I raised you better then that

Different Strokes for Different Folks I guess here Chimes - I don't think I am qualified to say what would work for everyone but I can tell you what I believe. I am a strict parent in a lot of ways, I believe that honesty and respect is very important and I also believe I am here to be a mother to my children not a best friend, I ma here to make my childrens lives the best they can be - not the easiest! Having said that I do believe it works both ways, our children deserve honesty and respect too - despite the fact that I am a strict Mum my kids can talk to me about ANYTHING and know I will listen and try to help, they are also very loving and affectionate. I don't think you can always blame parents but I do know that beating a child (apart from being reprehensible) will not work, neither will apathy and lack of interest. Sometimes a parent will do everything they possibly can and a child will 'go wrong' other times a parent who has done nothing will raise end up with a very successful and grounded child. All we can do is our best and hope and pray it is enough - I just wish every parent was as interested in their children as they should be! xxx

I think loving ways and a loving attitude is what is required...right across the board. It seems it's hard to achieve even within the family unit so maybe it will never happen.

Hi TLChimes, You don't have to beat your children to make them a better parents themself, you can discipline them and by teaching them respect, right from wrong and above all to love them. Kids today don't get that as the parents don't have patients with them and shouts at them or swear, in turn the kids don't respct their parents and its just goes on from there, my mum would just gives us those looks and we would freeze and behave ourselves, she brought six of us up and we all did alright, even though we were all grown up and if we had to say something that my mum didn't approve of she would just give us that look. Sadly my mum has passed and we thanked her for bringin us up alone as my father passed when I was very young, he was strict with us as well but he didn't beat us up. Kids get it too easy today. Tamara

That's a good discussion to start because today we can see lot of children are attracted to words the crime and easy money they don't have respect to words the elders and they don't care about the country so what i suggest is that from the childhood days they need to train their kids for making the better society.

That's a very good question. It's one we speak about every day in education, because there is a disagreement as to if moral and ethics should be taught in school on top of what parents teach their children. I'm very much for moral/ethic education within school because I think that today's children need to be exposed to it and take it to heart. I'm not sure though if I'd say that today's kids truly believe it is the victims fault, or that we truly have all young parents killing children or even older people stealing more. I think it's that we have much more media coverage then we did say 100 years ago. Man, if we go with most culture teachings or even spiritual teachings have become corrupt at some point or another in their own culture, etc. It's not that I suscribe to men being born evil (I'm not much a believer on original sin). I do think though that men (meaning mankind here) can learn evil, corruption, etc. In the case of our children, we need to help them develop their empathy which will help them to develop their compassion. I do think to some degree the parents do need to be held accountable. We are responsible for our children until they tern 18 years old by law, but we're always a parent and they are always our child. Yes, children have free will and at some point need to be held accountable for their actions, but allowing parents to continue to raise a child in a manner in which the child is being a bully, or such then someone needs to hold the parent accountable. I can recall once seeing a video of a parent who was egging her two children to fight. The children were little too and she was there going "Go on now, fight, Pull her hair. Don't be a baby". This is dramatic but we know that there are parents out there who encourage poor behavior in their children by not accepting, or making light of situations. I think if we started offering parenting classs to parents to be and new parents we might be able to change the trend in society. It will take some time though. There are, as you said, a lot of people set in their ways. Namaste-Anora