To Morning Edition,
As I contemplate starting my own family soon, I was fairly disgusted with this story on parenting strategies for dealing with temperamental teens. While I think your guest, Dr. Kastner, had good general advice for conflict mitigation among familial ADULTS, I don't think kids deserve to be reasoned with that way. Kids are already too spoiled and coddled today, even versus Gen X's youth. Parenting is not about bargaining and compromising to make everyone happy; parents are the authority because they provide food, education, shelter, and many luxuries that you and I didn't have as children. The least modern kids can do to show their respect and appreciation is to behave properly and not talk back. They are not the bosses of the household. I understand the desire to cultivate self-esteem, and plenty of strict, angry parents unfortunately turn abusive, but would parents rather have their kid grow up to feel good about him or herself, but become an egotistical, undisciplined jerk in the process? America already has too many of those.
That hypothetical academic exercise of the teen writing a statement reflecting on the consequences of vandalizing a neighbor's house is ridiculous. Pediatrics and behavioral science can help us understand the tumultuous process of growing up, but can't be simply used to condone and explain away bad behavior. Kids are not wild animals. Even in the heat of the moment and under peer pressure, a 13-year-old should still be able to practice good decision making and do the right thing. If not, then the parents and society have truly failed. If kids really were that out of control, they shouldn't be allowed to go out unsupervised and put themselves and others in danger. If I was caught spraying shaving cream on a neighbor's home, my fairly liberal immigrant parents would paddle the lesson into me, prohibit me from hanging out with those "bad influence friends," and I would never do it again. In fact, the shame of bringing that trouble on my family would be motivation enough. I wouldn't have needed to reflect and share about it like a support group.
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