the hardest part of my job and perhaps one of the main reasons i don't want to have kids is bad parenting. i've seen what it can do to kids and it makes me furious, overwhelms me and breaks my heart. at school, i see it over and over again. i see it happening in my extended family. i see it happen in public. last night, i definitely saw it babysitting.
anita and ben had all of the pastors and their families over from their church, which meant that i was in charge of watching three boys in addition to the usual rachel and joe. they ranged in age from 9 years old (4th grade) to 3 years old (pre-school). the two brothers and their parents made my night incredibly frustrating. i think the older son who is in 1st grade (but much bigger than Joe) has some special needs. both children had marked trouble with their speech and the older one seemed to me like he had some autistic tendancies as well. he was scarily aggressive and incredibly annoying, but mainly he was just a terrible listener! he kept taking joe's gun and running all over the house. i gave them all fair warning to stop running through the house or else they were going to have to quit playing with the weapons, but he was non-responsive and then proceeded to argue with me when i caught him running again and explainged that he had broken the rules, so he would face the consequences (he could not play with the weapons anymore). he continued for the rest of the night to ask me if he could practice his aim and then to pick up the gun every time i was not looking, even though i repeatedly told him NO.
the worst part of the whole night of course happened when i went downstairs to check on rachel and to use the bathroom. as i come out of the bathroom, i hear screaming and crying from upstairs. so, i rush up there to see the younger brother crying and joe standing there with his weapon (a plastic stick) saying "all i did was turn around." upon closer observation i realize that the boy's lip/teeth are bleeding. then after further evaluation, i find older brother hiding in joe's closet with tears and an evil look in his eyes saying over and over "i hit him because he hit me first." he refused to go apologize to his younger brother or even talk to his mom about what happened. then for the next thirty minutes he kept saying things like "someone needs to help me attack my brother and get him back because he hit me." by that point his aggressiveness and odd social behavior was really starting to freak me out.
but that's not even the worst of it... back to my topic of bad parenting. to say the least, his parents made me very angry. from my first interaction with them, when anita introduced me, they were very cold. all of the other parents/adults were so kind and welcoming to me, but this mom acted like it was a burden to shake my hand, would not even speak to me, and ignored me when i was trying to talk to her son. my first encounter with the father was when the older son was running around the house. he came around to "discipline" him, but i was already in the middle of it (the second warning i was giving him to stop running). he said something like "you need to be respectful in someone else's house" and then walked away as his son ran away from him. ugh. don't even bother saying anything to a kid if you aren't serious and/or aren't going to follow through with a punishment.
then when the whole lip bleeding situation occured, the mom came upstairs to see what was wrong. she ripped the younger son out of my hands as i was trying to comfort him and yelled at me "where's the bathroom?" then she sat in the bathroom with the younger boy as i talked to her older son about why he hit his brother. she kept asking the older boy to come in there with her and he kept refusing asking her to come in there where we were. instead of doing or saying anything about his inappropriate behavior, she left him in there with me still making those aggressive comments and took her younger son downstairs to sit on her lap (as if she was proving to me that i could not handle taking care of her awful sons). then she made some comment about how they fight and hit each other every day and he was bleeding in the same spot from where older son hit him yesterday. well, dang it, lady! DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! now is it me, or is there an obvious problem here? bad parenting, bad parenting, bad parenting. i just wanted to scream it at her! i attempted to talk with the older son about how hitting is wrong, but he completely ignored me and i decided there was probably no use anyway since his parents have taught him there are no consequences for bad behavior.
now i don't want to sound self-righteous or even pretend like i know what parenting is like. i do not have children and i am not an expert, but i certainly have learned a lot of techniques for working with children through my training as a school counselor. alfred adler was a psychologist who did some research on children, birth order, parenting, and early recollections. i really like his work and if you're interested you can click here to check out some good tips on working with children. too often i see the negative impact of parenting styles on children and i wish i could give the parents a lesson on this. another simple thing i would like for all parents to understand is something that adler's colleague rudolph dreikurs took from adler's work. he said that their are four reasons why children misbehave- for attention, power, revenge or because they feel inadequate- and there are appropriate ways to deal with that misbehavior.
