By now I’m sure many of you are well aware of ‘The Bus Monitor‘ , Karen Klein, from Greece, New York (click the link to watch the clip). If you haven’t already watched the video, then be forewarned that you should excuse yourself from the presence of everyone and be prepared to bleach your ears (with an all natural bleach alternative, of course)– the language these children use will make your nerves bleed….
What does this say about our children, and society as a whole? When Kelsi and I watched this verbal slaughter I immediately said, ‘What happened to the little girls?’ … I remember when I was in grade school and we would go on field trips, all of the little girls would flock to the female teachers, surround them, and listen to the goofy stories that the older women delighted in telling youngsters. Here the girls are just as scathing as the boys… What happened to our children? What happened to the art of parenting?…
In my article about Parental Burnout I noted that, ‘How your children act is not just a reflection on them, but it is also a reflection on you.’ Granted, children will be children, and we cannot be responsible for the decisions they make. But, we cannot forget that decisions never stand alone exclusively. Decisions are always made in a chain, build upon one another, and play into the other decisions along the chain.
There are a tremendous amount of extremes highlighted in this video… To name a few:
-The treatment of elders
-Foul language
-Peer pressure
-Selfishness
When our children reach such an extreme as these kids did you cannot excuse the parents. The decision chain was never put into check – this should have been cut off at the first few links, and that is the parents’ fault.
If you haven’t been following this story, be aware that most (actually as far as I know all) of the parents of these children have said that their kids have been “through enough”. This video went viral and has humiliated their kids…. what they forget is…. the kids are the ones who recorded it and posted it online, to further humiliate Ms. Klein. These parents need to take a long hard look at the decisions the kids made that led them to conclude: ‘This is a great idea!‘…
As I am always stressing, we are constantly training our kids. We need to train them to self govern. This is a prime example of selfish governance and a parental FAIL. When we are faced with the reality that our kids messed up big time, and it was a lack of training on our part, we have to stop and make some very personal and honest conclusions. Where along my decision chain did I mess up? Did I excuse rebellion as independence? Did I call ‘bossiness’ leadership? Did I call ‘the child with no boundaries’ ‘Free’ instead of ‘uncontrolled’?
Let’s face it, at some point we are all going to see our kids make some bad decisions. The issue then becomes…. where do we go from here? How do I bring it back to ‘Imperfect Parents Perfectly Parenting Imperfect Kids’?…. I have heard plenty of wonderful suggestions on the fate of these youngsters. What are your suggestions (real, honest, helpful suggestions)? And Why? What would you do, or what have you done to ‘Perfectly Parent’ an utter parental FAIL? How did you bring it back to an instructional event and set your child on the right path?
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This post has been linked to Welcome Home Linkup at Raising Arrows, Better Mom Mondays at The Better Mom, Titus 2 Tuesdays at Cornerstone Confessions, What Works Wednesdays at Upside Down Homeschooling, Women Living Well
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