WTF is happening to our kids?????

I've got some fairly strong opinions about these things, from ancedotal evidence from a few different sources.

First, our educations system is whacked out, IMO. We got a sheet from school for our oldest on Friday. It was one that states that 6th grade will have an AIDS education coming up soon, and by signing the form, parents could keep their kids out of it. Honestly, I don't know why a parent would want to keep their child from getting facts about something like that. It's a horrible disease, for which we have no cure yet. Anyways, as my wife was dropping the kids off at school today, she heard our daughter and her friends talking about it, and our daughter asked if she would be allowed to not take it. During the conversation, one of the other kids said that her parents signed it because "gross men get it from doing things with animals and other men." WTF? I thought we were past that and understood that this disease affects ALL walks of life!!! So, needless to say, our daighter will be attending the educational portion of this class.

I have a couple friends who have also worked with childen in various aspects. One of them was a teacher (in Harlem and at a private school, as well). She saw thigns from both sides. She saw kids in the Harlem school that couldn't afford more than one meal a day, and their clothes were falling off them, they were in such poor condition. She had kids that would fall asleep in class because they had to watch their brothers and sisters while mom was at work at night. At the private school, when parents would contact her, they would blame her for little Johnny or Jenny failing. They wouldn't look at the fact that their children were not completing assignments and paying attention in class. It was her fault for not making them learn. Forget the fact that there was little to no parental involvement, other than writing the check or looking at grades occasionally. they were not taking the responsibility for assisting in the educaton of their children.

I have another friend who was a juvenile probation officer. She had told me stories of parents calling her to ask HER why their child was not in school on a particular day. Um...isn't it the parent's responsibility to make sure their kid goes to school, and not the probation officer who has MANY kids on her caseload?

Parents seem to be more interested in being their kids friends than their parents. They care more if their child likes them or not and that they don't restrict things too much. F that!!! I'm the parent, and I honestly don't care if they "like" me. As a parent, it is my job to provide all the tools necessary for them to grow up and be a prductive member of society. That means not allowing them to watch every movie they want (they can't watch a PG-13 movie until AFTER we have seen it and determine if it's appropriate or not). They can't play mature rated or overly violent video games. We are the boss and will direct them what to do and when to do it. We will not accept backtalk...PERIOD. We've heard the threats of them saying "I'm going to tell the school" or "I'm going to call the cops." Our response is..."go ahead, I'll dial for you." I'm old school when it comes to discipline. The parents are in charge, and not the kids. You can and will have priviledges (and toys) taken away from you if you misbehave. And they will get cell phones when they have a job and can afford to pay for them on their own.

As for the violence and the tendencies that have come out unlike before, I think that there are MANY factors. The ease at which information travels now, whether it be on the internet or the news, or via cellphones. Less involvement from parents in their kids lives. They seem to care more about themselves and ignore what's going on with their kids. And then you have the "fairness movement"...What I mean by that is this: Some schools don't give out letter grades until 4th grade (WTF?!?!), because they don't want to hurt their self esteem if they get a D or an F...um sorry, no...; In little league everyone gets to bat every inning and there are no outs, and they don't keep score...again BS to me. Keep the damn score, and teach them that there ARE actually winners and losers in life. The job market and business is competitive. you will not be handed something and told "That's OK that you lost us millions of dollars, maybe you'll do better next time." I believe the best way to learn to succeed is to actually have failures in your life. Let them learn that they have to work hard to get ahead and "win" in life. And then kids are taught that they have more "rights" than they should have. Discipline has been taken away from parents. If I screwed up as a kid, I got spanked, and look at how I turned out...wait...bad example. Seriously, though, timeouts do NOT always work. Sending them to their room where they have all kids of toys and all the electronic games we never had is NOT a punishment. As a comparison, I had Coleco football and baseball, and a Speak n Spell and a Speak n Math.

And we come to the end of my rant. The main points I want to get out is that there is less parental involvement in kids lives nowadays (whether from work or other issues), and society as a whole has become more about the happiness of the child than teaching them about life and hard work and what it takes to be successful.

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