Family Matters

Is it my imagination — or are more and more parents getting criticized by others for disciplining their kids?

If it's just your imagination, then you and I share the same fantasy life.

A mother once called my radio show with the following scenario. She and her two daughters (12 and 14 years old) were attending a pool party. Come dusk, the hostess asked the parents to shepherd the kids out of the pool. Several parents took up negotiating positions poolside and began to ask, nag, beg and cajole their kids to get out and dry off. More than one promised a reward in exchange for compliance.

Mom said she walked to the pool, caught her daughters’ attention and wordlessly motioned with her hand for both to exit the water. The girls followed her direction without a fight. Mom said that, upon observing this peculiar “obedience” phenomenon, the other parents made her the talk of the party.

What do you think the parents talked about? If you surmise something like, “How did she do that?” you would be as wrong as I was on the air. The general tone of the feedback Mom heard was: “It's not normal for kids that age to be so cooperative. What could be going on in their home for the kids to be so submissive toward their parents?”

It couldn't be that the girls were learning, through appropriate discipline, to respect and obey their mother's God-ordained authority. Oh, no — anything but that. It had to be that the parents had psychologically intimidated their children into becoming Stepford kids, walking in robotic lockstep to their tyrant-parents’ dictates.

How in the world did so many adults get such a warped perception of healthy discipline? Let us count the ways. No — we don't have space for that here. Let's just take a whack at the lowest-hanging fruit on the tree.

First, there are “the experts.” As a group, these well-meaning teachers have preached for decades that the modern, enlightened means to elicit kid cooperation is through words and reason. If that fails, discipline is a last resort — and it must be applied in a benign way. This mindset has permeated “proper” childrearing. Thus, those who are strong parents have come to be seen as psychological throwbacks, parenting barbarians who don't realize the havoc they are wreaking on their kids’ delicate psyches.

Then there is the popular culture. As a society in general, we are far less respectful of authority than we were a few generations ago. Anyone in a position of authority — parents, teachers, police, military, employers, clergy — is viewed as a suppressor of personal autonomy and expression. The legitimacy of authority is always open to question, particularly when we're being told to do something we don't want to do — or not to do something we do want to do.

And then there are the child-development theories constantly bandied about in the media. Merely because of their age, for example, adolescents are supposed to be uncooperative, moody or obnoxious. So says modern childrearing theory. Therefore, any kid who becomes more likable as she makes her way into and through teenhood — still respecting her folks and enjoying their company — is likely to be considered an oddity. Not quite normal, somehow.

You need look no further than at lots of home-schooled kids who, because they are far less soaked in peer-group mentality, seem to become “typical teens” in strikingly smaller numbers.

So, no, it's not all in your head. Good discipline isn't so universally admired as it once was. Be confident that you're on the right track even when others single you out for scrutiny. Your children will provide indisputable evidence that yours was the right way, after all.

Dr. Ray Guarendi is a father of 10, a psychologist and an author. For more of his wit and wisdom, go to DrRay.com.