[dropcap]I[/dropcap]magine being at a restaurant eating out with some friends or family and a kid between the ages of 5 and 10 walks up to you and calls you stupid. You then go and talk to the parent of that child and they are also really disrespectful and think that their kid did nothing wrong. Then there is another kid who is really nice and compliments you. Then you go talk to their parents and guess what they are also really nice. See the correlation? Parents who are derogatory and disrespectful often pass down those manners onto their children which causes them to act similarly.

Transfer of authority

The transfer of authority from parents to kids. Kids today are now the more dominant person in the relationship with their parents. In the article “The collapse of parenting” The threat “no dessert until you eat your broccoli” has now become “how about you eat three bites of your broccoli then you can have dessert?” Asking a question instead of a demand lets the child believe that he or she is in control of the situation. Dr. Leonard Sax a family physician and psychologist says parents now are uncomfortable being the alpha or the decision maker. This leads to children being able to take the role that the parent is supposed to have because the parent doesn’t want to be in that position. Children are becoming more disrespectful more than ever.

A mother took her ten-year-old son to the doctor because he said that he had a stomach ache. The boy was sitting on his phone while the mother was talking to the doctor then the boy cut in and said, “shut up mom, you don’t know what you are talking about” and laughed. The mother just sat there looking embarrassed and did nothing to the child. When a child’s parents don’t do anything when the kid misbehaves they assume they can continue to do what was wrong.

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Family Upbringing

The way a child acts all starts at home. Children look up to their parents and their older siblings and they want to follow in their footsteps whether or not they are good. In the article “Why Crime Runs in the Family”, the Bogles is a family known for crime, they have had over 60 family members who have been Incarcerated, placed on probation or parole. Tracey Bogle, who served a sixteen-year sentence for kidnapping, armed robbery, assault, car theft, and sexual assault stated, “What you are raised with, you grow to become. “Tracey’s father Rooster took his kids to peek in on the prison near where they lived and told them, “this is where you will live when you grow up.” If a child is raised to misbehave in public then that is how they will act. If a Child is raised to be good and respectful they will do what they have been taught. If parents are the ones in control of how they teach their kids to act then it should be their fault for the way that child acts.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“What you are raised with, you grow to become.”[/perfectpullquote]

Punishment plays a severe role in the way that a child behaves. Parents need to be consistent with their punishments and must follow through with their rules and consequences that they set up for the child. If the child is not punished frequently they will foresee that their parents won’t punish them in the future and they will continue to do the wrong things. Discipline helps children learn to control their behavior and teaches them from right and wrong.

It’s Not the Parents Fault

It is so easy to focus on what others when something goes wrong. This is because people rarely take responsibility for their actions anymore. Parents find it very hard to let their child struggle through the negative experiences in their life so they will end up blaming themselves saying stuff like,  “If I hadn’t had to work as much, maybe my son wouldn’t be so angry. Maybe he wouldn’t get into fights like he does. He tells me all the time it’s my fault and maybe he’s right.” This is just the natural reaction because they do not want the negative stuff to impact the child.

Children and teens are their own people and not their parents’ pet, they should not be controlled and they should not be expected to never misbehave.

The age of the child depends greatly on how they act. Young children ages 1-3 have outbursts and it is very hard to control them when they have these outbursts.  Also, teenagers should be mature enough to make their own decisions when they are out in public and it is not the parent’s fault because the teenager is in control of themselves.

Kids are their parent’s responsibility

Children who by definition are not responsible for themselves must be considered the responsibility of their own parents. Parents of children who’s actions upset society should be held accountable for their child’s actions because if the parent does not take responsibility for their child’s actions then they end up promoting this kind of behavior for the child. The child will learn from his or her parents that is okay to not take responsibility for their actions which causes them to start playing the blame game. This leads to them becoming unruly because they think that nothing is their fault. For example when you get pulled over for speeding you never say “I deserve this ticket.” most people make an excuse like, “I didn’t see the speed limit sign” or “ I was going with the flow of traffic.” Children do the same thing when they get in trouble and if a parent lets that go by and they don’t punish the child then they will continue to make excuses and they will continue to misbehave in public.

Image By Nick Youngson

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