When are parents going to control there children

[chubby Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chubby]

As the heading has said just back from a 4 day hell trip
The first day we went on a cave tour and had a little monster of a child that ran riot all the time parents did not a thing to control her all the trip it got so bad the guild had to tell the parents to control there child and all the rest of us ageed it should have been said earlyer in the tour
The next day in more caves we got two mosters this time and it got so bad the guild called the tour off half way along and we all lost our money
The next day we went to a church where there was a lot of reading on the walls an other monster child had riot of a time wrecking all in sight this time after some time the mother did take him out side
And the last day we went on tour of a lake crator you go down in a lift to the water edge another monster joined the tour and would do not a thing the parents said and guess what happend in the deep water he goes the tour guild dives in but misses him next I go in cloths and all and managed to grab him by the neck of his shirt we both came up spluttering but did manage to save him
I do wonder when there is going to be a bit of child disaplen going to happen in this world

[Hostelling Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hostelling]

Kids do come with an instruction book, just most parents today dont read it.
It is called the Bible.

[nursetanya1973 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close nursetanya1973]

Could have been my nephew

My brother and his wife have a 4+ year old who is uncontrollable. I have never hit anyone else's kid until him. He has no consistency in his discipline, they just ignore whatever he is doing for a little bit, then they yell a lot, then eventually, they smack his butt. Repeat. Over and over, all day long. Even in public.

Around Christmas time I was with them, I told him to stop doing something, and he looked at me, stuck his tongue out, and said "na-na-na". I did not even think; I just popped him right in the face. He had been doing this to everyone all day, had been warned, had been disciplined by his mother, and I was fed up. I didn't smack him that hard, but he has not done it to me again.

They live 3 hours away from my parents, me, and any other family, so they have no help, and they are doing a terrible job with him. He is extremely smart, and he has his parents very well trained.

I feel for you and your experience.

[BoardGirl Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BoardGirl]

He is extremely smart, and he has his parents very well trained.

You hit it right on the head!

My personal theory is that discipline began slipping when the 'self-esteem teachings' came in, where it was thought that you had to guard the child's feelings no matter what. In my opinion, a child should feel bad when they do wrong, when they are inconsiderate of others, etc.

I will agree that there are children with actual physical or mental problems that make their behavior almost impossible to control. But that is a tiny minority of the child population. I'm not an advocate of drugging children to make them behave unless an actual diagnosis has been made that indicates a chemical imbalance that can be corrected.

Good for you, Tanya! I was spanked and am in no way violent. I learned about proper and improper behavior.

Parents must be responsible for their offspring and provide consequences to inappropriate behavior. But they also must provide time for the child to be a child. Every kid has a limit to how long they can sit still in itchy clothes or whatnot.

I'm so sorry for your crappy experience!! I would like to think I would have gone to the parents on the cancelled expedition and requested a refund since it was their fault the tour could not continue.

[bigeyes1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close bigeyes1]

My brother and his wife have a 4+ year old who is uncontrollable. I have never hit anyone else's kid until him. He has no consistency in his discipline, they just ignore whatever he is doing for a little bit, then they yell a lot, then eventually, they smack his butt. Repeat. Over and over, all day long. Even in public.

Around Christmas time I was with them, I told him to stop doing something, and he looked at me, stuck his tongue out, and said "na-na-na". I did not even think; I just popped him right in the face. He had been doing this to everyone all day, had been warned, had been disciplined by his mother, and I was fed up. I didn't smack him that hard, but he has not done it to me again.

They live 3 hours away from my parents, me, and any other family, so they have no help, and they are doing a terrible job with him. He is extremely smart, and he has his parents very well trained.

I feel for you and your experience.

Wow!! This sounds exactly my situation with my brother and SIL who also has a 4 year old. My nephew is now starting to talk about guns and says mean things like, I'm going to shoot you" or "I'm going to chop your arm off", and the list goes on. I'm truly worried about him.

My B & SIL don't discipline any of their (three) kids and it ticks me off. They are all smart kids and deserves a decent life. If things keep going the same way, I'm afraid their lives will be ruined. I truly sympathize.

I'm sure parents are worried about spanking their kids in public places. You just never know who's going to turn them in for child abuse....

[BoardGirl Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BoardGirl]

Yes, I worry about gov't sticking its nose into parental discipline. It's a big fat line between discipline and abuse and I don't want Common Joe deciding it's blurry and over on one side or the other.

My butt got swatted in public a few times and it was humiliating. I was better behaved in public after that!

[Hostelling Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hostelling]

Behavior, good or bad, is learned.

Yelling is "teaching" bad behavior. If the parent yells in anger it is teaching poor control of self.

My parents taught me, and I suspect their parents taught them, that a calm reproach to poor behavior is harder for a kid to take than is a yelling match.

My Dad, in his roll as head of the family, handled disapline. So usually I had all day for my Dad to learn I had acted up again. Mom would send me to my room.

He would not yell, and he would have found it abhorant to disapline in public. In private, He would very calmly review with me what and why my actions had been found unacceptable, he would then disapline my back side, hand only, and then hold me tightly in his arms until my tears stopped.

I look back and now understand that by the time I was large enough that a swat on the back side by his hand would have been ineffective, spanking was no longer needed. I had learned moral boundaries, from someone who showed that he loved me enough to care about how I would turn out.

Oh I still got into trouble from time to time when I was older, and everytime I felt bad because I knew I had let Dad down again.

Rich or poor, the haves and the have nots, learning boudries at an early age is what determines which side of the jail bars we may be looking from. No?

