Parenting: Are they creating a generation of teenage time bombs?

From Daily Telegraph

The Julie Myerson family drama is a wake-up call to all who believe in benign parenting.

Can there be a parent in the country who isn't chilled to the marrow watching the Myerson family implode so very publicly? The sight of such ordinary middle-class people locked in the sort of internecine warfare more usually associated with The Jeremy Kyle Show is a wake-up call to every mother and father in the land.

The Myersons were plunged into a state of despair and fear when their eldest child Jake's drug use destabilised family life, that they threw out their volatile and violent son in a bid to safeguard his two younger siblings. In her controversial new book, The Lost Child, Myerson documents the pain, shock and sadness as her domestic life fell so messily apart.

The rights and wrongs of whether Myerson should have published (she has certainly been damned for it) have become something of a side issue. What she has succeeded in doing is lifting the lid off our darkest fear, that through our own well-intentioned but wishy-washy parenting, we are creating a generation of teenage timebombs.

"I wish you weren't my parents! I want to live with Phoebe's parents. At least they respect her."

As the door slams behind my furious six-year-old daughter (yes, that's six, not 16) I am left wondering what on earth I'm supposed to do next. I have no idea. Should I run after her, rugby-tackle her on the stairs and demand she acquiesce to whatever request I had made – to hang up her coat perhaps, or tidy away her toy farm? Quite possibly, but I haven't the energy, or, if I'm honest, the will.

I stand as guilty as the next modern parent of believing that benign is best, and if the price to be paid is picking up a few handfuls of 1:32 scale Friesians, then so be it. My daughter is generally a sunny, sweet child, so why make a fuss when she throws an occasional strop?

Yet there remains a nagging suspicion that my generation of parents has got the balance wrong and that, far from our reasonable boundaries being adhered to by our hopefully reasonable children, we are in fact in danger of storing up a host of problems in years to come by treating our children so democratically now.

[...] A good start: five golden rules for raising children

1 Love. From the moment they’re born and until they’re fully grown, children need to know that their parents really care for them. In the words of developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner, “Someone’s got to be crazy about that kid. That’s number one. First, last and always.”

2 Discipline. Children need to learn the ropes of day-to-day family life, how to behave beyond the home, and how to abide by the necessary rules of institutions. Adults must set clear boundaries.

3 Play. Active, imaginative, social play is essential (not sedentary, screen-based entertainment). It is unstructured, preferably outdoors and doesn’t need adult control.

4 Communication. This starts with a 'dance of communication’ between parent and babe-in-arms, usually accompanied by babytalk. As they grow into the teenage years, children need loving adults to talk to them, and opportunities to talk (and listen) to friends during play.

5 Given these four essential foundations, almost every child should be able to take advantage of education, starting with literacy. But this doesn’t need to start too soon. It is generally agreed that, until the age of six or seven, it’s better to prepare the ground for learning through play and opportunities for spoken language.

The rest, here.

I have young relatives now, 2 and 2 1/2 respectively and I can already tell they are going to be serious problems.

If six-year-olds are already slamming doors we might imagine what kind of future awaits.
Rose, if you can see that, those relatives will give you hell when they are 8, or 9, or... :scr

And we are already dealing with an entire generation of spoiled teens right now, too.

Oh, Sang, I'm staying as far away as possible.

Quote
Rose Red
Oh, Sang, I'm staying as far away as possible.

Well done Rose, we are never far enough from those monsters...

Lady, go after that brat, put her over your knee and whap her ass a few times. Then make her do whatever it was that you wanted her to do. If she mouths off to you, rinse, lather and repeat.