always come to you if they need to. Get to know their friends. Let their friends know that they too can come to you if they need to.
If all of us start doing our part, we should be seeing less and less of kids shooting kids, kids engaging in gang actions, kids killing people.
Think about it, and take the time to do it. It's time well spent and worth it.
