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.
I gave myself an assignment last week. Assignments, in the minds of children, are to be avoided. But there was an assignment that needed doing. We live in a world where contrived crisis meets real crisis. However horrible events like the Columbine Killings are, they are not new in history. We seem to look everywhere for reasons, while ignoring the individual. So, that brings the assignment back up, again. In the privacy of my office, with no one else around, I watched The Basketball Diaries. That is the movie credited with motivating several children to gun people down. For instance, a scene from the movie has been alleged to have motivated the Columbine High School killers. Black trench coats were worn in the movie and in the Columbine killings. I saw the movie, and I saw the scene that has been credited with such power. Of course I only saw the movie once, and I saw the offending clip on CBS news five or six times, on NBC news four or five times, on CNN half a dozen times, on Fox News the same. It wasn't until I saw the movie that I realized the actor never killed anyone, he only had a dream. The reporting led one to believe the Basketball and Columbine killings were related. Which brings me to the subject of this article. We seem to have a culture of PP's (Paranoid Parents). PP's are identified by their willingness to look everywhere else other than themselves and their own parenting for the causes of their child's misbehavior. Remember, we are a society where people regularly get married, have a baby or two and divorce. We are a society convinced that our economy is so good yet both parents have to warehouse their children at daycare so both parents can work in order to have the things they believe they can't do without. Perhaps it's not the viewing of one movie that has led to youth violence. Perhaps, just perhaps, it is the ability of children, today, to "keep the company of fools". In earlier years, children were fairly isolated from each other. Living at home with both adults who were also their birth parents, children walked or were driven to school by their own parents. They weren't herded into a school bus with 30 other unsupervised children. In earlier days, there was minimal interaction between children at school except at recess and lunch. After school the children walked or were driven back home where they spent the rest of the day either with their parent, or with the parent of a neighbor friend. They learned large words because that was what they heard, and they avoided the popular four letter words so popular today because there was no one around to impress, and correction was swift if they slipped. Additionally, they learned manners, respect and courtesy. Perhaps, rather than casting the blame for the ills of society onto a 102 minute film, we should look at the society we live in. The first task in cleaning house is to acknowledge that it is dirty. Acknowledging it doesn't make it dirty, but it is the first step to recovery. How is our society dirty? Let me count the ways....
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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