Parenting lessons from Coronation Street

I watched Coronation Street recently.  It's a show that stretches the boundaries of believability in a lot of cases but it did show up a modern day trend in parenting.  Tracy is told that her daughter has been aggressive to another child and straight away she is in self-righteous "My daughter wouldn't do that" denial mode. 


Shifting The Blame

I used to work as a teacher and one of the least appealing parts of the job was phoning parents when their child had done something wrong.

Occasionally, parents lent an understanding ear.  They would listen to you and work with the school to show the child that they had crossed a line.  Putting up a united front is the best way to help the child get the message. 

In my experience though, this scenario was rare.  Most of the time, parents would seek to shift the blame even in situations that were clear-cut.  Where their child was the one at fault.  They would blame the teacher or they would blame other children. 

If the teacher has witnessed the incident, then that is what happened.  They don't make stuff up. 


Learning Responsibility

Refusing to acknowledge your kid's negative behaviour is bad parenting.  I don't know why parents do this.  Maybe they don't want to deal with the kid kicking off if he/she is disciplined.  Maybe they genuinely believe their offspring is incapable of doing wrong. 

I suspect it's more a reflection of today's society.  From the top down, everyone seems to want to shift the blame. 

However, if your child doesn't learn responsibility at a young age, they will be incapable of learning it as an adult. 


Consequences

I have worked with teenagers who have been excluded from mainstream schools who seem unable to understand that actions have consequences.  Already they are set on a firm path to a life devoid of hope unless they wrench themselves away from it.  I believe this is because, in the majority of cases, they have come from parents who, for a variety of reasons, have not given them any discipline. 

Let your child face up to their actions if they misbehave.  Even if it's taking a preferred toy away until the next day. 

Remember, Tracy is a convicted killer.  Do you really want to take parenting lessons off this woman?