honour thy father and mother
My television habits are going quite pear-shaped. I'll spend the evening faffing around on my laptop or reading a book, sat on the sofa while my parents watch television. Then, to wind down from having been sat in front of a computer screen, I watch something on iPlayer (logically, on a computer) in bed before going to sleep. Well, never mind.
At present I'm watching this show called The World's Strictest Paarents. The premise is that unruly kids are taken from homes where their parents struggle to manage them, ferried across the world for a week - a week! - and placed with families who try to impose their much stricter ways on them.
Whether or not it works with these particular kids, I'm not sure. The time scale is improbably short, and I feel, moreover, that the things the parents want - children who say "please" and "thank-you", who help more around the home, who realise their relationship with their parents is two-way and based upon respect, and not simply a credit account - are not going to be achieved by imposing a different, stricter set of parents on them, for whatever length of time. You start with teenagers, and going that way, you get cowed children. To grow into mature young people, the thing to do would be to put them in positions of responsibility, to care for other people. That would open their eyes.
In fact, the episode I'm watching shows that somewhat, in that the most responsible, self-aware and generous behaviour shown by the teenagers was when they were sent to volunteer in a homeless shelter for two days.
There's my spiel on "how to make kids grow up". Not that I want children not to be sheltered for as long as possible; but simply cos a lot of teenagers suffer from a severe lack of perspective which is only compounded by parenting!
At present I'm watching this show called The World's Strictest Paarents. The premise is that unruly kids are taken from homes where their parents struggle to manage them, ferried across the world for a week - a week! - and placed with families who try to impose their much stricter ways on them.
Whether or not it works with these particular kids, I'm not sure. The time scale is improbably short, and I feel, moreover, that the things the parents want - children who say "please" and "thank-you", who help more around the home, who realise their relationship with their parents is two-way and based upon respect, and not simply a credit account - are not going to be achieved by imposing a different, stricter set of parents on them, for whatever length of time. You start with teenagers, and going that way, you get cowed children. To grow into mature young people, the thing to do would be to put them in positions of responsibility, to care for other people. That would open their eyes.
In fact, the episode I'm watching shows that somewhat, in that the most responsible, self-aware and generous behaviour shown by the teenagers was when they were sent to volunteer in a homeless shelter for two days.
There's my spiel on "how to make kids grow up". Not that I want children not to be sheltered for as long as possible; but simply cos a lot of teenagers suffer from a severe lack of perspective which is only compounded by parenting!