Parenting and Discipline

As a parent I know first hand how difficult it is raising children. The first few years seem pretty easy. They can't talk back, they can't go anywhere unless you take them and they aren't old enough to be left alone. But as time goes by, our little babies and toddlers begin to grow and become more independent.

Are we as parents sending the right message to our kids? Are we teaching them how to behave in public, how to speak to other adults and how to follow rules? I think for the most part we do, but unfortunately there are some parents who seem to have no control of their children; they have lost it somewhere along the way.

I work in a public school and come into contact with children daily. For the most part they are well behaved and courteous. But then there are the others who seem to choose the wild side. The ones who always stay in trouble always pick fights with other students or constantly talking back to the adults at school, trying to provoke problems.

Our school has a dress code. No skirts or shorts above the knees, no low cut shirts showing cleavage, and no facial piercing and no strangely colored hair. Boys' hair should not be covering the eyes. One day about a month ago a young man, who is currently a freshman in high school, came to school with his chin pierced and he had a horn type piercing protruding from it. His hair had grown down into his eyes and he had been warned several warnings to have it cut. He removed the piercing and placed a band-aid over the piercing. He was to stay in ISS or in school suspension until his hair had been cut.

Being that I'm also a licensed hairstylist and still run a small salon from my home, the mother of this student brought him to get his hair cut. She insisted that he just get a trim, as she was teaching him how to be different. She approved of the piercing and the hair and told her son, in my presence, that when he returned to school the next day, he could tell the principal to “Kiss his ass.” I couldn't believe what I had just heard. I asked her why on earth she would allow her son to say such a thing to an authority figure. Her response was that the principal was not an authority figure and her son needed to find out who he was.

It's parents like this who are teaching our children to misbehave and show no respect to adults, whether they're authority figures or not. My question to these parents is what are you teaching them? How are they going to find a good job with no respect for authority? Every one has to follow rules, no matter who you are, or where you work, every one of us have some type of regulations we must adhere to.

She just laughed and tried to make a joke out of it. Her son was carrying on with his mother and it occurred to me, she was not being a parent, she was being a friend, something that our children don't need from us; they have friends, they need parents to set limits and rules and punish them when they are broken.

I'm not saying my children are perfect, but they know when not to cross the line. They have respect for adults, authority figures or not. We as parents must teach our children right from wrong. It's our responsibility.