Post by stavros on Mar 15, 2010 16:01:39 GMT 1
I take a much more simplistic view, which revolves around the concept of equating rights with responsibilities.
Too often these days, you hear kids saying "I've got the right to...", and claiming things as "rights" which should in fact be privileges. It seems apparent that many parents give their kids everything that the kids claim as of right, instead of teaching these youngsters that they should display a sense of responsibility to earn their privileges.
When I was a kid, pocket-money was a privilege which could be compromised, in part or totally, by bad behaviour.
The other Friday my grand-daughter asked me if she "had the right" to have pop-corn that weekend. I explained to her that when she came home with a good conduct sheet with only 'green points' she earned the privilege of pop-corn. If she came home with an orange point, she would see privileges restricted, if it was two orange points, further restrictions, such as no cartoons on Saturday, etc. She's a fast learner...
It's a slow learning curve. If children have consistent discipline from an early age, with praise ("positive reinforcement") for their achievements, and progressive sanctions for bad behaviour, they gradually learn discipline which by puberty should be turning into self discipline.
At the beginning of her first year of primary school, back in September, she often 'forgot' to put her exercise book and schoolbook into her satchel, for her (only ten minutes) homework. We taught her that she was responsible for making sure she had her books before leaving her desk at 4:30. When she 'forgot' - by accident or design? - we gave her a half hour of copying words and learning them, based on previous lessons.
Compare this with parents who say "That's very naughty, and if you do it again, (description of proposed sanction)", then the next time it's "We've already told you that's naughty, and next time..." The battle has been lost.
We should start early, equating privilege with responsibility, rights with duties, and offences with sanctions. There should be a sense of proportion between the two sides - would you shoot your young puppy for peeing on the front door mat? Should you beat a child for forgetting a school book?
Unfortunately, there are parents who have never learnt the relationship between rights and duties, who are dysfunctional adults and who pass this dysfunctionality on to their children, and in the most extreme cases we see the press howling their righteous indignation over a John Venables, who was quite possibly beyond salvage at the time he killed the Bolger child.
Yet who was to blame? Venables, who's whole childhood conditioning created a sociopath? Or the family responsible for his conditioning?
LiF seems to be saying that somehow, it's the government's fault. Well, many of us will probably agree that government bears a large responsibility for the socio-cultural change in society where in many areas large swathes of the population are "benefits families" who seem to believe that society should support them. We must also recognise that they are not a majority (yet!) in spite of media scaremongering, and most of us understand that our society is an equation between rights & duties, privileges & responibilities, and eventually, crime & punishment.
So for me, bottom line is, each of us is responsible for his own acts, even if some of us haven't been taught this.
Too often these days, you hear kids saying "I've got the right to...", and claiming things as "rights" which should in fact be privileges. It seems apparent that many parents give their kids everything that the kids claim as of right, instead of teaching these youngsters that they should display a sense of responsibility to earn their privileges.
When I was a kid, pocket-money was a privilege which could be compromised, in part or totally, by bad behaviour.
The other Friday my grand-daughter asked me if she "had the right" to have pop-corn that weekend. I explained to her that when she came home with a good conduct sheet with only 'green points' she earned the privilege of pop-corn. If she came home with an orange point, she would see privileges restricted, if it was two orange points, further restrictions, such as no cartoons on Saturday, etc. She's a fast learner...
It's a slow learning curve. If children have consistent discipline from an early age, with praise ("positive reinforcement") for their achievements, and progressive sanctions for bad behaviour, they gradually learn discipline which by puberty should be turning into self discipline.
At the beginning of her first year of primary school, back in September, she often 'forgot' to put her exercise book and schoolbook into her satchel, for her (only ten minutes) homework. We taught her that she was responsible for making sure she had her books before leaving her desk at 4:30. When she 'forgot' - by accident or design? - we gave her a half hour of copying words and learning them, based on previous lessons.
Compare this with parents who say "That's very naughty, and if you do it again, (description of proposed sanction)", then the next time it's "We've already told you that's naughty, and next time..." The battle has been lost.
We should start early, equating privilege with responsibility, rights with duties, and offences with sanctions. There should be a sense of proportion between the two sides - would you shoot your young puppy for peeing on the front door mat? Should you beat a child for forgetting a school book?
Unfortunately, there are parents who have never learnt the relationship between rights and duties, who are dysfunctional adults and who pass this dysfunctionality on to their children, and in the most extreme cases we see the press howling their righteous indignation over a John Venables, who was quite possibly beyond salvage at the time he killed the Bolger child.
Yet who was to blame? Venables, who's whole childhood conditioning created a sociopath? Or the family responsible for his conditioning?
LiF seems to be saying that somehow, it's the government's fault. Well, many of us will probably agree that government bears a large responsibility for the socio-cultural change in society where in many areas large swathes of the population are "benefits families" who seem to believe that society should support them. We must also recognise that they are not a majority (yet!) in spite of media scaremongering, and most of us understand that our society is an equation between rights & duties, privileges & responibilities, and eventually, crime & punishment.
So for me, bottom line is, each of us is responsible for his own acts, even if some of us haven't been taught this.