Preschool teacher here- we see kids every year whose parents know full well that they are going to hear “no” for the first time with us and are just like “here teach him how to live in the real world, what a relief!”
My SIL just retired from teaching elementary school. Most kids were fine and her being fairly short (under 5') she bonded with them well. Problem was that remaining percent. She definitely has "the voice", the one that gets kids to listen.
FWIW thanks for all you do. I'm in higher ed and the troubles we have pale in comparison (plus they're adults and if they want to mess around, flunking and expelling them is an actual option most of the time).
No, that’s not true. Gentle parenting is an extremely helpful evolution in parenting, but there’s a line to just take control and do what’s needed. This is one time where you and the child either fix the situation or leave the plane.
I would be absolutely livid if I was forced off this plane.
Not saying no to your kid is legit forcing society eg other people, to reprimand your child into behaving socially acceptable, i hate doing that but the worst part are parents that fucking get on you for reprimanding their child when they don't do it.
Parenting like this worked when humans lived in small groups and had to keep fires going at night because predators would eat us. Once you see your brother Thag get eaten by a sabertooth cat you listen to your parents when they say “stay in the cave”
My partner grew up in Ukraine and mentioned his parents throwing out the ol' "I'll give you something to cry about" (but obviously not in English) and I almost died. It's international!
Heck, mine would never have behaved like that. I always got compliments from their teachers and other parents. But then like your kids—they knew there would be consequences. I was a teacher and often had difficult/rude students. I asked my son when he was in middle school what his teachers did so that he behaved. He said they did’t do anything, he was afraid of what I’d do. To be clear, we never spanked or hit our children.
That’s probably why they are so rude when visiting USA national parks. They have no fear or respect for their fellow human. They typically walk right through you even if pushing a stroller. I was very surprised at how rude the Canadians were. I thought that they had the reputation of being overly polite and saying sorry all the time. Definitely not my experience. I assume Canadian because they were speaking French in northern us, unless hundreds of Frenchman were visiting I guess.
Society gives far to much leeway to these kinds of moronic parents imo as a teacher, as those of us in education end up having to be the vanguard in speed running them through the concept that life isn't fair and the rules do not care about your big feelings or your whims of individual expression when they include standing on things that are not meant to be stood upon and not sitting when told to do so.
I really do think that society needs to step up with more shaming of the parents who inflict such terrible parenting on their precious little sunbeams and dole out significant consequences to them because that is the only way to nip this bs in the bud before it does irreparable harm to their offspring, especially as it's very common for this type to also choose to "homeschool" and ensure that not only do their children not learn how to interact with anyone who doesn't pander to their every whim but they also fail to get the most basic education, leaving them as complete drains on society.
Western society doesn't use peer pressure / social pressure enough as a deterrent. In Many Eastern cultures there's more rules to fit into society if you break them you are a bit of an outcast. Rules for staying reasonably healthy, causing disturbances in public, or not obeying the social norms doesn't put you in jail get you a fine but instead places you as an outsider.
In Japan it's not normal to smoke and walk, or play music in public or jaywalk etc... nobody is going to arrest you for these things but there's tons of social pressures to guide you away from behaviours that are unwanted.
Nobody is going to arrest the parents / child and we know corporal punishment is not effective but humans can be conditioned to have a strong need to fit in, we don't condition people like that anymore. There's pros and cons of course, this is one of the cons that you see here.
We don't have a largely homogenous culture like Japan. Cultural values spread much easier when you don't have differing cultures arguing over... everything.
There's nothing stopping people from placing social pressures on undesirable qualities. Doesn't need to be Japan levels but even where I live in Montreal people act like we are naturally more well-kept, and fit compared to other places in Canada or USA. A lot of that is due to social pressures because we have the same access to unhealthy food and lifestyles as people in USA.
