|
|
|
|
Lesson One: I’ve Got a Secret!
Chapter 2
Why Today’s Children Are Different
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
—Kahlil Gibran
As I start this chapter, I am reminded of the movie Pleasantville, in which two teenagers are magically inserted in an old television sitcom reminiscent of Ozzie and Harriet and Father Knows Best. The sitcom life reflected the traditional values of the 1950s: perfect parents, obedient children, and a fire department solely devoted to rescuing kittens from trees.
To a great extent, the values of this not-so-bygone era were based on demands of an industrial society. Factories wanted workers who could follow orders. The goal was uniformity, not innovation or initiative.
These values were reflected in the families of that time, where authority relationships reigned and the do-as-you're-told mentality wasn't questioned. Parents’ expectations were rigid, and misbehavior was met with swift punishment. This approach to discipline was readily accepted by a society that was focused on churning out factory workers who could follow directions and not make waves.
Those Leave It to Beaver years are now gone. With the vast technological developments of the past few decades, we have moved from an industrial to an information society. This new economy demands a different set of work skills, such as interaction, innovation, negotiation, and communication.
A child’s world today is much larger than it was in the past. There is greater access to information. Children are much more aware of the world around them. Thanks to television, children are bombarded with visions of successful, happy people.
More often than not, the media-portrayed successful people have not earned their success through simply following directions or taking orders. These people have succeeded by meeting the needs of the new information society through initiative, innovation, risk taking, individual thinking, and taking responsibility for their own lives. Therefore, is it any wonder that our children are resistant to authority figures who attempt to control their behavior?
If you grew up with authority-based relationships, as I did, you are apt to try to apply those industrial-age techniques to your own children. Whether or not you actually liked being brought up in an authority-oriented do-it-for-your-own-good world, you probably accepted it and naturally sought to use the same approach with your own children.
However, when we apply industrial-age techniques, we interfere with our children’s opportunities to develop the skills they will need in an age that is structured on a different set of needs and values.
What is needed, therefore, is an approach to discipline that is in sync with today’s society, an approach that not only prepares children for an information-oriented society but also promotes and encourages their personal development as caring, responsible members of that society.
Why should we be concerned about the type of person our information-age society requires? What does that have to do with discipline at home? To answer those questions, consider what should be the ultimate goal of parents: to prepare children to be happy and succeed once they leave home. To accomplish this, to give our children the knowledge, skills, and experiences they need to succeed, we must first understand the requirements for success in our society.
To better understand the difference between the industrial and information ages, compare the following sets of characteristics:
Industrial-Age Skills
- Follow orders. Listen.
- Don’t make waves.
- Take initiative.
- Be innovative.
- Be independent.
- Parents make and enforce rules.
- Goal is obedience.
- Dependence on parents.
- Parents make rules and encourage self-enforcement.
- Goal is responsibility.
- Independence; self-control.
- Children make few decisions.
- Punishment for misbehavior.
- Critical; focus on unwanted behavior.
- Children encouraged to make decisions.
- Consequences for misbehavior.
- Recognition; focus on wanted behavior.
A key difference in discipline for the industrial and information ages has to do with decisions. Children raised with a do-as-you’re-told approach don’t have many opportunities to make decisions. They might have difficulty solving problems or anticipating the outcome of the choices they make. Obedient children might have trouble accepting the responsibility for the choices they make. They are more likely to blame someone or something outside of themselves for anything good or bad that happens to them: “It wasn’t my fault. He started it.”
To become responsible, children have to be taught to make choices and accept the consequences of those choices. To do this, we have to understand more about choices and what motivates children. That is the subject of the next chapter.
 |