Pubdate: Fri, 17 Nov 2006
Source: Aberdeen American News (SD)
Copyright: 2006 Aberdeen American News
Contact:  http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1484
Author: Gretchen Mayer

KIDS HAVEN'T CHANGED, PARENTS HAVE

Once again, kids have astounded us with their ingenuity. It seems 
they are now able to thwart the law and go online to purchase 
cigarettes. The federal government is asking the U.S. Postal Service 
to discontinue delivering boxes of cigarettes to minors.

So, what's up with kids these days? It seems that there are daily 
crises reported: childhood obesity at near-epidemic proportions, 
binge-drinking, date-rape drugs, the list could go on and on.

"It's tougher to raise kids than it used to be," observed the parent 
of two teenagers. "They have challenges we didn't have when we were 
growing up. Drugs, sex, Internet dangers. They're constantly on the 
run. If it's not soccer and dance lessons, it's school sporting 
events. They're hardly ever home."

"Teens are different than we were at that age," agreed another 
parent. "They seem a lot more mature than we were, more knowledgeable 
about things. They're more secretive, too. They can e-mail or text 
message all kinds of things we don't know about."

This whole conversation got me to thinking about how, sociologically, 
there have been huge changes in the past 30 or 40 years.

When I was growing up, there was no Internet. There was the telephone 
and television. We couldn't keep secrets from our parents.

Of course we could. And did. Tiny bits of paper, passed back and 
forth in school, served the same function as text messaging.

No, we didn't have methamphetamine. Or cocaine. Those challenges just 
weren't there for us.

No, we just had pot, LSD and speed. And that was the light stuff.

Teen sex was common, but at least we didn't have to worry about 
getting a deadly virus such as AIDS. We just got pregnant. Even 
though being an unmarried teenage mom wasn't a death sentence, it was 
still a sentence.

Children still go through the same developmental stages that humans 
have always gone through. They're born totally dependent on their 
parents and as they grow, their dependency and needs diminish. A 
normal adolescent begins to move away from his parents emotionally. 
They develop close relationships with others and in many ways, those 
friends become more important than their own family.

They wrestle with temptation. Sometimes they lose. They have 
tremendous stresses in their lives. Different stress than we had 
growing up. Different, not more.

Pardon the "good old days" mentality, but it sure seems that kids 
aren't being held accountable for their mistakes. Parents yelling at, 
striking, and yes, even killing coaches has become tragically 
commonplace. Teachers are often prohibited from disciplining 
students, no matter how badly it's needed. "In my day," (sorry about 
that) if kids got in trouble at school, they got in additional 
trouble at home. While I'm not a strong proponent of double jeopardy, 
it certainly didn't cause any lasting emotional damage. The teacher 
would have had to commit an egregious error before parents confronted 
the administration. In fact, more often than not, if a child 
complained about a school injustice the response would have been 
"Life isn't fair sometimes."

Indeed it isn't. Kids find that out in short order when they head off 
for college. In a longitudinal study reported by The Child 
Development Institute, high school graduates left home totally 
unprepared for the realities of independence. Their high expectations 
crashed headlong into real life. Within nine to 18 months following 
graduation, depression, low self-esteem and anxiety were correlated 
with stress and transition problems.

So often in our small rural schools you see top students and athletes 
becoming near God-like as they get to their senior year in high 
school - the popular homecoming queen, the star basketball player. 
What happens when they leave high school the "brightest and best," as 
the song goes, to being just another name on the freshmen roster?

We do a disservice to our children when we don't prepare them for the 
realities of life, when we don't make them responsible for their own 
behavior. The U.S. Postal Service is not a parent. The parents have 
ultimate responsibility to know what their kid is doing online, what 
is in the packages the child gets in the mail. It's a tough job, no 
question. And it takes a lot of time.

As one parent stated: "I only see my kids about two hours a night. I 
don't want to spent the entire time disciplining them." Perhaps not, 
but what will be the long-term results of their lack of attention?

So, perhaps it's not really the kids who have changed, it's the parents.

Gretchen Mayer, Mansfield, works at the American News and is a member 
of the American News Editorial Board. Her column appears occasionally 
on the Viewpoints Page.
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MAP posted-by: Elaine