Good post, Smokeybear

I agree.

In my view, children need love, boundaries, and (fair) consequences and also to be rewarded when they do the right thing.

I think a lot of kids, are not often praised - they are allowed to run riot, with impotent parents looking on fondly (or stressedly, depending on the parent ) or else constantly told off and not really shown what to do.

I've heard parents threaten their children to keep their hands on the trolley in a supermarket, or their fingers will be cut off (said in a horrible way, I can't explain it - it was more like abuse... ) and once heard a mother tell her child to get in the car or she'd cut his head off Also seen mothers call their children "bitches". My heart went out to one little girl - she was so desperate to be with her mum, and her mum just scathinglly called her a "nasty bitch, I hate you" . Flipping awful parenting ...

Clear, calm, firm and kind direction is very important. Lots of praise for good behviour and for trying. And yes, one must always follow through with a consequence, I strongly believe this.

JMO though!

Wys
x

My Dad used to pull the whole upstairs electrics if we were ever too noisy or didn't hear him shout us down
My older siblings had it worse though, one day they were arguing at the dining table - my Dad grabbed both their plates and tipped it over their heads - they had stew that night what I wouldn't have done to have been there to see that. My parents have also left a tent and sleeping bag beside the back door and if my sister or brother were ever late back - they were locked out and had to put up a tent in the dark. This was when our neighbourhood was safe though. I don't think they ever did put the tent up though, I think they went back to their friends and asked to stop over due to being locked out..

They never did things like that with us younger two though - I'm glad of.

School I used to work at had a great button in the ICT suite - it blanked all the screens and put the message up "stop and turn to look at your teacher" ... none of the other staff even knew the button existed until I was fiddling on the staff terminal and found it

And yep the "big doggy will bite you" thing drives me nuts too - not the rearing a generation of Daily Mail reading doggyphobes - but the fact I'd actually quite like to walk my dogs without having them labelled vicious child eating death machines for some mummy's threats.