As a public school teacher at one of the most economically, racially, and ethnically diverse schools in New York City, I teach students from all walks of life, all social and economic classes, and with varying degrees of support at home. Parents often ask me what they can do to help their child succeed in school; my unpopular answer is be an authority figure in your child’s life. Look, adolescence itself is the age of entitlement: children suddenly make pronouncements like, “I’m FOURTEEN! You can’t tell me what to do/ Give me a curfew!/ Run my life!” etc etc. The problem with permissive parenting is that the child becomes a bully; and like all bullying victims, overly permissive parents believe deep down that they are worth the bullyer’s derision and negotiate with the bully, thereby validating the bullies’ claims as well as the bully’s authority over them.
The results of permissive parenting in the classroom are:
• Lack of personal or academic discipline.
• Inability to comprehend the word “no”.
• A misunderstanding that rules are negotiable (try this with the IRS, kiddo).
• An abiding sense of entitlement to except oneself from every rule, while severely limiting authority over them.
• A failure to value others’ time (tardiness and late work).
• A culture that thrives on failure and lowered expectations.
• The misconception that “It’s all about me” or that anyone in the real world actually cares about your feelings.
• A cunning and persistent desire to get around the rules any way they can: usually by the most annoying pestering involving copious amounts of whining in the same drip drip drip fashion that forms stalactites in caves.
• Parents who fail to support the tough decisions and occasional serious consequences that teach kids the “life lessons” they need to learn to succeed in school and in the world at large.
What permissive parenting does to the public school classroom:
• Wastes time and resources arguing with students who have no authority and deserve no authority.
• Lowered work standards to prevent “stressing the children out”.
• Inability to enforce deadlines in the classroom because endless accommodation is made for students who don’t do their work—and parents who make excuses for their children.
• Rewards the efforts of children and parents to run interference for a miscreant child rather than allow the child to suffer any consequences for his/her actions.
If you are a permissive parent, there is hope. Here are the steps you need to take to become authoritarian:
• Prepare to be disliked.
• Prepare to be respected.
• Now, make rules. Do not consult your child about these rules. You are the parent: this is your job. Set clear, direct, enforceable consequences for these rules (Ex: Each time you curse at your parent, you lose your phone for one day.)
• Inform child of said rules and consequences.
• Enforce the rules, and the consequences. Do not give in; do not alter the consequences for good behavior.
• Accompany the start of rigorous rules with rigorous responsibility: assign your children some chores to do around the house, and consequences if they are not done. This will give you time to go in the bathroom and cry if you feel guilty for being such a meanie.
• Reward kids sensibly for good grades and good behavior; make their comfort dependent upon their behavior and hard work.
As you read this article and try to Google me on the internet to have me fired, I beg you to consider a few final questions: Whose child would you rather have as a tenant? As a doctor? As an employee? As your payroll secretary? Handling your money at the bank? Giving you medicine while you are in a coma? Eat dinner with in public? Deliver your eulogy? Because ultimately, these children of permissive parenting are going to be filling those professions, and let me tell you—they cheated on their Final exams, plagiarized term papers, and never turned in that final project for English class. And then their mothers called me an my colleagues into the Principal’s office as though we were the offenders rather than the whistle-blowers. Give me the products of an authoritarian regime any day of the week—I’ll let the dice roll with people who understand that their needs don’t always come first, that greatness is the result of hard work and sacrifice, and that the entitlement of permissiveness really just gives a few people license to make life miserable for the rest of us who value our integrity and play by the rules.
-Ms. Mouthy
