With the world passing by I sometimes sit back and think about what it was like when I was a child ( I am talking about the sixties!) and what is happening now. I mean family life, childhood, relationships etc. I somehow feel that the predicaments we are now in have all been bought about because either we have let our children down or, we as parents have been let down.
When I was younger, I was treated as a child, bought up in a very family orientated environment and treated fairly and consistently as was my two sisters. I was taught right from wrong by my parents - praised when I did right and disciplined when I did wrong ( if I did wrong I got a smack!) This was when one parent or the other took you and collected you from school and between those times you was looked after in a school where fairness and consistency was paramount in terms of education, discipline and welfare of the children. This was because schoolteachers commanded respect and was allowed to do their job without the constraints that are placed on them now.
Everything was fine until somebody came up with the idea of giving children “rights.” SOMEWHERE IN THE EIGHTIES WE LOST IT!
Did you know that now technically, schoolteachers are unable to physically stop a child leaving school, when the child gets home we as parents are physically unable to stop them going out of the house again and what is worse is the police can do little more than bring them back home again! This is because “CHILDREN HAVE RIGHTS.”
What we have got now is children that have got power at their fingertips and I am talking about 9 year olds plus threatening to tell the teacher at school if you discipline them because it is considered better to make them sit in a quite place to think about what they have done wrong (If I had the choice I know what type of discipline I would have preferred and would not have thought it a deterrent!) Children are forced to grow up too quickly and make decisions bought about by peer pressure through what they are taught at school- again my nine year old son has been told at school about different types of relationships, that's why “Gay boy” seems to be the favourite name at the moment. These are children that you years ago joined cubs/ brownies and were earning badges for doing bob a job and was considered a thoughtful young person when helping old people cross the road- not crossing them to earn a treat which, it appears is the best way to teach good behaviour now.
I wonder if those old values applied now would have the same effect on the teenagers of today? Or that the old discipline methods adopted today would be as successful as it was in the sixties? One thing is for sure, the dog doesn't wag the tail now and when you see the ever increasing instances of knife crime, gang warfare and drug crimes amongst teenagers you have to consider who has been let down.
