Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled

I read an interesting article by Jeff Zaslow the other day in the Wall Street Journal. I must say that I agree with some of what Jeff says in the article. If you too would like to read it, just click on this link: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118358476840657463.html?mod=blog

As the Author, Founder and President of the Parenting with Dignity Foundation and keeping in mind what we have created is a nine-week curriculum that teaches parenting skills, I was interested to read what he had to say about the manner in which children act in today's world. Our curriculum is based upon the unavoidable truth that children will make all of the big decisions in their own lives! In order to have the ability to make great decisions for themselves children must be taught HOW to make good decisions.

Finding Fault Bears Little Fruit

However, I am not quite as willing to blame everything that has gone wrong in the raising of American children on Mr. Rogers. I believe very strongly that our culture has such a distorted view of what the term Self-Esteem means that in two books and nine hours of video I rarely, if ever, even use the term! I agree with the Jeff Zaslow that many parents, educators, child psychologists, and others working with children today believe that they can create high self-esteem in their children by some artificial means of unfounded praise and by using terms like “special”.

That being said, I doubt that few parents learned their distorted view of what it takes to raise a self-directed and self-confident child from some guy in a sweater on a kid’s television program. Even if Mr. Rogers did overuse the term “special”, any application or misapplication of that concept in any family required a decision to do so on the part of the parents!

I believe that far too many adults in America speak of the younger generation as if they had nothing to do with them!

Pointing a finger of blame at some fellow on TV borders upon being ludicrous. Pointing the finger of blame at anyone, for that matter, is equally useless. The purpose of my statements here is not to point the finger of blame at anyone

Children Usually Do what They Have Been Taught

The truth of the matter is that most children do just about exactly what we taught them to do, and they give us just about exactly what we are willing to accept.

The burden of responsibility for how children act today lies directly upon the shoulders of the parents who raised them! Jeff Zaslow, the author of that article, seems to be simply jumping on the bandwagon and attempting to point out what is wrong with kids. But to me that is the problem... he gives almost no mention of even a possible solution. To him I would reply, “If you see a problem and you are not a part of the solution; you are one of the biggest part of the problem!”

A Solution
I firmly believe that the solution to the well identified problem outlined by Jeff Zaslow, lies in teaching parents HOW to teach their children to make good decisions for themselves!

Teaching children morals, values, ethics, and spiritual beliefs for use in making big and important decisions is the key.

The problem is that “orchestrating successful outcomes” for children early in life without teaching them how to make the decisions that result in those outcomes is fruitless. This is not Mr. Roger’s fault. It does not even matter who is at fault. Fixing blame rarely results in any meaningful change.

Solving the Problem is the Key Issue!

Education of parents is the critical action that will result in a change in the decisions and attitudes of the children of our nation and of the world. We must teach children how to make great decisions!

So many parents have accepted the fallacy that it is what they, the parents, know that will protect and guide their children and that is simply not true. It is what the children know and use to make decisions that will result in positive outcomes for those children. Whether the parent spanks their children or praises them is really of little consequence; it is what they teach them that results in the positive outcomes for the child.

Parenting with Dignity does just that! Parenting with Dignity does just that… it acknowledges that children will make all of the big decisions in their lives so, the curriculum gives simple and behaviorally described techniques for parents to use in teaching their children how to make big good decisions.

Parenting Classes in Prisons? Why?

Parenting Classes in Prisons

A remarkable woman, who is intensely interested in parenting issues, recently contacted me about our well established DVD Parenting with Dignity Curriculum. This lady is the dedicated mother of an inmate in the New York State Corrections system. Her son is a fine young man who made one terrible mistake!

She tells me that recently the State of New York has made a rather significant change in the direction of incarceration from being mostly a punitive system to one that is aiming at rehabilitation. I commend New York State for this change. Parenting with Dignity is quite active in some other Correctional Facilities in a number of other states that also have a similar rehabilitative approach toward incarceration. Many of these institutions offer a wide variety of programs for inmates to earn the right to attend educational curriculum which offer huge opportunities for inmates to profit greatly from their time in prison. (This lady's son is now pursuing a college degree via correspondence while he is serving his time.)

PW Has Success in a Prison Setting

The directors of Educational Programs of many of those other institutions tell us that our Parenting with Dignity Curriculum is very positively received by their inmate populations. They tell us that our Parenting with Dignity Curriculum is about the only program they can put on a DVD player and leave the room; and then upon return, the participants are either still watching intently or have stopped the DVD, and are discussing the material presented! As a matter of fact a number of the prisons are running our program as a peer-run and peer-facilitated curriculum!

Our Well Designed and Extremely "User-Friendly" Website

If you would like to see a little bit about what we do, our website is: http://www.parentingwithdignity.com/. If you do visit our particularly well designed website, I would like to suggest that you place your pointer over the word HOME in the Menu across the top of the Home Page. When the drop-down menu appears select the TAKE THE TOUR option that is highlighted in orange. (Or you can just click on this link: http://parentingwithdignity.com/tour/index.htm )

When you do that, the website will take you on a short tour of our program to allow you to see, in some detail, what the curriculum is all about. Please note that you can preview a short segment of each lesson at the page labeled DVD Series ( http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/index.htm ) .

