I saw something on television about the horrible condition of Children’s Rights in my state.  And, I am positive that there are definitely areas where that is sadly true. However, I think in many, many respects we have overdone the ‘rights’ of children.  I am associated with some very good and wonderful teachers and school counselors.  The stories I hear from them just makes me cringe.  Children spitting on teachers.  Children kicking and physically assaulting teachers.  Children disrupting class by standing on their desks and screaming.  Children who ‘know their rights’ and threaten lawsuits if teachers touch them in any way.  Children without boundaries.  The general response, of course, is to call the parents and have the children removed from school, which, in quite many instances, was exactly the goal of the child anyway. 

We as a society, in my opinion, have swung too far the other way.  Yes, we need to protect our children from harm, certainly, but our definition of harm has become convoluted.  When a child has earned the right to be punished for nonacceptable behavior, then they should be rewarded with the punishment they have earned.  When a child physically assaults another human being and then gets away with it (because of his age), then he has learned a lesson he will carry with him throughout his life, all the way to prision.  That isn’t fair. 

We should have processes in place to help those children whose parents are, for whatever reason, failing to teach their offspring the limits and boundaries our society has imposed on us as adults.  Limits and boundaries.  Hitting another person is wrong. Recognizing that an adolescent brain is not always equipped to handle rational, abstract reasoning, we should be prepared to handle misbehavior in more understandable terms when that fails. 

I misbehaved in high school, one time.  I was sent to the principal’s office, slapped on the rear-end twice with a big wooden paddle, and sent back to class.  I never did that again.  I totally understood the consequenses of my actions in very clear terms. 

When we fail to allow schools to take acceptable action for unacceptabe behavior, we as adults are failing our children by not allowing them to learn the rules of society.  Children are classified as ‘minors’ for a reason, primarily, I believe, because it has been widely recognized for centuries that until the age of majority, a child’s brain is not equipped to make good and rational decisions.  They still test their limits and boundaries well into their teens, so we as adults must be equipped to teach those limits and boundaries imposed on us by our form of society.  When we fail, they fail.  The bulging prision system is testament to that failing. 

Spitting on people is not acceptable behavior.  Assaulting people is not acceptable behavior.  Screaming in a room full of people is not acceptable behavior.  This is true at any age.  Yet our children are doing these things without consequence.  Or, if there is consequence, it is more likely in the form of pushing them away, getting rid of them, attempting to apply reason to a 14 year old brain that is totally unequipped to understand the abstract complexities of societal norms, or worst of all, mental torture (we call it ‘time out’ which is actually nothing less than solitary confinement). 

I see absolutely nothing wrong or improper with using the age old and time proven methods of negative reinforcement for appropriate negative behavior.  Further, I would even go so far as to say that parents who disagree with that are not being parents, but are instead more concerned with being their child’s best friend. 

A parent is a teacher and a percentage of parents are neglecting that role and raising confused little people who have no respect for other people’s boundaries.  Worse, when those confused little people enter our public school system, those parents expect the school system to apply that same level of nonconsequential punishment.  Only later, when those confused people misbehave as an adult, do we finally remove their rights and punish them.  Why do we wait so late?