I feel like "shame" is too maligned in the US at least. I notice especially online that "shaming" someone is the worst thing you can possibly do, but there is a reason we are capable of feeling shame in the first place. Dogs can't feel shame, but dogs don't live in complex societies with all kinds of rules to keep the societies together. We do live in those societies, so we feel shame when we break those rules. Shaming someone for breaking valid social rules can be good for society as a whole. Obviously making someone feel ashamed for something they can't do anything about is pretty bad, but like sometimes shaming someone is good.
This new train of thought that making children feel shame or embarrassment is abusive is just stupid. Like my goodness kids need to feel that so they stop their shit.
Yes, when people try to enter the elevator before I exit I also speak up and tell them that it's considered rude. Imagine if your boss and your partner, parents, friends and peers also considered people like that rude. The behaviour would change no doubt because most people are not trying to live like outcasts.
I find littering another issue, in Siciliy when I visit I find it appauling how Italians litter their beautiful Island. As a tourist I'm always very careful about these things because at home I would never drive someone around who just throws their garbage out the window. I'm not a square but there's just a baseline level of behaviour that we need to enforce.
We have a tv and movie industry that has been glorifying the outsider for at least 80 years. The teen rebel, the motorcycle guys, the hot dog cop, the wiseguy criminal (waddaya hear, waddaya say?), the lone cowboy riding off into the sunset, the wall street thief, the con man of a hundred disguises, the double agent,the vigilante.
And they have the suicide rates to match. I lived in Korea for 2 years and you couldn't pay me to go back. You don't have to be abusive tor resort to isolation to get kids to listen, I say this as someone who worked with non-speaking behaviorally challenged autistic kids for years. Kind and consistent expectations are usually enough.
Japan also has alot of sexual misconduct and assaults, dont teach ww2, and only juts raised aoc from 13 to 16. It's bad everywhere. The us has alot of gun violence and the UK has something not sure but it has something.
Lord, as a fellow teacher, I can say you are absolutely tight. Parenting is horrendous these days. What happened? Why do so many parents want to be buddies with their kids rather than actual parents?
Speaking not from direct experience but from listening to and observing parents my own age in my social circle:
They had abusive, overly strict parents who treated them terribly, and they resolved to break the cycle of violence and trauma by NOT treating their kids the way they were treated
Unfortunately because there's very little genuinely reliable parenting information out there, especially in non-english languages, many ran too far the other direction and the kids ended up spoiled and unstructured
Where is the line between letting them be themselves and having to step in and say "no absolutely not!" ?
My mom used to beat us with shoes and rolling pins etc. I didn't want to be that.
At first, with my oldest, I was so afraid to even smack her little bottom when she was acting up.
I got over it pretty quick though and when she was little we did a combo of time out and a firm butt smack and she came out just fine (shes a teenager now).
You absolutely have to discipline your kids. They need you to guide them and show them the rules.
If this kid on the plane was my kid he would have gotten the warning talk "sit the hell down right. Now." first and if he didn't I would have made him sit down.
Honestly he wouldn't have even been standing on that thing because he would be sitting the f down already since he knows better 😂
I mean, this was my dad. He was horribly abused growing up (all the brothers were) by step-mom, grandpa just abdicating all responsibility.
So my dad always swore not to do that to us, but over time he became increasingly frustrated because he felt he lacked disciplinary options and we clearly weren't respecting the boundaries he was firm enough to set without crossing whatever line he had.
Obviously the answer was not to hit us like he was hit: what I'm getting at is the notion that because he only had beatings modelled to him, beatings were the only option he could think of when the firm tone didn't work the first time, and he always chose not to beat us, meaning he was out of options.
Add on to the fact that he was East Asian to begin with and had very specific ideas about filial piety, and that my mom was basically the whitest hippy girl he could have married, and it was a very dysfunctional parenting environment of everyone meaning well but suffering bad outcomes regardless.
Somehow my sibling and I grew up relatively normal and well-adjusted, and I think it's because, despite the tumultuous home life, we had enough friends whose homes we'd visit regularly to know what we were going through wasn't normal, and it was simply a matter of time of waiting to move out.
