RESPECT

Respect, a lost idea in today's society. A lost thought to young people except that they want respect, but anyone else has to "earn" respect. It is so sad to watch people today, driving, walking, speaking, shopping.... you see no respect towards others, only self-centerness. Where to start explaining my position....... well I guess this post will start with driving.
When you are driving, do you think about other drivers on the road or do you just look out your windsheild and think only of what your needs on the road is. Do you give signals when you change lanes? Do you allow someone to cut in front of you in a long line of traffic? Do you smile even if someone cuts you off or do you flip them off?

Who taught you to respect? Did they tell you and not do it themselves, or did they teach by example? What if we put others first and ourself last? What would happen to how we treat others? Just some thoughts.

Bounderies ARE needed!

Today I will be talking about parents who do not put bounderies up for children. Imagine if you will that you as an adult had to decided everything. You had no laws that had to be obeyed, in fact no one had any laws to obey. Things would be caotic! As adults we have decided, or voted people into office to make the laws that we follow. But children, they have such a limited scope and a limited if any way to make safe sound decisions on what their bounderies should be, that they were given parents to make those decisions and bounderies for them. Parents are to teach them as they grow how to make those decisions. So many parents today are afraid to say the most simple word in the world - NO and make it stick. Last night at my work, I watched a father tell a child to hold his own drink. This child was about 10 years old. He refused. The father then held the cup over the trash can and said either to take it or I throw it away. The child stood there and just looked at his father and the cup with a look of "Yea right!" I stood there and watched this and then I saw the mother, she gave the father a look and he did not throw it away. The child knew the father would not follow through with throwing the drink away, so the child knew he was in control. Parents should be a unified front, not one against the other with the child in the middle. Another time I watched a child want some candy, the mother said NO. The girl, age 13, then started to pitch a fit - yelling at her mother, kicking her and hitting her. Her mother then got her the candy and looked at me and said, she is emotional troubled. I watched the child then turn to her friends and smile and mouth - it works everytime. Again - who is in control?. I have watched parents take up for children that were acting like animals in public (not pretentd doggies, or cats or monkies). I have seen parents that are more concerned with their cell phones or talking to their friends that did not notice that their child was about to pull a fire alarm. I have been called a F***ing idoit because I ask a 15 year old not to hit signs that were hanging from a ceiling. Parents' job is to protect a baby and start to teach them. As a child grows and learns and shows they have learned, then it is their job to let go little by little. To trust them with decisions that are within their capabilities. If a parent does their job, a child will be a responsibile adult and teach their chldren the same way. I was not the perfect parent, but when I said NO or their father said NO it was NO. Yes meant yes and No meant NO! They knew that no matter what one of us said the other would back it up, so their was no mom said no, so go to dad or the other way around. I have great fear for my grandchildren, not for the way they are being raised, but the people they will have to deal with and their children will have to be around. People that have not been given boundries and were given trophies for just showing up! Parents be PARENTS Please!!!!

Parents be parents

I have been absent from my blog for a long time. As I think about and observe others around me, as work mostly, I see actions that make me question the need for parent testing BEFORE you become a parent. Not that I really believe this should happen, but I watch parent after parent giving away their right to raise their child to others and only wanting to be friends with them. An excellent example is the following: A father drops off 8- 10 year olds girls at the theatre to watch a movie. He had no idea they were meeting boys(yes at the age of 10). The theatre had a minor problem with the print that was quickly fixed. Remember that fact as it will play into the rest of the story. Through out the movie the manager on duty had to go into the theatre and tell the children to be quite, put their cell phones away, stop changing seats and stop running in and out of the movie. The next day, the father calls the theatre and ask to speak to the manager complaining that the girls did not get to watch the movie due to all the problems that had occurred during the movie. The manager on duty was not the same as the one the night before so, she told him she would look into it and call him back. After talking to the manager from the night before and checking the projection booth log for problems, she called the father back. She told the father that the only problem the print had was during the previews and it was fixed quickly that the patrons did not miss any of the movie itself. The only other problem that was in that theatre was a group of young people, both male and female, that was being disruptive and the manager had to go in several times telling them to be quite and get off their phones and stop changing seats and not to run in and out and in and out. After the theatre manager on duty finished telling the father this, the tone of his voice changed... the dawning that his sweet daughter had "exaggrated"... in other words lied was appearant in his voice. And nothing else was said. My question is this: What kind of parent drops off 8-10year old girls to go the movies alone? In this day and times, how could you feel that this is a good parenting practice? If we as parents want to do our job correctly, it will mean we have to say NO, you can not go without parents with you to the movies. It means putting your childrens welfare above what they want. It means putting with is best for the child above whether or not the child wants it. Children are not yet able to make most decissions. It DOES NOT hurt a child for a parent to be with them, it does not hurt them if THEY think it is embarrassing for their parents to be around. Parents should be part of a child's life, not drop them off somewhere and hope they will know how to act and nothing will happen to them. It is time for parents to grow up and be parents!