So I freely admit that I didn’t come up with this blog post all by myself. While I was trawling Facebook (so sue me, it’s Friday afternoon), I came across a provocatively titled article: This Young Mom Is Giving Up On Her Kids. Sounds Terrible…But I Think She’s Right.
There were hundreds of comments on the article, and it seemed relatively recent. I gave the author a heads up that some spam might be coming her way, but then realized that she probably gave permission for it to be published there. Ah well.
What hit notes with me:
Letting little kids play with guns. Pretend ones of course. Hell, what kid doesn’t want to play with them? You could hardly let them be exposed to any content in movies or games or even books that didn’t have some gun content. So kids like to be violent sometimes, it doesn’t make them mass murderers! I mean, I notice that KK is more violent after watching a “Ninja Turtle Movie”, but KK also knows when play time is over, and that hurting people physically is bad. Maybe I’m a bad parent – but when we play together, and KK gets too rough and doesn’t respond to being told “no”, I will return the hurtful thing that KK does. Not in an angry way, just so that KK realizes that those things hurt.
I feel in two minds about bullying and name calling. Bullying is wrong. Tormenting someone regularly is wrong. Beating people up is wrong. As I went through high school, I was the subject of verbal bullying, and I reacted by hitting out. Guess who got in more trouble? My defense always was that I didn’t even leave bruises, and they hurt my self-esteem for years. With this in mind, and being a lot older now, I think that bullying is something that people need to learn boundaries in. A little teasing is ok, a full-throttled version where you namecall or ignore every day? Not so good.
In special regards to cyber bullying, I think that people need to know when to switch off. You don’t have to use Facebook. You don’t have to use Facebook under your own name. You can use other programs to communicate (dare I say call someone?).
Manners. We all need them. Resilience. We all need that. Kids need to learn that they are their own saviors. Mom and dad will help out, but only to a point. If you know your kid can do it, let them. This goes for working out difficult math problems, learning new words, or climbing a tree. If there is no failure when they are kids, they won’t know how to deal with failure in a positive way in the future. Ask me, I know.
I could probably go on all day about this. I probably shouldn’t though, given that my brain is a bit run-away-y today.
What’s come out of this for me? Well, I feel better that someone talks about the things I feel strongly about in a way that the general public can relate to. And, I found a great new blog to follow: The Metz Family Adventures. Go check it out!
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