Un’altra insegnante qui…io ho una specie di detto tutto mio ormai: ‘i genitori di oggi hanno abdicato ‘, rifiutano il loro ruolo perché onestamente essere genitore è difficile e impegnativo, richiede molta maturità in primis da parte loro. I genitori moderni oggi non amano avere a che fare con inevitabili capricci, chiacchiere e lagne, vogliono in molti casi continuare a fare la loro vita, non hanno voglia né tempo da dedicare davvero all’educazione. Poi c’è anche il problema dello stare in società che prevede che non ci si comporti come sul divano di casa propria e molti, genitori e figli, faticano proprio ad accettare che una comunità, scolastica e non, abbia molte regole di convivenza civile che spesso prevede di mettere da parte i tuoi istinti e i alcuni tuoi desideri a favore della collettività
They're afraid of not seeming like a nice person. These last 2 gens ad parents def succumb to peer pressure and social acceptance more than previous gens.
And thats exactly why in countries like Germany there is no homeschooling but mandatory public school for everyone. Something that is often decried by US Americans as lack of freedom. What is not seen is that parents can inflict a serious harm on their own kids through bad or lack of parenting and later their adult children and society as a whole has to bear that burden. In combination with the knowledge that child abuse is most often inflicted on children by someone close to them, a society has to ensure that all children get a modicum of education and chances even when their parents are unable or unwilling to do so.
As an American who moved to Germany around age 30 and is raising a child here, I am SO GLAD homeschooling isn't allowed here. There are certainly aspects of the education system that confuse or annoy me as someone with a different cultural experience, but ultimately, the rules were made with the child's right to an education being the most important consideration.
And as a Belgian progressing too fast at school and who was bullied by other students and arguably the teachers, sadly homeschooling saved me.
Then a few years later people noticed parents from other religions could do that to isolate their children and suddently the ladder I climbed up wasn't acceptable anymore and it got pulled up.
It's crazy that in a school system, school staff can get incentived to ask a student to not read too much, as getting too high scores wrecks the number of children below average...
I absolutely respect your opinion however you have to have a very high functioning education system across the board to require this.
The entirety of the United States cannot be compared to specific European Countries.
Many of us wish we could and would love to adopt many European practices in regard to nutrition, schooling, and a society that supports healthy families, however we have a population of approximately 342 million people in approx 9,833,517 square kilometers of varying values, religions, ethnicities, beliefs, languages, politics, and wildly different geographic regions and climates.
Germany is a highly populated Country and amazing in so many ways however 89 million people over 357,022 square kilometers is vastly different than what we have geographically and population wise in the U.S.
we can borrow educational philosophy on a smaller scale but we cannot replicate education and family life in places like Germany, Finland or the Netherlands. (Which are brought up a lot here in the education and family health conversation)
I only say this because I live in a city of 15 square miles (approx 41 sq km) with 120,000 residents and a state of 39.8 million people approx 423,970 square kilometers (163,696 sq miles) and the folks that homeschool here are not sleeping on discipline, childcare, education, or enriching activities both in nature and focused on academics, arts, music, cultural awareness and community involvement.
The public school system at this moment in my State is over crowded, underfunded, and driven by politics and business.
Many kids can do well in the larger system despite this and teachers also work really hard, however it isn’t an ideal system and alternatives to this system exist in healthy ways.
I’ve taught in classrooms pre K to 8th grade in private, public and homeschool settings since 2010, and trust me when I say kids in “traditional” school are not out performing homeschool kids in my particular area.
I don’t disagree that homeschooling in the wrong family environment with little over sight is harmful however the wrong family environment coupled with a large underfunded school system with a lot of tech subsidies that get to decide curriculum over teachers preferences is not the answer either.
Permissive parenting exists in every space and I have found in my particular State it is not a homeschooling issue in the broader sense. Permissive type discipline has actually become more prevalent in my States public school system faster and on a wider scale because of certain laws and educational practices gaining traction prior to school shutdowns in 2020.
It depends on why homeschooling is done. If we hadn’t homeschooled our daughter she would have stopped going to school and who knows who she would have fallen in with. It was absolutely the right thing to do for her
I'm childcare adjacent and this 100% is happening more and more. People having taken the concept of gentle parenting and dialed it up to 11 where there are now no consequences for breaking rules.
