One of the things that I love about this time of year is watching the Twilight Zone marathon. As I was watching yesterday afternoon, there was an interesting episode, titled It's a Good Life.
It was the story of a six-year-old boy who did not like it if people thought "bad thoughts" about him. He destroyed anyone or anything that he didn't like, or caused him any upset. No matter what bad thing he did, including hurting animals, he was told "That's a good thing you did."
Reminds me a lot of kids and parents today. Parents tiptoe around their kids, afraid to cause them any bad feelings. If a child never feels bad about it when he does wrong or hurts someone, he won't be a very pleasant individual to be around, to say the least. Some "parenting experts" have written that parents shouldn't make kids feel bad about their misbehavior. How about that? I wonder if they really believe that? Who in society does not feel bad about hurting others? Sociopaths! Sociopaths feel no empathy, no remorse, no shame.
Sometimes we have to make children feel bad about their misbehavior. Ignoring the misbehavior isn't helpful to them, or to society. Parents have an obligation to raise their children to benefit society. By not doing so, we run the risk of turning kids into little monsters. And little monsters grow up to be big monsters.
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2 comments:
True story: After that episode aired, any time a Twilight Zone crew member screwed up on the set, everybody else would say, "It's good you did that!" Which has nothing to do with the point of this blog, it's just a funny story.
Which parenting experts were you thinking of?
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