If a child is lazy it is not going to hurt them to hear it from an adult or a parent who is going to make it their mission in life to teach the child how to work. I have had many children come live with us who, if you looked “lazy” up in the dictionary, you would see their picture staring back at you. With proper training and direction, laziness is curable. We have adults call up and ask for my teenage boys to come work for them, even when they have teenagers living in their own home. I had one parent tell me that they were hoping that my child’s work ethic would rub off on their child.
I am a very strong advocate for giving praise when praise is deserved or earned through a job well done. We need to stop putting our time and effort into no child being left behind and more time and effort into creating a learning environment where a child can do their best--and not what a standardized test says they should be doing. If a child gets an F on their report card and they deserve that F, that’s what they need to have. What we teach in our house is that an F has natural consequences. Privileges aren’t given because of good grades, they are taken away because of bad grades. That is the way it is in the outside world. When we do well, the natural outcome is that we are able to do more things. In contrast, when we don’t do well, our world becomes smaller around us.
Giving false praise in the attempt to hopefully redirect a child and their behavior is not only non-productive, it’s potentially damaging. A child who is told by their therapist, social worker, teachers, etc. that they’re a nice person, when in reality their behaviors are far from being nice, is being given a false sense of who they really are.
I read a booklet that was part of a parting gift, signed by all of the people in charge of or who had worked with a child who was coming to live with us, telling this child what a nice person he was and that he was going to be missed. Let me just put it out there that when this child came to live with us he put us through holy Hell. He wasn’t anywhere close to being nice, and anybody in their right mind couldn’t possibly have missed the type of behaviors this child brought with him. If they truly missed it, then perhaps they had a screw loose themselves.
In the “feel good” world we live in, they had continued to lie to him. The people that worked with this child gave him a false sense of who he was, in hopes that if they kept telling him he was a nice person enough times he would turn into that nice person, somewhat like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. It wasn’t working with them, and it wasn’t working with us.
Now I’m not saying that you need to belittle a child by telling them that they’re bad and addressing their behaviors negatively. What I’m saying is that the parent needs to address bad behavior with the mindset that they, the parent, have an opportunity to teach and proceed accordingly. But to be “politically correct,” you’re supposed to be positive at all times, not honest. No child left behind, isn’t that the flavor now? How dare anyone tell a child that they aren’t a nice person, and what they’re doing is not acceptable.
I had a child who was starting to steal, so I arranged for him to have a guided tour through a juvenile detention center. I wanted him to know what, if he continued doing what he was doing, his next living accommodations were going to look like. God clearly has a sense of humor, because during this tour my young man saw two kids that he knew from school locked up there. One young man was in isolation and the other was in a holding cell, and had been there for over eight hours.
We need to be honest with our children. This will allow them a chance to be able to start to reflect on who they are, what they’re doing, and what they’re becoming. This young man was becoming a thief, and there needed to be something done to turn him around, and nothing to date had worked. With approximately seventy percent of children who have been in foster care ending up in the penal system, sometimes extreme measures need to be taken to bring about positive results. When nothing is done, nothing will be accomplished. At over $40,000.00 per year to house an inmate, shouldn’t we put more of our resources into our youth before they get to a point where nothing can be done?
We need to be less concerned with being “politically correct” and more concerned with teaching our children what is acceptable behavior and what isn’t. They need to be taught that there are consequences for everything we do in life, both positive and negative.
I loved coaching kids. One year at try outs I chose a young man who was undesirable to other coaches, yet this child was a gifted player. I was told that in no way did I want this child on my team. He had a bad attitude and his mother was even worse. This kid had talent that was through the roof and I thought to myself, how bad can this kid be? It didn’t take long to find out. He was the mouthiest youngster I had ever had the privilege of working with. Little Donald was an equal opportunity pain in the backside, and everybody felt his wrath. In little league I only had to play him a minimum of one time at bat and two innings in the field, and that was all he played.
His mother, being African American, started spreading the rumor that her boy wasn’t playing because I was prejudice. There was another African American youngster that was playing on my oldest son’s team, and we had become good friends with his parents. When this mom voiced her concerns to this family, she was told that it was highly unlikely that I was prejudice, and that it was more than likely her youngster. Well, mom didn’t come to talk to me, Donald’s father did. This was probably for the best because he was known as a pretty nice guy.
He voiced his concerns about his boy’s playing time and what could be done to get him to play a little more. I looked at him and told him, “You take care of your kid’s attitude and I’ll take care of his playing time. I picked your child as a six inning player, but his attitude stinks.” His father was dumbfounded and replied, “You mean that if I take care of my boy’s attitude, you’ll play him more?” “That’s right,” was my response. The next day Donald showed up kind of hanging his head and told me, “Coach, I’m sorry I have a bad attitude.” A couple of games later, after this youngster made a complete transformation, Donald was up to bat and struck out on a called strike. He turned around to the umpire and started to give him a ration, when I yelled out to him, “Donald!” Donald’s immediate response was, “Sorry Mr. Umpire, I have a bad attitude.” I am sure that when his dad had a talk with him it wasn’t sugar coated, and I’m sure he got to the heart of the problem. Donald was one of my best players. The same child that nobody wanted on their team had a chance to be the best he could be, because his parent didn’t take the politically correct road to make his child feel good. He took the road that needed to be taken to bring about change. When we start raising our children to understand that their hard work and attitudes outline the course of their lives, we start raising a generation that can change the world.
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