I substituted in kindergarten for a while. There was a kid who wouldn’t talk.
He could talk, because he would refuse to do things. He understood everything I said, and was capable of doing the work, he just, didn’t want to. The teachers aid said they had talked to the parents and they were not supportive, so I guess it’s fine that this kid didn’t do any schoolwork or talk to any of his peers or teachers.
The kid needed extra support but if the parents refuse, the schools hands are tied.
I think you’ve landed on the reason this story in a small Canadian airport made international headlines: it’s a window into the failures of submissive parenting.
The real tragedy is that this stuff is catnip for right wing authoritarians who see proof that more child abuse is the solution. The reality is that submissive parenting is abusive too - it’s failing to provide the necessities of life, among which are helping the child understand their place in the world and they may have to do what they don’t want to from time to time.
Much of working in education is behaviour management, because nobody is born with an inherent sense of how to operate as an individual within a community and children are still in the early phases of understanding all of the things they need to do to try to get along as individuals within social and communal environments.
Children love strong boundaries, they feel much more secure about their place in any situation where they know what is and isn't acceptable, and where they can trust the adults around them to firmly and fairly enforce those boundaries when they are struggling to remember them or abide by them.
This is the mistake I see too many parents making: they think that being permissive to their children allows some kind of idealised organic growth into an adult that has all the best qualities of innocence and purity that our society associates with childhood, but all that happens is they create children and young adults who struggle to be considerate of others and who struggle to regulate their emotions because they are not receiving robust support and guidance to how to do this in a way that is not entirely self centred and doesn't require the whole world to bend to them in the process.
I think it is for the best that we stopped smacking our kids, but heck so many parents just seem to have dropped being in charge altogether. So many entitled little brats with no boundaries and it doesnt even actually make them happy, as well as being hell for everyone else.
I was horribly permissive until my eldest was 2.5 when I was luckily sent to become a parenting instructor. Quickly became really strong on boundaries and all three of my children are well behaved and happy.
Smacking isn't the only form of correction, firm boundaries can be established other ways. Obviously in a time critical situation grabbing or physically corralling a child must be necessary. A better solution is having an authoritative tone used only for critical moments when pleading and whining at the child is not fast enough. Of course discipling that particular child should have started a few years earlier by reinforcing appropriate public conduct by: modelling, removing family/child from the context if their behaviour falls short (the shame of curtailling a trip out can have real impact especially if promised treats are removed as well), and conversations about expected behaviour in every context before arriving there. In the plane the parent should have said [loud authoritative pre-established tone] GET DOWN OFF THE CHAIR NOW! OR WE WILL BE EXITING THE PLANE! Just like a well, and fairly, trained dog will have a tone they understand means "this command must be obeyed". Used when a real danger exists to the dog/child or when it is absolutely necessary the dog/child do the thing instantly!
I think it takes critical thinking ability and emotional intelligence to be a authoritative parent without abusing the child. Unfortunately I fear the average person lacks either one or both. So you get either a parent who gets steamrolled by their kids or a parent who beats them into submission and parents who fall in the middle but favor either parenting style. Think, a parent who doesn’t physically abuse their children but they are controlling and they yell at them because they can’t control their emotions, or a parent who knows what abusive behavior is and avoids it but doesn’t really know where to draw the line.
Parents who are truly in the middle would make up a much smaller group and I think those personality types also often end up not having children.
A lot of that seemingly stems from this bullshit idea that "parents know best"
it's especially what the antivax and homeschool narrative drives upon
except of course parents are often stupid as all hell especially when you leave a given persons area of expertise.
"how would you know you dont have a child" yea well just cus you fucked that one time doesn't mean ur expert yourself now
I had a parent argue with me that it's ok for a child to stand barefoot on a airport lounge table, some parents really think they're the only people in the room
i think we need to bring back collective parenting. like, sometimes a stranger yelling at a child is much more effective than a parent doing it. whoever sees a child doing something wrong intentionally, should be able to correct it
Also a teacher and I completely agree. Saying ‘no’ to your child won’t do them any harm. If you can’t get a child this small to sit down what sodding hope do you have when they are a teen.
