For children to survive for the first years of life, they need a parent or another adult to assist them. Street children in third-world countries are exceptions to this rule. They join with other street kids as early as four years old so they can survive but in ways that would horrify others. Begging and living in sewers should not happen in our modern world, although children can survive thinking like adults well before their years.
Modern children are placed in daycare or preschools as early as infants and often by three years old. These children are taught some academic and socialization skills but often need to be trained by caregivers. Often the preschool staff teaches children to listen better to them than to their parents. For the most part, working parents feel some guilt for leaving their children with others while they are working or relaxing, but it has become part of our culture.
Modern parents smother their guilt by pampering their children. This translates into ignoring misbehavior and giving the child everything they demand. Usually, the parent’s only power is derived from bribing their children to motivate them to do what the parent wants.
Parents’ indulgence is a poison pill. It may do the job in the short term, but it reinforces in the child’s mind that parents can be easily manipulated to give them what they want. The child understandably begins to believe the parent will be there for them through adulthood, believing parents will always provide for them.
This is obviously impossible. As parents get older, they have less energy and a greater desire to fulfill their own dreams. Not many years ago, children in the extended family saw their parents caring for grandparents. This tradition has rapidly shrunk, with senior citizens living in assisted living facilities and mothers working. Today’s children are shielded from the reality of the aging process through modern cosmetics and a culture that emphasizes youthfulness.
Modern children are being cheated. Their grandparents and parents will eventually die, and they will be left alone and expected to care for themselves. These “middle-aged children” are unprepared adults who will need a crash course in taking on major responsibilities or may feel like failures for not helping take care of significant people in their life.
Today’s children have been provided with their own phones, computers to play games before they can read, and whatever else they demand without having to earn it. They have incredibly high false esteem without having to earn that, either. In fact, they have not earned anything but were given everything. These children have everything except an understanding of what will happen in their future life.
They are totally dependent on the adults in the family to meet their wishes. They have never learned to work to meet their own needs. Perseverance to gain one’s wants has not been demonstrated or taught. The modern child’s dependency on their parent to buy them happiness has prevented them from becoming independent problem solvers and doers. They are victims of short-sighted parents.
The future of these children is bleak. They are not trained to be doers, only takers. Without adults giving them challenging jobs or projects they need to do to earn what they want, there is no chance of them succeeding in a complicated, modern society. Their inability to comprehend what it takes to be grown up is criminal.
Modern children are victims of a culture that has rejected reliable, traditional methods of teaching them to be independent. Modern parents are not devising new ways of preparing children to prosper as adults in our economy. Government agencies may attempt to assist these self-centered adults with large tax-dollar programs that will encourage more young people to accept the socialistic government as an extension of their parents’ overindulgence.
Parents need to say “no” to children’s pleas and demands by setting appropriate limits. This is primarily the job of caring and realistic parents who want to prepare their children for life without them. Instead, they should teach children how to develop skills in the home: gardening, cooking, cleaning, putting things back in their place, planning, building, and especially helping others whenever possible.
These traditional childhood chores should be required of youngsters to assist them in functioning as adolescents and adults. Keeping offspring as helpless invalids in their later stage of life is unfair to the individual’s future self-worth. Everyone should be given the tools to care for themselves and to give back to others.
Domenick Maglio, PhD. is a columnist carried by various newspapers and blogs, an author of several books and owner/director of Wider Horizons School, a college prep program. Dr. Maglio is an author of weekly newspaper articles, INVASION WITHIN and the latest book entitled, IN CHARGE PARENTING In a PC World. You can see many of Dr. Maglio’s articles at www.drmaglioblogspot.com.
