Continued from Part One
So what is the answer? Am I saying it is wrong to give our children nice things? Of course not! I have always loved to give my daughters (both grown and married now) nice things. The issue here is raising children without discipline. I told the out of control fifteen year old’s mom that she had created a monster. This got her attention. She said, “What do you mean?” I explained to her that it was obvious that she had never said, “No,” and always gave him everything he asked for. She said, “I do, but he is a good boy.”
I said, “He is not a good boy. A good boy doesn’t destroy his parent’s house. You let him sleep in two bedrooms. You have given him a TV, an IPhone, a stereo, an XBox, a computer, an IPod, and so much more. But now when you try and give him a curfew, he tears the house up.”
The mother was listening now. She said, “What should I do?” I told her that she and her husband needed to take all the “stuff” away from junior: his computer, stereo, IPod, television, XBox, etc. I would pawn it myself and use the money to fix the house. Another option would be to make junior earn the “stuff” back through his behavior. The biggest problem that the parents were going to face was the fact that junior had never had any discipline and it was going to be difficult to start it now that he was fifteen.
Parents who don’t discipline their children are creating monsters. They may be cute and sweet now at five or six but if you keep allowing them to do whatever they want and don’t instill some discipline, by the time they are twelve you are going to have your hands full. By the time they are fifteen or sixteen and out of control, you might be calling the police out to your house. Parents must begin to mold their child’s will at a young age. I’ll give a few suggestions on how to do this in Part Three.
To be continued…
