CONSIDERING A CHILD’S HAPPINESS OVER DISCIPLINE IS FOOLHARDY

CONSIDERING A CHILD’S HAPPINESS OVER DISCIPLINE IS FOOLHARDY

By Domenick J. Maglio PhD. Traditional Realist

In the past most children were highly disciplined or they faced significant negative reactions from their loved ones. The interdependent environment of training any child to be disciplined pays great dividends for a free market economy. A free market requires energetic, hard working people to do the little things correctly to climb the economic ladder.

Today in a modern family everybody is usually “doing his own thing”. The family is no longer a cohesive unit that is interdependent. Rather it is a group of people who unproductively use electronic devices to entertain themselves. At an early stage of life, from preschool to pre adolescence the youngsters often appear to be content to be online. The satisfaction of playing solitary games is replaced with interpersonal more interactive contact with peers.  As the children age choices for pleasure on the Internet are more feasible and numerous. Without the crucial development of inner discipline, the probability of being sucked into destructive, deviant and drug addictive games and other negative activities greatly increases.

There has always been negative behavior available for the young to explore and participate in. This rapidly changing world for young people has less familial, neighborhood supervision and safeguards than ever before. The temptation of easy access to evil practices has exploded. Our current generation is the worst trained in being aware of the consequence of being led astray by dishonorable people and addictive activities.  

Today’s children are being chauffeured from one activity to another where they are supervised by an instructor or coach and rarely leave their sacred phones. The electronic friendships they have developed are usually beyond their parent’s awareness. The relationships they are experiencing are frequently secretive and on the dark side. This leaves the youngster without guidance often in a world their parents do not know exists.

Parents are being advised to overlook reality and moral values. The child is supposed to make his own choices without being burdened by his parent’s fears. Our pseudo scientific childrearing experts have indoctrinated parents to encourage their children’s illusionary world of naïve happiness with unrealistic inflated self-concepts.  A happy state of false bliss has become the ultimate goal of many modern parents.

The child may exhibit weird, inappropriate, self-stimulating, aggressive, antisocial or withdrawing behavior. Some parents are committed to allow the child to make his own choices without influencing him to adjust his behavior and thinking. Some parents are even advocating for gender change reassignment surgery as young as preschool age as they feel it would make the child happier.

In our sophisticated market economy a person who is invested in the desire for instant gratification, and feelings of euphoria will have a difficult time being successful. A disciplined person with social skills, time management and the ability to follow directions will have a much easier time to be a prosperous and happy person.

The objective of happiness is a dangerous concept to follow in our culture. It gives a child license to do whatever he wants at any particular moment. When he gets into a conflict with an authority figure that is trying to help the child be more appropriate, the parent will attack the messenger instead of supporting the efforts to help the child. The reason the parent rushes in to protect him is the child acts bizarre when he is criticized. This concept encourages a child to experiment with potentially self-destructive activities without having to worry about gaining parental permission. This approach is placing him in opposition to a host of authority figures whose positions demand them to train, teach and discipline youngsters to act in a civil and mature manner.

An undisciplined child’s behavior is often disruptive: not listening, not following directions, lying, destroying valuables or other unacceptable behaviors in any group activity. Besides upsetting group cohesiveness and order it prevents the authority figure from achieving his objectives. This makes the entire group lose out on learning and a sense of accomplishment. 

The goal of wanting to enhance a child’s happiness by permitting him to do whatever he wants at any moment is foolhardy. Besides children have limited knowledge and wisdom while the parents have a moral responsibility to teach the child how to survive and behave appropriately in society.

Modern parents have to realize that the child has to eventually fit into society no matter how great the parent’s desire for the child’s momentary happiness. A child will be judged on his actions regardless of his parent’s wishes to have him evaluated on a happiness scale. Bosses do not pay workers to feel happy; rather their salaries are governed by their productivity.

Domenick Maglio, PhD. is a columnist carried by various newspapers, an author of several books and owner/director of Wider Horizons School, a college prep program. Dr. Maglio is an author of weekly newspaper articles, INVASION WITHIN  and a new book entitled, IN CHARGE PARENTING In a PC World. You can see many of Dr. Maglio’s articles at www.drmaglio.blogspot.com.