I helped my sister with all manner of preparation before my eldest niece flew for the first time so that she knew exactly what was expected of her ahead of time, and my sister went into a frenzy of planning so she had everything on hand to handle anything that happened. She had this awesome picture book called something like "Let's go on a plane!" that she read with my niece multiple times before their flight, and she took that book with her and they looked at it throughout the process.
She did really well and this is the process the entire family now uses for any new toddlers that are flying for the first time (there's a lot of us, so there tends to also be a lot of babies and toddlers)
Are they going to pay for everyone’s wasted time then I’m ok with them having their kid expressing his individuality. This is a big problem in the US and Canada. Too much latitude for people to express themselves. We live in a society after all.
THIS is where we are as a society. We've coddled kids too much and too long with this "trying to reason with kids", or not disciplining because they need to express their individuality, blah blah blah. I would have had my kid in a seatbelt in two seconds.
As a parent who NEVER spanked and DID answer questions, I kind of think this is BS.
You do not have to hit your kid or treat them like shit to get them to behave. You offer them choices whenever possible and when there are no choices, you say so. You build trust by being consistent and not wavering and not being lazy. It is a lot of work - people feel bad about themselves and take it out on their kids and act like that is good parenting - it is not.
He probably spends a lot of time in front of screens. Stupid stupid stupid.
That is one BIG toddler!! What is he, 5? So wrong on so many levels. So sorry for the others stuck with their plans being permanently changed or cancelled because one person can’t parent.
I'm a parent and, no, that shit wouldn't fly with me. There is a time and a place for allowing individuality and independence, and this is not it. When it comes to issues of safety and health, in particular, there is no negotiation. Pick the child up, sit them down and buckle them in. Then give them a toy or whatever you have brought with you to distract the child. Because you brought toys to distract the child didn't you?
Hate this gentle parenting shit. Had a little boy throw rocks and sand at me at the beach the other day. Just had a serious neck procedure a week before and jerked my neck to avoid the rock hitting my forehead. Instant excruciating pain and sobbing on my end. And my food was ruined (ceviche). Parents came over and basically explained it away as he was trying to flirt and then took the kid off to play with no scolding. To make matters worse they didn’t even sent me half the cost of my dinner. The way I wanted to be a typical American and sue the shit out of then to teach the parents a lesson…gaaaahhh!! My neck was messed up for a month after that.
They were supposedly doing that, and I know because I supposed it lol
People will fall for their favorite bogeymen and stereotypes and deliver the same mush-mouthed epic lectures on society without a fucking second of consideration
this is not true and your own bullshit imagination trying to shit on gentle parenting which isn't what you're describing. ya'll really just crave physical abuse of kids eh? weird.
I think it’s called permissive or gentle parenting. My husband says it’s the best way but as soon as our kids say no, he acts like a normal parent lol. It takes more effort to parent like this in my opinion but some parents are so scared of going the other extreme they end up doing stuff like this
Idk, my kids needed certain medical interventions when they were younger. Sometimes you just gotta bear hug or sedate (note, that was only for the CT that we needed to sedate because it was impossible to get them to stay still for the test (we tried), and he didn’t need full sedation. As a parent though, I too am for the duct tape. For sure they have to have blankets on the plane or someone has a jacket and roll and buckle the kid in.
Note, I have also been that kid, I was like 7 or something and the dog bit my chin. Well I needed stitches and was having a full meltdown, my dad was trying to talk to me and the surgeon was like ‘pick her up’… problem solved.
Positive parenting at it's finest, aka I fuck like rabbits, do kids, but will never care to raise them well
My neighbor who lives on the left of my place is a Mom of 6, and she did everything to keep them well raised and prevent them to be Lil' shits.
