There must be a cut off timeline in which parents jump to their children’s defence at the slightest provocations. I am not talking here about physical protection. I am talking about the verbal kind. The arguments that are born at family gatherings, the conclusions parents make due to twisted accounts of events from their children or even the half truths children tell their parents in regards to what the neighbour, a teacher a friend have said.
Parents are genetically programmed to take care of their young and to nurture them into maturity. A noble task indeed however, in some cases parents display protective behaviours that leaves one to question their purpose.
Why do parents take extraordinary measures to protect their children?
They do it to protect their bloodline, they do it because they themselves felt neglected as children or do they do it out of the purest and noblest feelings in their hearts and that is to protect their children physically and emotionally from those who intent them harm?
We fool ourselves as parents if we think that having a stand-up argument with a family member about children teaches them our love. As a matter of fact the domino effect it causes can reverberate for generations to come. Children learn to mistrust their own family, they will find refuge with friends and parents will keep the argument alive year after year. Children grow up without a close family circle where they should learn to trust the love and opinions of their elders while sharing their own life experiences with their younger cousins.
By having an attitude of “no-one tells my children what to do” parents inadvertently deprive their children of good family values such as honour and self-respect. Children from waring families don’t learn respect for others or for themselves. They learn to twist the truth just enough knowing that mum and dad will be there with swords blazing to defend the injustices heaped upon their “innocent” heads. The damage of over protectiveness can have devastating effects on teens.
I went to watch the first sunrays of 2011 rise over the ocean at Byron Bay. I left home at 2:00am to ensure I have the best spot on the hill. I was both amazed and totally dumfounded when I entered the town at 3:45am to see the amount of young people drunkenly walking the streets.
Hundreds of teens were swaying on their friends arms, stumbling into oncoming traffic and some brazenly walked around with liquor bottles hanging from their fingertips.
The thing that scared me the most though was the frightening scene where a girl, no older than 14, was hitchhiking on a pitch-black road. And the young man lying on the road, totally oblivious of the world around him whiles strangers try to revive him.
The declining family values, the arguments and the holier than though attitude of certain parents have contributing to their young children roaming the streets at 4 in the morning unsupervised.
Family values would have seen that those children spend New Year’s Eve with their families, the lack of arguing at family gatherings would have ensured these young people had families they wanted to spend the evening with and if parents have allowed the whole family, the whole village, to raise the child those young people would have had a deeper value of who they are and exercised some control.
It is sad that in today’s society that everything is accepted and that nothing is taboo. Parents need to read books to find the answers they need to raise their young, questions and answers that in previous years have been passed down through the family hierarchy on a daily basis.
Perhaps we should all reconnect with what family values are by addressing who our teenagers are. The book Parenting Teens with Love and Logic by Foster Cline and Jim Fay (authors) (available from Amazon.com) will help us reconnect with our teens which in turn will keep them off the streets and with their families. This book gives real life experiences with real life solutions. Happy reading
