Reply #46: my people did the same. Problem is they never taught the kids

[barb162]

when it became improper, like friends or relatives of parents. When you look at it, it is still lousy and improper parenting because they weren't teaching these snots the proper social boundaries. My shrink friend always said when kids act out or have other unacceptable behavior, the kids are that way for only one reason: take a look at the parents.

This one time, I had just planted a tree and they came over. The son, brat of all time, started bending the branches down. Finally he cracked one off. I was ready to kill that kid as I had had so much of him from all the previous occasions. Well, the mother had been watchingand saw it and did the same thing as you wrote. She said SMILING and quietly and sort of singsong "Now, Andrew, you know you shouldn't do things like that." Gee that's real discipline there, huh? She was basically almost encouraging him to do it again. She could have done so many other things, like tell him to get his rear end in the car and sit there until they were ready to leave, she could have told him like she meant it, she could have said sternly don't you EVER do anything like that again, etc. Most of all she saw what he was doing, bending the branches down and she could have stopped him dead in his tracks before he broke the branch off.

Nice talking to you!