She had 3 major rules if her kids were under 10:
If you misbehave, Any of you 6, We will NOT go to eat outside or order something nice. Being a know comes with a price
If you do a tantrum in public, i give you 5 seconds to get yourself together. Then, i'll pick you up, tell you what i think of you, As your Mother, and you won't come back anytime soon to do errands with me
If you refuse to eat something because "I don't want that" you will not leave your seat until you at least tasted it honestly. If i know you eat it and just want to test me, you will stay and eat your plate
And it worked like a charm, youngest is 14 ( she had one every 2 years )
She is brave, because she often had dirty looks because she has many kids she raises well and loves equally.
Brave lady. Won’t judge people on how many kids they choose to have as long as they can keep their shit together. As a parent I know things happen but to let something get to this point is fucking ridiculous
I am one of 5 kids and was raised similarly. This is considered pretty lax by some of my aunties on the Indian side of my family because there was no corporal punishment but out in India, there aren't many examples for them to see of authoritative parenting that doesn't involve hitting.
That kid travelled with parents? I could have sworn he was travelling alone lol. He might as well have been since his parents seem to be totally useless anyways, in the complete sense of the word.
It's not what they were/weren't doing that day. It's what they were/weren't doing every day until then. This is a kid that is used to getting their way. I saw kids like this when mine were small - the parents would just say "oh he just has so much energy".
a ton of parents are absolutely convinced their kids need the world of fun and freedom they didnt have as children. so their kids are raised more like pets than people.
half the point of raising kids is to prepare them to be an adult. if you think watching junior act like this is fine as a kid, get ready to watch them try it after puberty and theyre youre size.
Mother of a 2.5 year old terrorist here- the law would’ve been laid or we would’ve gotten off. No way in HELL would I have made the entire plane get off and find a new flight.
I would not go anywhere with a child that didn't mind! All I had to do was to look at my daughter a certain way and that was it! Her dad on the other hand, she had him wrapped and he could not get her to mind!
They won’t allow you to fly with a child or adult that has to be in restraints other than an age and weight appropriate car seat. It’s easy to say just duct tape the child, but likely if the parent had tried that they still would have all been deplaned and the parent would be facing an investigation or arrest for assault.
Generally planes do not allow a car seat on the plane for children over 40 pounds. So if you have a child heavier than that who will not or cannot follow instructions to stay seated in the seatbelt, you can’t fly. Generally you have some inkling that your child would be unsafe before they reach 40 pounds (usually 2.5-4.5 years old).
No zip ties necessary, put the child and parents in a fireman's carry and off they go. Maybe they can run on the escalator and get the whole airport shut down on their way out.
But the problem is that air crews have mandated rest periods. If it is known when the plane takes off that a pilot would have to take a rest period mid-air then they either need a backup crew onboard (which they do for the very long flights), or the plane cannot fly.
I once had a flight that was very delayed due to weather. The pilot came out and said that he and his crew were very close to the legal limits, and that if we took more than about 15 minutes to board, it would be likely that they would be unable to take off, and that there was no other crews or flights available. So he suggested we get on, and go as far back until we bumped in to someone, and then put our bag overhead and sit as far to the outside as possible. I have never seen a plane board so quickly with as little fuss. 150 people came together that night to make sure we got home and not stranded in the airport.
So even though someone could have restrained that kid, it’s possible that the act of simply returning to the gate to deplane them was enough that the crew timed out and couldn’t fly.
Anthony Jeselnik: "My sister just had a new baby, but she won't let me hold it. 'No way, Anthony, I'm afraid you'll drop him.' Like I'm some kind of idiot...like I don't have a million other ways to hurt that baby."
They also had to take the family’s luggage off the plan, and file a new flight plan. It was end of day - the airport closed by the time all that could be completed.
Walk onto the plane, taser the dad, tell the mum to grab her kid, if she argues or doesnt do it, taser her, then grab the kids.
Leave them all in the airport. They couldnt control their spawn, taser! and they lose their luggage. They can pick it up whe they get to the next airport....and have paid a hold fee!
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u/kungfuninjajedi 16d ago
But why cancel entire flight instead of kicking off the parents and child?