Where do good kids come from?

I feel the urge to make comment on how we as adults view our role as parents. In todays world things seem so different and we tend to look back to the GOOD OLD DAYS to reflect. The endless summers, the warm balmy nights where the birds were singing, skipping along holding hands with our best friend, racing to get to school, the teacher standing at the front of the class telling us lovely stories, the snow that was always crisp and white, and never turned to slush etc… Yes you are right we all have selective memories regarding the past, and even trying to remember the bad things is difficult, because the hurt and anguish is diminished with time.

Things have really changed over the past 50 years and some really amazing discoveries have been made, that would have been regarded as impossible, when we were young. I think it is this selective memory and the fact that the world is a different place now, that has made it difficult to come to terms with the youth of today.

When I am talking to groups, I often get confronted with parents saying what they did when they were was the model for bringing up their children. How can this be? The world is a totally different place now and parents must adjust to make sense of the instructions they give their children. You cannot impose a rule based solely on that is what happened to you, it may have no relevance whatsoever in todays world.

One lady stood up recently and argued that she always walked to school and it did not do her any harm. On closer investigation we found out that her family did not have a car, so the fact of being taken to school in a car was never an option.

It is things like this that have to be factored into our understanding of the youth of today. When we were at school we had to learn things verbatim, because there was not an abundance of reference books, and the emphasis was put on ones ability to retain information. In todays schools they are taught to retrieve information, because it is all so accessible that there is no need to memorise bits that you have no use for.

As parents we also put so much emphasis on how our children turn out, the truth is that very little of what we do while they are growing up can be credited to how they turn out. We must understand that they are always going to do what they want to do as soon as the opportunity arises.

It makes sense then to try and get through the parenting years as easily as possible. The best education a child can have, is to be brought up in a loving family. We can teach better by example than trying to convince them of some obscure reason as to why they should do something.

It is best to be the person you want them to be. It is no good saying exercise more, if you spend your time flopping about on the couch. It is no good you displaying outrageous behaviour, and expecting your child to ignore it. Children are sponges and pick up everything that is said and done in the home. This then will be the information and programming that they will have to call on later in life.

There is no right or wrong way to bring up children, as the eternal debate about corporal punishment will testify. I certainly maintain that there must be strict guidelines that we have to impart, so that the family can live in harmony. It is strange that we have all created battlefields over tidy rooms and what time they get in, but have never sat down and talked about their views on anything. Most situations today because of the need for both parents to work are very tenuous, and therefore will take a lot of planning to try and impart YOUR views and behaviour to your children.

It is very strange that the media creates a lot of anxiety for parents, by reporting and sensationalising certain vicious crimes. We read about a child being attacked in a shopping mall and a whole industry is formed, action groups, parents making strict rules to govern their childs movements etc.. and yet young children DIE everyday as the result of drugs and parents do not even acknowledge the possibility that their child is taking drugs.

In summary I would say that we should all relax and just try and give the knowledge to our youth by our actions, and then they can do with it what they will.

Statistically successful children can come from “bad” homes and failures can come from “good” homes. It follows then that all we can do is to be the person we want them to be and let them do the rest. They will be their own person, but the reward is if you can see the knowledge you gave them being used.