Discipline in the infancy of the 21st Century
What limits should we put on our children? What values should we inculcate? What rules of behavior and coexistence should we teach them? How to apply new techniques and resources in education?
These are some of the questions that parents and educators from all over the world are asking to theirselves, always with the intention of offering the best education to the children.
Parental protection is something natural as life itself, is in our genetic code and is necessary for the creation of figures of attachment, so important in the growth and development of children.
However, this protection taken to the extreme, is bringing many problems to the current society. Far from helping them, we will be generating irreparable deficits in our children as a result of this excessive protection, which is playing a leading role in today’s society.
The strict discipline that characterized the classrooms of the past, led by a figure of authority to which students and parents owed respect, has given way to the true chaos in which today’s classrooms are immersed.
We have gone from everything to nothing, nobody keeps the manners, is not respected anything or anyone. How about the classic values such as the respect to the adults and the to the other classmates ? Where have the words “thank you” and “please” gone? I can’t see them any more.
The overprotection of children is generating a disaster that does not seem to have an easy solution. The result of this trend are children spoiled, impolite and devoid of values, which will give way to an adult society of questionable human quality.
Families and teachers must work in the same direction to educate adults who are self-sufficient and able to face a changing society full of bumps and difficulties.
Parents and teachers must form strong alliances of mutual collaboration to shape the behavior of children from childhood, as both are necessary and complementary figures in the development of children.
As parents, we must rely on the professionalism of teachers and place on them the responsibility of helping us to educate our children while they are in school. But never completely delegate in them or think that the school is the only one responsible for the education of our children.
On the other hand, teachers should complement the work of the families, not just paying atention to the content, leaving the transmission of values only under the responsibility of the families. The teacher should not forget that the child spends more time at school than at home.
The actions of parents and teachers must be complemented and the relationship between them must be characterized by continuous communication and trust. Children should never perceive disagreement or disunity between their parents and their teachers.
Let us listen to our children, but we do not believe in everything they tell us. We have all been children. Let us all judge everything, let us be critical. Children must not feel that we will always be there to defend them, no matter what happens. Above all, they must not feel that we will be defending them whatever they do, even when their behavior is not correct.
Do not feel that we are willing to remove heaven and earth for them, even to confront their teachers. This is unheard. Where do we want to get? What are we teaching them behaving adults in that way?
The new times have brought us innovative strategies and educational techniques, which were just unimaginable a few years ago, but we have lost values and education, very well considered before and so little valued now.
Again, I recommend that common sense be applied to take the best from each moment and approach satisfactorily towards the education of the future, without going crazy, without losing our minds.
