“How dare you! You can’t tell me how to run my household! You can’t tell me how to raise my child! YOU try parenting when [insert any number of unfortunate circumstances here]---”
Hey, relax. Telling you how to raise your kids, I wouldn’t do that (without getting to know you first). I will not spend this article telling people how to raise their kids, nor will I tell anyone what makes a good parent or a bad parent (yet); I honestly prefer having those discussions face-to-face. What I will talk about is why, if you consider yourself a good parent, you should be scared to death… of bad parents.
Whatever your views on parenting, once your child leaves home for school, they become surrounded by kids who may not have parenting as “perfect” as yours. You cease being the only influence in your child’s life and, in some cases, cease being even the main influence. From childhood to the day we die we look for people similar to ourselves who we can study, relate to, exchange with, sometimes imitate until we know who and how we ought to be. And thirteen years of grade school are spent in classrooms full of peers to learn from--- some exemplary, others not-so-exemplary.
Now, peer pressure is an old issue, so I’m not gonna rehash that. But your child’s peer group isn’t just a bunch of random kids; they’re a mixing pot of upbringings. It’s the values of your household being pitted against the values of all the other households zoned for that school. As children of similar ages and neighboring houses filter into classrooms and traverse the hallways, they engage in a game of diplomacy. Those with strong upbringings become leaders; those with weak upbringings become followers.
…Okay, that was a little strong. Don’t get angry yet, let me clarify:
“Strong upbringings” --- upbringings where the child will resist influences that go against how they were raised
“Weak upbringings” --- upbringings where the child will accept influences that go against to how they were raised.
True to my earlier promise, I will not say to you that one way is ‘bad’ and the other is ‘good’. After all, an apple from a “bad tree” should hopefully find better influences, and a “good apple” blessed with good parenting will hopefully stick to the way they were raised.
…Let’s continue, shall we?
I had a discussion with my sociology kids a few years ago about the effects of home training on schools. I briefly opened my classroom door and we observed some pure foolishness occurring in the hallway as a live exhibit (until one of the specimens said, “What is dey lookin at?”--- that’s when I closed the door). Without specifying any names of the specimens (because that would be unethical), some of my students concluded, “Good parenting doesn’t necessarily mean your child will have good behavior; some of the kids in that hallway have good parents and still do wrong.” Absolutely right. After all, God gives us free will to think and to choose. Still, most of us usually make choices according to greatest reward or least discomfort. So what, for instance, makes a well-bred child---a “good apple”--- suddenly choose to repeat the 9th grade when they could move forward and graduate on time? What makes a “good apple” choose failure knowing that bad grades will not only keep them retained, but keep them on punishment at home?
…Here’s the real question: what is it that makes a previously
trusting, obedient child all of a sudden question his or her upbringing? It’s simple: meeting the “bad apples” at school and finding out there are other kinds of apple trees out there.Let me share an observation from my time as a teacher--- go stand near any cluster of kids on report card/progress report day; nowadays, more often than not, the discussions go like this:
Child 1: “My mom’s gonna kill me/take my phone/take the car/act a fool!”
Child 2: “My momma ain’t gon do sh*t but come up to the school, have a conference, then go back home and watch Love and Hip Hop. If she takes my phone, I’ll get another one from Daddy, no big deal.”
Child 3: “My momma ain’t gon do sh*t… period.”
(Apart from “Such foul language!”, I know some of you are thinking, “Oh, these kids are just showing out for their friends; they don’t really mean what they say.” I wish that were true, I really do; I’ve been to enough parent conferences to say that far too many students aren’t bluffing when they talk like this. It’s certainly not an absolute scenario, but definitely a regularly-occurring one.)
Anyway, do you see what happened there? Let’s review: Child 1 has respect for their parent and shares their apprehension about having to account for the bad grade. That’s a good thing. But Child 2 and Child 3 speak as if parental reaction is a joke to scoff at. Notice as well that Child 1 is outnumbered--- the minority in a peer pressure situation.
