Permissive parents: Curb your brats

Permissive parents: Curb your brats
By LZ Granderson, CNN Contributor
July 5, 2011 8:31 a.m. EDT

Considering the rampant failure of parents being able to control their children, I would certainly give my business to "no kids" establishments.

If only there were any no kids establishments.

4th of July meal: We are all at a relative's house. There were 5 toddlers between different families there. I endured the running, etc., until one of the kids snuck around (I had been GUARDING my food) from an angle I couldn't see him from and face planted into my tray. The food launch was epic.

As soon as I cleaned up after the other person's child ( ), I went outside and ate at an outdoor table. My wife and several others immediately followed me. And it then turned pleasant.

We plan on early establishing our dominance in the relationship with our children. We are (will be) their parent, not their friend!

Any business going down that route would need to be very sure who pays them more families or singletons.

You were at a family gathering and are bitching about your family's kids?

Jackass.

If kids can't be kids at home, where can they?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I feel very sorry for your future children.

That wasn't kids being kids. That was kids being animals.

We've got some close friends who have kids...who are hellions. No discipline for those boys whatsoever until just recently, when the older one, at least, started to act civilized around other people.

When they come over to our house, we put our dog outside because, like many small dogs (he's a dachshund) he sees little kids as a threat and gets bitey with them.

Those boys behave at our house because, when they start to act up, I tell them that I'm going to let my dog in the house and he's going to bite off their nuts!

Toddlers are not animals and not ... to be held to the same standards as older children.

Toddlers need to run around and get into everything. by 5 or 6 or 8, then they need to have been taught to behave while company are over or at someone else's house - and especially in a restaurant.

But, toddlers get a leeway and anyone who gets angry about toddlers being toddlers need to ... just excuse themselves from the human race.

Oh, for fuck's sake!

Perspective, woman, perspective!

Perspective? He's at a family gathering and starts bitching about kids being kids in the middle of thread about how badly children behave in public.

No, "perspective" means he's bitching about kids being unsupervised little douche nozzles.

"Kids being kids" is one thing. "Kids running around in the eating space and knocking people's food over" is "kid needs an ass whoopin'".

People without kids don't know what the fuck they are talking about. Keeping toddlers in line in restaurants is a battle of wills. Quite honestly, the problem is that they are bored and/or tired. I never let my kids run around rampant. The solution is to get up and walk them around the place while you are waiting for your food. They get to explore and get it out of their system.

As for the temper tantrums and such, they are frustrated because they can't get what they want or they can't explain what they want. Just because a kids throws a tantrum doesn't mean the parents are failing at discipline, the kid is mostly likely overtired and in need of a nap.

Now, if this shit happens with ages 7 and up then maybe you have a point but 6 and below it's a battle.

And the people who don't have kids but seem to know how they would handle it are full of shit. Dealing with them for one afternoon is one thing but we parents have to deal with it 24/7 so fuck off!

[Edit - reply to CD]
No, really it means "kid needs to be redirected elsewhere", assuming we're still talking about toddlers.

[?=The Solution...][/?]

Want to see how effective one can be on a kid?

http://www.maniacworld.com/Shock-Collar-Test.html

Hehehe...

And that's also perfectly fine. The absolute wrong answer is, "well, they're toddlers. You're supposed to just have to put up with whatever shit their parents let them get away with".

I absolutely hate those kind of parents. Last summer, there were 2-3 parents that would bring their useless brats to class with them once in a while. The class ran 3 hours, we'd get a 10-15 minute break in the middle. I usually have my laptop out in class, I come back from break and there's a kid using my laptop. I blurt out "What the hell!", then add in "Get off my laptop, who told you that you could use it?" The parent goes ballistic on me, screaming at me that I have no right telling her child what he can and cannot do. I tell her he fucking brat was on my computer, and I didn't say he could use it. She screams at me, "I told him he could use it, you weren't using and he wasn't hurting anything!!!" I told her it's my computer, and that she has no fucking right letting her brat use my computer, and that she never even asked. She still insists that I have no right telling her or her kid what they can't do, and that she told him it ok and that I don't need to be freaking out because of it. This took about 30 seconds, at which point the professor comes up to where we are, and told the mother that she needs to get her and her kid out of the class, and that she is to never bring her child to class again. So the mom bitches some more, but leaves the whole time yelling "Imma gonna sue you all bitches!!!" The professor tells me she saw the kid using my computer, and was going to say something but I beat her to it.

Seriously, who the fuck thinks they can tell their kid it's ok to use someone else's property without permission of the owner.