The Parenting with Dignity Philosophy for raising self-reliant children is based upon the simple truth that children will make ALL of the big decisions in their lives. So it is the premise of Parenting with Dignity that in order to effectively raise children, parents must teach them how to make good decisions!

I believe that the reason that the course is so well received by prison inmates is that they realize the consequences of poor decisions! And, they are intrigued by the manner in which the course teaches parents how to teach children to make good decisions. As a matter of fact, while in the process of thinking about how they might teach good decision-making to their children, many of the inmates, for the first time in their lives, seem to engage in the task of teaching themselves to make good decisions!

Getting Children to Adjust Their Behavior #6

DECISION MAKING -

"You have a choice to make; what are you going to do?"

Decision-making should be started as early as possible. "Which pair of socks do you want to wear?" “Do you want a red Popsicle or a green one?” “Do you want to play this game or that one?” “Which shirt do you want to wear, the red one or the blue one with the collar?”

Everyday Opportunities to Teach

Every day there are opportunities to give children decisions to make. Give them a chance. I am not talking about decisions that involve danger or decisions that can result in bad outcomes. Just give them everyday decisions.

A Tale of Two Families

The other day I watched two families getting on the airplane that I was riding. As I followed one family on board they had given their three-year-old the tickets and asked her to find their seats. The little girl could easily recognize the letters and numbers on the tickets. The Mom just showed her where the seat numbers were on the bottom of the overhead bins and asked the girl to find their seats.

A few moments later a family followed them into the plane with two teen-age children. In this case the overly controlling mother held the tickets and was rather rudely directing the children to their seats and was giving them no credit for being able to make any decisions.

It was not surprising to me to see that the first family was having no trouble with their children while the second family was having some pretty good arguments about who would sit where! The one family was letting their children get experience in making simple decisions and it was reaping rewards and the other mother was making all of the decisions and was having trouble with her children.

Now, I know that this was not a controlled study and there were lots of other variables at play but I feel quite certain that the dynamic of the parents giving decisions to the children played a part!

Give Your Children Opportunities to Choose

Give children decisions to make! If your children are older and you have not already made this one of your common tasks in your home start today. If you have young ones, start now. The key is to give your children the gift of allowing them to progressively make more and more critical decisions every day.

Learn from What Works!

We can learn by looking at how almost every person in America has learned to ride a bicycle. We have taught almost every single person in America to ride a bike! Probably, none of them learned how to ride a bike by listening to their parents talk about riding bikes or by watching their parents ride one. They learned when someone put them on the seat, put the handlebars in their hands and gave them a shove!

Now, most parents did not just shove the kid and let them just fall over. Most parents ran along side helping to steady the child. But the point is that children learn to ride bikes when someone lets them ride one!

Children Learn to Make Decisions by Making Them!

Children will learn to make good decisions when someone gives them some decisions to make. Just like teaching a child to ride a bike, we do not start with the most difficult decisions. We can start out with some simple decisions and build up to bigger and bigger decisions.

Start Small, then Build Toward Larger and Larger Decisions

Continually hand them bigger and bigger decisions to make. "Here's the map. Which route do you think we should we take?" Next time ask, "Now that you have picked the road to travel what time should we leave?"

Later, seek their advice on tough personnel issues you bring home from work. Spell out the situation and ask their opinion. You do not have to take their advice but the discussion tells them that they are important enough to be included! The simple fact that you asked will give the children a sense of their own value. They might have some great ideas too!

At another time, give them $50.00 and ask them to buy five days worth of groceries with it. Follow with bigger and bigger jobs and bigger and bigger decisions that go with them. Give them real decisions to make and live with their decisions.

Continually ask for their opinion about issues that surround you in life. You might be totally surprised at the great advice and point of view that your children bring to many a decision making process.

Learning by Doing

We learn to make good decisions by making them. It's the same example you heard earlier, "Put them back on the bike!" When they make a bad decision, don't punish them. Tell them you admire their courage for making the decision in the first place! Then ask, "What did you learn from that decision? What are you going to do the next time? How do you think that will work?"

Good Decisions often Come From the Experience of Bad Ones

Many of life’s great decisions come from learning from some earlier decisions that did not work out exactly as anticipated. Give your children the opportunity to make some decisions even if they may seem like bad decisions from time to time. They need the experience. They will learn from those bad decisions!

Then when they get to the big decisions in life they will not cower away from making a decision! Most likely they will make a great decision because they have experience in making decisions!

Obviously, we parents should not offer children decisions to make that might have them being hurt or damaged. That is our job, to protect our children and to act as an occasional filter to prevent a calamity. However, by giving them decisions to make that are easily within their experience and capability level, they will gradually learn… sooo… when the big decisions come along, the experience of other decisions will serve them well.