By: Janet Cates

Janet Cates — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:50:42 +0000

This article on “Bailing Out Our Children” should be in the “never published Parents Handbook” which each parent and grandparent recieves before the baby leaves the hospital! Great information and words to raise children by…if everyone raising children would follow! As a retired public school principal, I have had many parents ask “what should I do” about thousands of situations. Some parents truly want to “do the right thing” by their children…teaching good character traits. But most parents want to make things easy for their children…most of the time by trying to “bail them out”. I had one parent actually ask me one year, “oh, why didn’t directions come with my child”! She always wanted to do whatever would “grow her child” into a responsible citizen. On a note of humor, I would always tell all my new kindergarten parents that to help them teach their children good character, which would also make disciplining their child very simple to just…watch “The Andy Griffith Show” every night with their children and model how you raise and talk with your children after Andy and Opie. After 5th grade graduation one year, a daddy came by to see me and told me he knew his child was good hands when he heard me make reference to “The Andy Griffith Show” six years earlier. Some people may say the lessons learned from this TV show are old fashion…but teaching your children and modeling what you teach to your children…”to do the right thing” never goes out of style.

Comments on: A Better World: A Bailout Plan for Parents

By: Janet Cates