Because it's ok for kids to behave like asses? Fuck that shit, kids can be kids, without acting like animals. Kids now, for a large majority, do what they want because their parents are too spineless to discipline their brats.

That statement is inconsistent. If "by 5" they "need to have" been taught, you're basically admitting that that teaching needs to be going on when they're toddlers.

And if you think toddlers aren't animals, then pray tell, what are they? Vegetables? Minerals?

I have a set of cousins with a wonderfully behaved 3 year old. He was wonderfully behaved at ages one and two as well. They invested a lot of time in him. Once, I visited them on a particularly frustrating (for them) Saturday. They were in the middle of teaching him who is boss. Their method? Any time he threw a tantrum (the going to the floor kind) they would pick him up and hold him until he stopped struggling. I once saw his dad (lovingly) hold him like that for four hours.

Do you think he liked doing that? The truth is that he hated doing that, but he knew it was best for his son. The kid has kid impulses. He gets thirsty. He whines. I've heard him scream. I've seen him throw a tantrum. But it is dealt with appropriately and quickly.

To be honest, they're copying an Amish method of parenting. In disciplining their child, they are teaching him to be disciplined. However, you seem to think that running around like control is a bad thing is enviable. I pity your kid, the few times he is around you.

Wait a minute. Even as toddlers, children understand and respect discipline. NO toddler should be running around and getting into other peoples' food -- that is a failure on the parents' part to establish boundaries and respect. And before you say I don't know what it's like to raise children because I don't have any, you're right. But I have three younger sisters and I remember how my parents raised us, I have a good idea how my aunt and uncle raised my cousins and I have a decent idea how my neighbors raised their kids; I have seen how many kids have run of the store and of their parents back when I was a cashier at Fred Meyer. NONE of us -- me, my sisters, my cousins, my neighbors -- would pull stunts like that, and I'll be damned if any of my children will do so.

Let me go a step further. One time, a mom came through my checkstand with a few kids. One was pretty fussy. All three were well behaved, just tired, and she was as well (big order). Kid in the cart was squirming and whining, I'm talking to the mom as I'm checking her things, and the kid is getting obnoxious. I tell the kid, "If you don't calm down, your mom's gonna put your head between your ears." He shuts up. His mom smiled; I told her it was a meaningless threat that my mom's dad pulled on her and she passed on to us, but with the delivery, it worked.

Would that have worked on other kids? HELL NO. They wouldn't listen, for one, and two, their parents would have gone ballistic.

Hold a kid for four hours? Fuck that shit.

My kid would get five minutes and then get a swat on her butt and sent to sit on her bed.

All I need to know is that they are your kids, and therefore your fucking problem. The amount of bullshit you may ask me to put up with in service of your child-rearing endeavors is ZERO.

No, keeping kids in line is not a battle of wills, a kid is a kid. you don't make deals with a kid to get them to behave, either they do or don't, if they don't discipline the brat. And those who don't have kids shouldn't have to fuck off, the parents with the bratfuck of a kid should get the fuck out. If I go some where why the hell should I have to deal with an obnoxious brat, it's not mine, it shouldn't ruin an outing, a meal, a movie or any other thing simply because the parents are fuckwits who treat their kid like it's a fucking prince or princess. The kids don't behave because they know nothing is going to happen to them. I've talked to people my age, the reason we behaved is because we knew something would happen if we didn't. We were too scared to see what would happen, too many parents know bargain with their brat to behave. "If you stop that, mommy will buy you a (insert bribe here)" or "If you don't stop mommy will have to give you a timeout", a fucking timeout, all that does is give them a break so they have more energy. All we needed was a look, and we'd stop whatever we were doing instantly, because we knew we'd get our asses beat for it.

There was a time when parents would feel actual shame if their kids were being assholes in public.

Now, supposedly everyone else is supposed to just suck it up.

Fuck YOU.

And while we're at it, I cannot abide any parent which baby talks to their kid past say, a year old.

And that's stretching it.

And now, the ones who are bothered are the assholes. Fuck that shit, and it used to be ok to discipline someone else's kid. But now, discipline seems to equate to cruelty to children. One pop upside the head, or a slap to the ass was all it took to make me realize I was out of line, and I didn't even are to think about doing again.

When was this halcyon golden age?

Also, nice to see that the target of the two-minutes hate has shifted today!

From my diligent observations, the time prior to August 11, 1991.

When in the fuck was that ok? The 1300's?

At least through the 1970's. Past that in the REAL America.