Need opinions of parents.....

My four-year-old cousin has a TV in her bedroom and it's a nicer one that *I* have in mine. (I have a nicer TV in my living room, but I have a tiny 12-incher in my bedroom that I've blown up with a power strip twice.)

Also, when I have kids, they aren't going to get a cell phone until they're 15-16. When they can drive is when they can get a cell phone. What do they need one before then for anyway? Unless it's one of the phones where you can dial emergency and there's one button for home, one for Mom and one for Dad.

 

I thought the same thing about cell phone but if you get a few kids going in different directions it actually helps more than you know, especially when they need rides from practices or stuff is cancelled or whatever and they need picked up.

 

Whenever I slammed the door as a kid, my dad would make me open and close it 100 times the right way. After about 10, I got the point.

One time my sister and I were acting up in the back seat on a long car trip to my grandmother's. Dad said if we didn't chill out he was going to make us get out and walk. 10 minutes later we didn't calm down. He pulled over on the side of a back road and made us both get out. We stood there for 2 minutes (but it seemed like an eternity) before he looked at us and said "are you done?" Then we got back in. Dad told me a couple years ago that it was a long two weeks living with my mother after that one.

But he got his point across.

 

Everything changes in middle school. For those of you with kids in elementary or younger, just wait.

My wife would get upset with me about my strict discipline when our kids were younger. Nothing rough, but just strict. She would tell them something three or four times before I would say, "Are you going to do anything or just keep telling them you're going to do something later?"

My take was, and is, if you're strict early, set ground rules, follow them and establish the trust relationship during their elementary and middle school years, things typically will be better in high school years. If a kid knows "midnight" for curfew means 12:20 will have serious consequences, chances are they will respect and honor it. If he learns to honor the curfew then it may be extended for special occasions.

Kids test limits all along. They learn to manipulate, push buttons, fib, sneak (like Zag's daughter not taking a shower) and other things. Our society teaches those things and parents help by letting kids get away with shit. Being firm, trustful and respectful works both ways.

Damn sure isn't a parenting playbook. If there is one, the only pages I got were "Kickoff" and "Final Buzzer."

 

Really just shows just how out of whack some parents are.

Zag, I'm guessing this isn't a school team right? I'm guessing if it was a school sponsored team, he would have been suspended from the team.
So you definitely did the right thing. Like others, my parents were the same way. You have to be responsible for your actions (or lack of).


And if those parents were in your situation, I wonder what they would have done.

 

The greatest word in the English language is "no." The worst word is "yes." You can always change a "no" to a "yes," but it is very difficult to change a "yes" to a "no."

- Bob Knight

 

Great point, SixToe.

And of course, we all love the kickoff ... but it gets tougher from there.

 

I have 5th and 3rd graders so the manipulation and backtalk still have not raised their ugly heads as yet.

But good call Zag. And really, the parents of the team and other advocates need to get a clue; the issue is "Schoolwork" vs. a GAME. That's it to me, I do not care if its the play in game to Williamsport or the World University Game, its schoolwork.

You cannot equate the two (okay maybe if it was LeBron or some other cannot miss phenom).

For the 99.999% of the population, school must come first and for anyone else to say otherwise is simply rationalizing. The kid knew the consequences and chose to not do the homework. I do not care what the coach says, its school related and sports must come second.