Yesterday, my wife and I heard from various parents that were outraged that the entire 5th grade class was going to be forced to be quiet during lunch today due to their inability to remain quiet during picture taking sessions yesterday. Those parents were eager to get together and write a letter to the school in protest of this horrific punishment bestowed on their poor children.
Give me a break.
I don't know what happened to our generation. We coddle our children, we wrap them in protective coverings and would gladly glue styrofoam peanuts to them (if we didn't think someone would be allergic to them) to ensure their safety at all times. We think dodgeball is too tough, we think everyone should get a chance on the team, we insert ourselves into the daily education routine, we overmedicate kids when they sniffle and we cough up inordinate amounts of money to ensure well-roundedness through endless participation in activities.
I must be getting old, because I'm about to make a "When I was their age..." statement: when I was their age, if I came home and bitched about a teacher punishing us by making us be quiet for 20 minutes, my parents would say "Good! Maybe they can make it a whole day next time! Perhaps THEN all you kids would learn to behave". Underlying the issue here is an implicit assumption by parents that their children are beyond blame, always innocent and pure, beyond reproach. Forget the bad apples spoiling a good time for the bunch - my kids are untouchable.
Also pervasive in this is a group mentality among many parents that seems to breed discontent and protest that wells up like some volcano as it makes its way through the neighborhood. Rather than confront issues head on with administrators or (heavens no) challenge their children as to the veracity of their claims and whinings, many parents instead choose to intensify their anger through group chat and THEN unleash it on those unfortunate enough to have possibly implicated their children in some malfeasance.
I don't want to sound unsympathetic - I'm there to defend my kids whenever necessary - it's just that I trust teachers with years of experience within a superiour school district within which I pay dearly (in taxes) to ensure that they do just what they are doing - educate, manage, discipline, and encourage my kids to be the best they can be. I do not automatically assume that my 6 or 10 year old is giving me The Truth in every disciplinary situation. I listen, I weigh the facts, I think, and THEN I choose how to react - I don't automatically pound my shoe on the table, Kruschev-like, and attack the people in charge.
We were disciplined, perhaps not to the ruler-on-the-back-of-the-hand extent of our parents, maybe with less spanking and less yelling, but we certainly were not the over-protected, shielded bunch we are now creating. Like the bear cubs that, if raised entirely in captivity, won't know how to fend for themselves in the wild, we risk the creation of adults that won't have had serious challenges, won't have tasted disappointment or criticism and thus won't be prepared to face these things when they happen - and they WILL happen - in the real world.
Maybe all this is simply a desire to give our kids everything we might not have had. Certainly, I m happy to provide over and above for my children so that they can often get cool things, so that they will be able to attend the colleges they want, and simply so that finance doesn't get in the way of us or them achieving the goals or maintaining the life styles we desire. We try not to spoil our children, however, which leads to some interesting explanations of the value of things and of money (try explaining a home equity line of credit to a 10-year old to whom $23 in cash is a LOT of money). But we need to take a step back and let our children live their lives, experience good and bad and learn from it, not insulate them from every negative situation there could be. Safety and well-being is one thing. Creating a generation of kids in plastic bubbles is another.
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