"Do It For the Children" Raising Our Children and Who Should We Turn to?

A few years back. I was talking to a teacher who was months away from retirement after a teaching career of over 30 years, when he blurted out the following:
"These kids are the worst class I have ever worked with ever! They are terrible excuses for human beings! I am going to get everyone of them put on Ridulin!" he said, waving his index finger for emphasis.
His comment nearly floored me, as I realized his perspective is becoming less and less uncommon in what I will refer to here as "child-development" professions. I thought I had heard everything in a teaching career than spanned parts of three decades, but these little 8 and 9 year old kids were some of my best music students that he was talking about.
I considered them to be gifted, although a little undisciplined. And therein lies the crux of the debate on the accepted practices for dealing with undisciplined Elementary aged children. It seems we did not agree at all on what was the correct thing to "do" to help these children.

"Do It For the Children."

No phrase of the 20th century has been used to effectively attain an agenda more than this one. Effective propagandists know the average person would never disagree and come out in opposition to such a noble cause. After all, who would be against what is in the best interest, health and safety of children?
Not a good person, mind you would take a contrary position when promoting agendas "for the children" are portrayed convincingly. Only the lowest and most selfish people are "against" what is good for children. What an extremely unpopular and foolish position to take. And so, the doors are swung wide open for pharmaceutical companies, schools and doctors to do what is best "for the children." A small side benefit is sometimes billions of dollars come with selling what is best "for the children."
This is certainly not to criticize all doctors, educators and medicines. Every day someone's life is saved by a great doctor or drug, and at some point we all realize we each owe a tremendous debt to the teacher(s) who taught us to be literate. How truly ungrateful it would be not to acknowledge the heroic people in these and other professions for the essential contributions they make to society.Yet, with each passing generation much knowledge is lost from the simple priorities of our grandparents and great grandparents. Most parents today want their children to be "happy" while the parents of past generations desired their children to be good and honorable people.
We can explain these generational differences using multi-definition words such as "values." We can apply the term "values" to various components these two most common of child raising philosophies and each is use of the term "values" is correct, since the definition of the word "value" involves a concept of arbitrary measurements. Like with money, the term "value" when applied to morals and ethics is subject to constant change.
When we watch the news we are bombarded with discouraging reports on the failures and corruption of our world leaders and how it has robbed the futures of our children, but the truth is, our children have an opportunity like no other children in the history of the world.Young children have a basic instinct right and wrong that is often superior to adults.. it is because their natural sense of fair play and justice has yet to be unlearned by the negative propagandist forces in our society. With the technology and resources available to them, they will be given an opportunity to not only save their own futures but to help overcome the mistakes of their parents.
On the other hand, you cannot truly help children without understanding ALL of the forces which are determined to keep the status quoin society and public education.
"It's not tradition we miss so much as the ring of truth. Because in the old language is the old truth..."Don Watson, Death Sentences, p. 33
Why do most children become rebellious? Is it simply because they wish to do something bad and hurt the feelings of their parents? Is it really in their nature to rebel for no reason at all? This is not to blame parents, as some children are difficult to understand no matter what efforts good parents go to in raising them. The perfect formula for raising children has never been devised as a fail-safe approach for raising all kids. This is the danger of modern child-raising theories. When expectations are low and the final result is that the child is going to turn out to be angry, bitter, hostile and resentful, then they seem to have developed certain strategies to cope with the situation. If the internet is any illustration of what life really is, based on what they are posting, most teenagers seem to fit this description.
But what about the children who don't HAVE to turn out this way if given proper guidance? Deeper research in to mind-set of the modern teenager reveals there are certainly exceptions to the negative stereotype, and there does seem to be a few teenagers doing postive things and making the lives of other people better.
If a rule were to be made for how teenagers are supposed to turn out in a consumer based society, what would it be? And are factors such as poverty a positive or a negative for the development of children? There are those that will assume that families that are down and out may become desperate and turn to illegal activities to make ends meet, so must the flip side of that coin be recognized, that sometimes poor and humble circumstances can produce human beings of tremendous character and integrity. The questions raised will answered further in future writings.

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