change

Everything changes but change itself. True or false? False if we’re talking about understanding what children need. Here’s why--

More than three decades ago when I began broadcasting my IN THE LEARNING CENTER programs on C.B.S. radio, I formulated two basic principles for raising children which have never changed. The first is, that no is a love word. Children of all ages want and desperately need limits, structure, discipline.

My many years of training and experience working with young people has proven to me that too many sons and daughters are being killed with kindness or what their parents and teachers think is kindness. These children are allowed to remain irresponsible, impulsive, unappreciative and unproductive. They are being destroyed by those permitting them to grow older without having to grow up. This belief resulted in my book: NO IS A LOVE WORD, explaining all the No’s we must say to youngsters and the No’s we need to avoid.

My second unchangeable concept is that the four letter word about which we need to be most concerned is not the one so commonly and endlessly spouted in movies, the media, music and by our children, themselves. It is the word “time”.

Each of us has only twenty four hours in each day; that is unchangeable. How we use that time is our choice. In some families, more hours are spent talking at children or about them rather than listening to them. More moments are devoted to taking the fast and easy way out by allowing them to duck their responsibilities rather than requiring them to help at home, work hard in school, etc. More hours are devoted to finding ways to keep them from bothering us rather than spending time guiding and communicating and nurturing them.

From the twentieth century in which I began my work through the twenty first in which we are now, modern technology has created many amazing labor saving products, But hi- tech has not been able to change the labor of love parents provide when they give their offspring, structure, limits, and time.

Elephants and Crocodiles

Every parent, grandparent, neighbor and teacher needs to know the difference between raising elephants and raising crocodiles.

Baby elephants grow to adulthood as either productive, friendly animals or destructive beasts. In some countries, elephants become man’s best friend and partner in labor. Others are circus performers, entertaining child and adult alike with their tricks.

But there are also baby pachyderms who grow into violent creatures; they live only for the joy of crushing people and property beneath their huge feet or with their powerful trunks.

The elephant’s early training and treatment determine what way he will develop.

Baby crocodiles, on the other hand, have no chance. They emerge from their eggs deadly killers, waiting until they reach full biological growth to practice the violence inbred within them. Unchangeable, they follow a destructive direction from birth to death.

Unlike the crocodile, the young of the human species are not born bad; they are made bad. Those who are sexually molested, verbally abused, or physically or emotionally neglected, are in serious danger of growing into crocodiles. It is estimated that 80% of all the males and females convicted of crimes were abused children, youngsters imbued with the killer instinct for violence.

Take a good, long look at your own child. Are you raising him to be a crocodile or an elephant? Whether you’re a parent, grandparent, neighbor, teacher etc. of a child and you don’t like what you see, don’t waste your time crying crocodile tears. Set your sights on getting that child and the adult raising him help before it’s too late. Help is there, from Parents Anonymous, the hospital in your area and many other local, state and federal child abuse centers.