Dreadful Parenting

Posted on | August 29, 2009 |

Recently, on a delayed trans-atlantic flight that had me cornered at the back of the plane with no less than three families of young children, I had a chance to observe differing parenting skills.  The very young children in my immediate seating vicinity were all approximately the same ages (each family had two, about 14 months and about 3 years).  Two sets of kids were wonderful.  One set was not.  What was the difference?

I had ample time to think about this as the 3 year old boy sang show tunes, very loudly, with his own rough approximations to the words, throughout the seven and half hour flight.  Meanwhile the one year old screamed and attempted to get up enough energy for a really good cry. Fortunately the stewardesses kept giving them both attention, which is exactly what they wanted in each case.  Unfortunately this led to even louder verbal interactions of a friendly nature between the stewardess and child in each case, so the calming technique succeeded only in annoying the hell out of everyone else.

These children wanted attention, and lots of it.  Any brief period of non-attention from the assembled multitude caused a repeat of the behavior.

You may have to take my word for it, but these children were, plainly, the kinds of kids who are the center of their parents’ lives, and who take up all their attention; and so they routinely expect life to be that way. In giving in to this the parents had created two monsters. Is ‘monsters’ too strong a word?  I don’t think you would disagree had you been there and seen (and heard) two children who seemed incapable of simply being themselves without whipping up a drama.

Children are as they are because they are in a situation in which they get what they want by doing certain things. These two got what they wanted - positive attention - by misbehaving. In such cases it is always the parent who is at fault, since it is the parent who has the job of guiding behavior so that everyone in the family gets what they want without infringing on anyone else’s personal integrity.

Meanwhile, the two sets of well-behaved kids were quiet and happy, and stole the occasional glance at their two overly-energetic peers, seeming to say ‘Why do they do that, Daddy?’

What did this tell me? It told me, loud and clear, that the parents’ relationship was not based on them actually interacting with each other in a loving way.  Instead they had put the children at the center of everything in their lives. Perhaps these parents no longer liked each other; perhaps they were bored with each other. But the center of the family had shifted, and all power now sat in the hands of those least able to manage it - the children.

It’s a disaster waiting its time to happen. Seeing this, I stopped feeling annoyed. Instead I said a brief prayer for them all; for their road ahead may be a difficult one indeed.

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