We have all heard the expression the teachable moment. I think we should all look for the teachable moment. A time when one can get and idea, or concept, or point of view clear to someone else. The problem is so many people really do not know how to teach when they find themselves presented with a teachable moment. I saw this video a couple days ago that I can not get out of my mind. This was the perfect example of a teachable moment and a father that knew how to make the most of it. Some said he was wrong and, mean for teaching his daughter a good lesson a hard way. His daughter had been kicked off the school bus 3 times that year, and the father decided to make his point to his daughter that bullying would not be permitted, and she would not get away with it. He made his little girl walk the 5 miles to her school in cold weather carrying her back pack. He followed behind her to make sure she was safe.
This was not a mean father. If that had been me I would not have been sitting down for a week cause my mom would have lit me up. My mom told me the first day of school she did not want to hear of me fighting. If I was big enough to go to school I was too big to fight, and if I got in trouble at school I would be in more when I got home. That may sound mean too, but my mom did not paddle us much, and we always knew it was coming. If she yelled at us and called up by all 3 names we knew we better quit what ever we were doing right then, because if we did not the next thing would be mom picking us up and spanking us. If we stopped when or before she called all 3 names she did not spank us.
Back to the point. I see nothing at all wrong with that father making his daughter walk to school, because she is the one that misbehaved and got kicked off the bus 3 times that year. He was teaching her if you lose your transportation because you broke the rules you still had to meet your responsibilities ie school. If he had driven her to school he would not be teaching her to obey the rules. She would be teaching him she could do as she wanted and did not have to follow the rules and would have no penalty to pay for her behavior. What none of those that criticized the father for his choice of punishment fail to realize is, after she has to walk to school a few times maybe she will not be so eager to break the bus rules again. As to it being 5 miles in the cold, ARE YOU SERIOUS? My grandparents walked to school every school day sun or cold or rain, and no one complained, or thought their parents mean for making them go to school. My great grand parents did not trail along behind to make sure they were safe. And the winters were colder back then. In those days girls were forced to ware dresses to school no matter the weather. I know because that dress code was still in effect when I was in grade school. When I was in 9th grade I had to walk a mile every day just to get to the bus stop. Then I stood there in the open along side the road for up to a half an hour waiting on the bus to pick me up and take me another 10 miles to the high school where I would transfer buses and take another one to the jr high.
You want to know what I see when I hear people saying how mean this father was to make her walk to school when she herself got kicked off the bus by her actions? I see that we are raising a weak, privileged, selfish, disobedient, younger generation. We are not teaching them their actions have consequences. They do not respect anyone not even authority figures. They think the world revolves around them and no one else's feelings matter.
The stupidest thing they ever did was when they passed laws that parents could not spank their children, AND NO I am not saying beat your kids till they are black and blue or break bones or leave welts. I am saying a swat or 2 on the butt when you have a child who does not do as the authority figures tell them is not a bad thing, and that father did not spank his daughter he just made her bare the events her bullying caused. This was a wise father who will most likely have a daughter he can be proud of when she grows up, because he is teaching her to be responsible for her own actions.
Let me tell you about another little girl she was just 6 years old and no matter how many times her teacher told her and the little girls best friend not to talk in class they disobeyed her. The poor teacher tried moving their desks to different sides of the room even that did not stop them from talking in class. Finally the frustrated teacher called the girls parents. She told one mother I do not what I am going to do with them. I can not get the to stop talking in class. The mother said I do not know what you are going to do with the other girl, but you have to show mine you mean business. The next time the teacher told the girls to be quiet and they did not do it, she swatted each of them 1 swat on their butts (BACK THEN TEACHERS COULD DO THAT IF THE PARENTS SAID OK) , and she made them both stand in corners facing the wall for a period of time. It was after the second time she spanked them and sent them to the corner that the problem was solved. While they were in the corner the teacher called the one girls reading group for the reading lesson. The girl did not know what to do she peeked from behind the class room door ( she was in the corner behind the door) and asked her teacher softly what she should do that was her group. The teacher told her if she was going to behave she could join the group. The girls stopped disrupting that class that very day, and no teacher ever had a problem with them again. All because someone cared enough to teach them the proper way to act in school. This story is true I know because I was the little girl that nearly missed her reading lesson because I did not respect authority. From that point on I always respected authority, and NEARLY all the teachers loved me. No one can please everyone. There will always be someone who hates you for no fault of your own.
I really think we need to look for the teachable moments and learn how to teach the children to be good citizens.
Sure there are some children that are actually abused and need protection from people they care about, but I do not believe there are as many as the media would have you believe. It is the ones that are publicized that make people think there are more then their is, and that allow children to run amuck. Parents are afraid to correct their own children, but children are allowed to abuse their parents. How is that going to make this world better. Parents must teach their children when they are young how to behave when they are grown, and if you do it right it is a hard job.
My sister used to get so frustrated with her daughters. They would play their parents against each other all the time. Their mom would tell them one thing their dad would change it. My sister came up with a teachable moment. When the kids would ask if they were allowed to do something my sister started telling them they had to ask their dad ,because no matter what she told them they would get him to change it. Back then no one had cell phones so many times the kids could not get in touch with their dad to ask permission so they missed out on many parties and special events.
One day my sister told me she thought her daughters hated her. I laughed and told her they were teens and no matter what she did at this stage of the kids lives it would not be right in their eyes, but if she did her job right when they grew up they would be adults of which she could be proud, and I was right. All 3 of them are fine respectable adults, and we are all very proud of them.