Child 1 may have good parenting and know right from wrong, but if their upbringing isn’t strong enough, then fitting in with peers will override their desire to please their parents. As a result, rather than striving to improve, they’ll simply find comfort in having company as they fail. Rather than seeing their bad grades or behavior as a problem, with the advisement and influence of their peers, the child will come to see the problem as having “strict parents”--- good parents, your good little apple will take note of the parents of the bad apples and suddenly see YOU as the problem for doing your job right. “If bad grades are okay for them, why aren’t they okay for me? If cutting class is so bad and so terrible, why are they allowed to do it?” Just like parents never want their methods questioned, kids never want to feel like their own path is wrong or unacceptable; they naturally gravitate toward whatever nurtures their desires and preferences. Mentally, your child will idolize the bad apple trees--- the parents of the bad apples--- as testaments to YOUR inadequacies. Believing that other adults know something you don’t.
…And God-forbid your “perfect little apple” sees poorly-parented students get incentives for their behavior. Like when your nice, well-mannered son gets ignored by the pretty girl because she likes the “bad boy” from the house down the lane. Or when your modest, lovely daughter gets her heart broken because she won’t make her lady parts available like the “fun girl” from the house down the lane. Or when your mild-mannered average achiever never gets special attention at school, but the kid from down the lane gets extra motivation throughout the year from teachers and faculty to keep him from going back to alternative school or utterly dropping out...Good parents, because of bad apple trees, you’ve really got your work cut out for you. Whatever you’ve instilled in your child, the apples of bad apple trees will constantly be there to undermine it, whether inadvertently or deliberately. Bad parenting not only nurtures negative behaviors, but it reinforces those negative behaviors, so that your child will observe bad apples and entertain that there are exceptions to your established ways--- that maybe you don’t know it all, maybe you are overreacting, maybe your standards are too high, and maybe… you get the idea. That’s the kind of threat you’re up against.
“I don’t wanna hear it! My child lives in my house, so they better not [insert mischief here] or [insert ultimatum here]---”
“As for me and my house---” I hear your, ‘Joshua’, loud ‘n’ clear, lol. Not to get all preachy but, while barking about tightening reins, you might also want to consider why the Good Book also says, “Come out from among them.” It’s bigger than your ability to put your foot down or throw your weight around. Here’s the thing: your child will become an adult one day with children of their own. And when that happens, they get to make a decision--- to be the kind of parent you were, or to be like the bad apple trees that some of their schoolmates fell from. And 2015, ladies and gentlemen, features a generation of young parents who have functionally rebelled against the way they were raised. Because they either didn’t understand or didn’t agree with those ways, they’ve opted to, instead, emulate the bad apple trees of their peers. Many bad parents were raised well, but weren’t raised strongly enough to keep from being dissuaded from that path at the first opportunity. So, again, it comes down to more than how well a parent can force their will on their children--- it’s about getting their child’s buy-in. And that means, in large part, being an active filter of contrary outside influences. Which is hard to do on a public school campus; on a school campus, period…
As the media attempts to convince you that teachers and bullies and rap music and contact sports and all these other things are the biggest threats to your child, the threat that you need to be MOST concerned about is the bad parents who send their poorly-raised children to school with your child. You see, that’s the double-sided coin of “you can’t tell me how to raise my kid”--- in a public school situation, how each person raises their child directly influences the daily experiences of the other children they come in contact with, either for better or for worse. And sadly--- at least in my neck of the woods--- the chances for “worse” are exceptionally high. If we’re going to save our kids, if we’re going to save our schools, if we’re going to save education itself… this needs to change. Again, I can’t tell anyone how to raise their kids; I just hope this write-up will encourage a few parents to give more consideration to what they let come out of their households. #HERELIESEDUCATION
P.S. – I would be remiss if I didn’t say this as well: just as a poorly-raised child can become a negative influence to everyone around them, a well-raised child can have the exact opposite effect. So I challenge parents: do the best you can to raise your children well; we need their positive influences to balance out, if not altogether overwhelm, the negative influences.
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