Things sure have changed since I was growing up. That’s a statement that I’m sure every generation says, but it is certainly true today. Kids have gotten completely out of control. A now viral video shows a female high school student not only cursing and verbally abusing her teacher, she also attacks the teacher leaving her in the hospital with a broken leg. When did it become normal for a student to strike their teacher?
One thing I noticed about my generation was the need for many parents to establish a friendship with their children. My Mother and Father would remind me on a regular basis, “they weren’t one of my little friends”. I didn’t understand what they meant, I actually thought it was cruel. In reality they were establishing boundaries and enforcing them. Kids get very lax and comfortable with their friends. My parents made sure that me and my siblings understood the difference.
I think that many parents are fearful of not being close to their children or their children keeping things from them. So, to meet them in the middle and create a “safe space” for their kids, they attempt to befriend them. In my opinion, some take it too far when they begin drinking and partying with their kids as if they were on the same level. They might both be adults, but there is a difference to me. They are my elders, not my equals. I respect my elders differently than I do my peers out of respect for their age and experience.
Many teens today were raised in a household where they were friends with their parents, or in a household where it was implanted into their young, impressionable minds that nobody can say ANYTHING to them! That is unless you’re their Mom or Dad. Many children then grow up with a lack of respect for authority and their elders, What the parents fail to realize is no one will love and treat your child the way you do, so you’re setting them up for failure in my opinion. Failing to obey instructions or show respect to an authority figure like a police officer can have deadly consequences.
As a child, even if I didn’t have respect for the teacher, I would’ve had respect for my parents and the way they raised me. To keep it 100, I’m respectfully afraid of my parents to this day and try my best not to disappoint them or embarrass them. I respect and appreciate the sacrifices that they made for me. Unfortunately, many kids don’t have that same respect or fear. They weren’t raised that way. When there isn’t a fear of repercussion, chaos is surely to follow.
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