[14thMed Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 14thMed]

I agree with Boardgirl. When the kids are taught "I am special, I am special, look at me look at me, to the tune of the nursery rhyme.You know its trouble! Al

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

Chubby I'm very sorry that you had so much of your vacation ruined by bad parenting.

It was NOT the children that did it. Place the blame where it belongs.

At a very early age the kids will look at you and tell you they will call the police if you spank them. Mine tried that at the ripe age of 3 in a mall one day. My response was "Go Ahead" and he got spanked right there in public. Surprisingly the police did not get called.

It is all about boundaries.

Unfortunately many of the parents today were spoiled by THEIR parents and have no clue how to handle inappropriate behavior by their children or themselves.

[nursetanya1973 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close nursetanya1973]

Behavior, good or bad, is learned.

Yelling is "teaching" bad behavior. If the parent yells in anger it is teaching poor control of self.

Funny you should say that. My B & SIL are always telling my nephew (who is only 3 months from 5), to use his "inside voice". We keep telling them that that is his inside voice, because it is what they have taught him.

As far as the disciplining in public, it is very scary. I remember my aunt having the state show up at her door because she had spanked her son in a store. The clerk had her name and address from her check. The reason that he had received the spanking is because he had hidden in a clothes' rack of the store. They were frantically looking for him, calling his name for at least 30 minutes and he would not come out because he thought it was funny. Personally, I think more than a "good talking to" was warranted. The police did not take her kids, but she did get in the system and have random checks for a while. By the way, this was more than 20 years ago. The climate is much more against spanking now, would she still have her kids?

I have rarely spanked my kids, but it has been effective on occasion. Let's hope the proposed legislation in California doesn't go anywhere. That is just opening a very slimy can of worms.

[Sydney Contributor - Bronze Find all posts View Profile Close Sydney]

What a shame regarding your experience Chubby.

Around Christmas time I was with them, I told him to stop doing something, and he looked at me, stuck his tongue out, and said "na-na-na". I did not even think; I just popped him right in the face.

Tanya, how did your brother & wife react to you slapping their son?

I think many parents are confused. The predominant teaching nowadays repeated over and over again in parenting books and classes is to ignore unacceptable behaviour, even in public. The rationale is that if the child does not receive attention they will realise that their negative behaviour does not achieve their aim and stop. My problem with this is that they will not stop soon enough, especially in public, nor will they learn respect and obedience of their parents. Yes, kids need to be taught boundaries consistently not stumble upon them by being ignored.

When I see parents with uncontrolled little "brats", I am both exasperated and sympathetic because these parents do not realise how easy it is to have well behaved children who are a joy to be around, most of the time(). They struggle in a tug-o-war of the will when they don't have to. It's very sad and disturbing that these children will grow up with a me-first mentality feeling as though they are entitled to everything their heart desires or else they throw a tantrum.

[happymum Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close happymum]

Someone had posted this link to a story of a child disrupting an entire airplane. What disappointed me is that the airline apologized for their behavior. I think that they made a good call in the first place!

[BoardGirl Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BoardGirl]

Sydney, I agree.

I can say that "ignore the undesired behavior and reward the desired behavior" worked for my border collie - doggie message boards are full of "positive only" methods and I know it worked for us - clicker training is based on this operant conditioning. But BCs are legendary for being ultra-sensitive, so for them, removing attention is horrible! Yelling at her ... it would actually be cruel.

I can't imagine this working effectively for a child, and certainly not a child that doesn't give a whit about attention. I guess I'm not sure that misbehavior is always about attention? At least, not for every child. Now I'm wondering if anyone has done this effectively, and what the child's temperament is?

Dogs, even smart ones, are far less sophisticated than your avg 3 year old. Humans need a different approach, which many adults have mastered!

[Sydney Contributor - Bronze Find all posts View Profile Close Sydney]

Don't know. The article is too sketchy to know what exactly happened. Did they board the family first to give them a chance to settle in? Or did they board the plane late, thus the plane being already behind schedule, and then expected the 3yr old to settle into her seat immediately. Maybe the attendants were a bit impatient due to the delay and rushed the child or spoke to her sternly which could have scared her, etc.

My kids have flown around the world with not a problem and was quiet and well behaved at all times on the planes. We often received comments from nearby passengers afterwards complimenting their behaviour. However, when the security people at the Las Vegas gate wanted to take my 2yr old's vest and shoes off and get her to raise her arms to be manually scanned with a wand, she ran off crying and was scared of them so we had to retrieve her. It's just one of those things.

Who knows the full circumstance of the child on the plane. While many people do spoil their children, many also have very little tolerance for children in general and speak to children in ways that are more inclined to elicit an uncooperative response.

[nursetanya1973 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close nursetanya1973]

Tanya, how did your brother & wife react to you slapping their son?

Actually, they were good about it. My SIL had already told me to smack him. I was the only one with him at the time. I had taken him out of a store because of his behavior, and we were standing on the sidewalk. He was just awful, and it was non-stop. I understand kids having a bad moment, or even a bad day, but he is just badly behaved all the time. I told my SIL right away that I smacked him. Her reaction was "good". My brother wasn't there.
I didn't hit him hard, but I did feel bad. I felt that he needed it, but he should not have been allowed to get to that point.

The week before this he had all his toys taken away because he defecated on the floor. Because he wanted to.

The really funny thing is that the last time my B was in WDW, SuperNanny was holding interviews for the show. My mom tried to get my B & SIL to take my nephew in. They refused saying they didn't want someone who has no kids telling them how to raise their son. Hellooooo, they didn't have any kids before him, either. Thankfully he is an only child and they plan to keep it that way, the world does not need 2 of him.

Poor kid, he really is cute, funny and smart. Too bad he uses it for evil.