i think that's enough for today. i'm getting worn out even thinking about how many kids are disadvantaged because their parents don't have the basic education necessary to raise a child. it's time for me to get off my soap box :)
anita and ben had all of the pastors and their families over from their church, which meant that i was in charge of watching three boys in addition to the usual rachel and joe. they ranged in age from 9 years old (4th grade) to 3 years old (pre-school). the two brothers and their parents made my night incredibly frustrating. i think the older son who is in 1st grade (but much bigger than Joe) has some special needs. both children had marked trouble with their speech and the older one seemed to me like he had some autistic tendancies as well. he was scarily aggressive and incredibly annoying, but mainly he was just a terrible listener! he kept taking joe's gun and running all over the house. i gave them all fair warning to stop running through the house or else they were going to have to quit playing with the weapons, but he was non-responsive and then proceeded to argue with me when i caught him running again and explainged that he had broken the rules, so he would face the consequences (he could not play with the weapons anymore). he continued for the rest of the night to ask me if he could practice his aim and then to pick up the gun every time i was not looking, even though i repeatedly told him NO.
the worst part of the whole night of course happened when i went downstairs to check on rachel and to use the bathroom. as i come out of the bathroom, i hear screaming and crying from upstairs. so, i rush up there to see the younger brother crying and joe standing there with his weapon (a plastic stick) saying "all i did was turn around." upon closer observation i realize that the boy's lip/teeth are bleeding. then after further evaluation, i find older brother hiding in joe's closet with tears and an evil look in his eyes saying over and over "i hit him because he hit me first." he refused to go apologize to his younger brother or even talk to his mom about what happened. then for the next thirty minutes he kept saying things like "someone needs to help me attack my brother and get him back because he hit me." by that point his aggressiveness and odd social behavior was really starting to freak me out.
but that's not even the worst of it... back to my topic of bad parenting. to say the least, his parents made me very angry. from my first interaction with them, when anita introduced me, they were very cold. all of the other parents/adults were so kind and welcoming to me, but this mom acted like it was a burden to shake my hand, would not even speak to me, and ignored me when i was trying to talk to her son. my first encounter with the father was when the older son was running around the house. he came around to "discipline" him, but i was already in the middle of it (the second warning i was giving him to stop running). he said something like "you need to be respectful in someone else's house" and then walked away as his son ran away from him. ugh. don't even bother saying anything to a kid if you aren't serious and/or aren't going to follow through with a punishment.
then when the whole lip bleeding situation occured, the mom came upstairs to see what was wrong. she ripped the younger son out of my hands as i was trying to comfort him and yelled at me "where's the bathroom?" then she sat in the bathroom with the younger boy as i talked to her older son about why he hit his brother. she kept asking the older boy to come in there with her and he kept refusing asking her to come in there where we were. instead of doing or saying anything about his inappropriate behavior, she left him in there with me still making those aggressive comments and took her younger son downstairs to sit on her lap (as if she was proving to me that i could not handle taking care of her awful sons). then she made some comment about how they fight and hit each other every day and he was bleeding in the same spot from where older son hit him yesterday. well, dang it, lady! DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! now is it me, or is there an obvious problem here? bad parenting, bad parenting, bad parenting. i just wanted to scream it at her! i attempted to talk with the older son about how hitting is wrong, but he completely ignored me and i decided there was probably no use anyway since his parents have taught him there are no consequences for bad behavior.
now i don't want to sound self-righteous or even pretend like i know what parenting is like. i do not have children and i am not an expert, but i certainly have learned a lot of techniques for working with children through my training as a school counselor. alfred adler was a psychologist who did some research on children, birth order, parenting, and early recollections. i really like his work and if you're interested you can click here to check out some good tips on working with children. too often i see the negative impact of parenting styles on children and i wish i could give the parents a lesson on this. another simple thing i would like for all parents to understand is something that adler's colleague rudolph dreikurs took from adler's work. he said that their are four reasons why children misbehave- for attention, power, revenge or because they feel inadequate- and there are appropriate ways to deal with that misbehavior.
i think that's enough for today. i'm getting worn out even thinking about how many kids are disadvantaged because their parents don't have the basic education necessary to raise a child. it's time for me to get off my soap box :)
1 Comments:
In spite of what you think, I believe that you would make a wonderful parent! Not just because I want more grandchildren, but because you are so good with kids and are patient and know what helps them and what hurts them. You must have learned something along the way somewhere--probably from all of those psychology courses.
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