COUNSELING AND CONSULTATION ASSOCIATES, INC.COUNSELING AND CONSULTATION ASSOCIATES, INC.
Phillip L. Blansett, Ph.D.
1621 Eagle Trace Drive
Mount Juliet, Tennessee 37122-7428
(615) 758-7568
Website: http://DrBlansett.com
Email: DrBlansett@DrBlansett.com
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Neighbors Helping Neighbors in Parenting
by
Phillip L. Blansett, Ph.D.
A recurrent theme in the teen tragedies is the theme that "our children need more discipline." Yet, when I speak to parents about strategies for disciplining, or allowing their child's caretaker, such as their teacher, to discipline their child, they rule out the very things that have worked for our society, and ancient societies across the globe and throughout time. We've become "more sophisticated", while our children have become more unruly, disrespectful, destructive and dangerous. Once, school yard fights were treated with quick interventions by teachers, a quick trip to the principal's office, a paddling, and a note or phone call home. Now, with the placement of police in our nation's schools, a school yard fight is reported to the officer, an assault complaint is filed, perhaps a hearing, and nothing results. In school suspension is a joke in the minds of most students, allowing them to escape from a class the didn't wish to be in anyway. Out of school suspension is frowned upon because schools lose federal funding if the child isn't attending that day, and parents aren't home to supervise the suspended child because they are both busy working to keep the deception of a "rosy economy" alive. Some parents and some teachers dismiss spanking as a tactic they would never embrace. We are hearing the entire world tell what we already know: That Bill Clinton has done the most stupid thing of all time: He took armed invasion off the table at the very beginning of the Kosova conflict, and told the world (and the Serbs) that he was going to do so. Teachers and parents do the same with spanking. They take it off the table, and children believe it is not ever an option. I've had kids tell me that in counseling. That all that will happen is a grounding IF THEY GET CAUGHT and they believe in playing the odds. "My parents (teacher) would (could not) ever spank me, so I'll willing to risk it." Perhaps Bill Clinton's legacy is that he will have taught us what IS is, and to never take options off of the table. The most common argument against spanking in the home or in the school is either that parents can't be trusted to be moderate in its application, that teachers can't be trusted to be moderate in its application, or that Child Protective Services can't be trusted to find investigation results appropriately. While those are all important considerations, they have nothing to do with parenting, they have to do with government's distrust of its citizens and citizens' distrust of government.
Next week we'll continue to examine how neighbors can help neighbors in parenting.
Dr. Phillip Blansett is a psychotherapist in private practice in Nashville and West Wilson County.
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