The Pampered Child Syndrome

Lately, I have become quite interested in this book by Dr. Maggie Mamen called The Pampered Child Syndrome which is all about that one kid that takes over your entire family's priority. In fact these kids can take over everything including family harmony, financial considerations, respect for others and even common sense. In fact the other day I was in a restaurant just because of such a brat. I was just sitting down to a wonderful meal with my friend, who was a new mother in forties when suddenly her darling new child started bawling. She looked at me, and said, 'I'm sorry. We can't have this dinner. Little Delilah June wants to go!' The other lady I was with looked at her in shock and said, 'But we just got here…the child does not control how long we stay here for dinner.' The mother, a slightly insecure hysterical type kept talking about how we all had to do what Delilah wanted or Delilah would hate her. She had no idea that she should control the situation and seemed afraid of losing the approval of a two year old child.

This type of syndrome where innocent little kids push you around and cause havoc in everyone's lives is called Pampered Child syndrome. Don't think this can't be a problem because this same woman let her child take control of her entire social life for the next few years to the extent that she never got to date anyone and she lost all of her friends because she could never leave the kid with a babysitter. At age five little Delilah June was still nursing because even though she had sharp teeth, her mother did not have a strong enough will to tell her that it was time to stop.

If you do have this type of problem or know someone then Dr. Maggie Manen's The Pampered Child Syndrome: How to Recognize It and How to Avoid It might help. She has also written other books about boundaries, tough love about raising kids including Who's In Charge?, Laughter and Love and Limits.

It's a good thing to take away power from a little kid who has too much power. For one thing, children know it is wrong for them to have authority and power that they are ill equipped to handle. As they grow older they become control freaks and develop serious social and psychological difficulties.

Parenting Tips
, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Teaching Kids To Handle Knives

I was recently doing the laundry and one of the less pleasant aspects of this routine is going through my teenage son’s gym bag. Sweaty socks, crusty underwear, shirts thatdon’t bend and a home made knife. Something fashioned out of a butter knife, sharpened on a grinding wheel and clad in duct tape for a handle. A shiv. I put this item aside and waited for my husband to get home to discuss it. He was as shocked as I was so we confronted our 17 year old, Sam, about it that evening.

Sam was embarrassed and sheepish about it at first. He explained that it was becoming the norm for kids at school to carry knives and some of the students even had guns. He claimed that he didn’t want to be the only kid unarmed and vulnerable as violence was on the rise at school.

As a mother with three teenagers I took a stance that was against the norm. I didn't want my kids to be vulnerable. Yet I also didn’t want them to be held victim by the very=devices they carried for protection. After discussing it with my husband we agreed.

Training. Training was the missing element. We agreed our children should be capable of defending themselves in a non lethal way.

My husband purchased three lock-back knives easily deployable with a thumb button. Two inch blades. Contrary to popular belief a two inch blade is more than enough to take the fight out of an opponent to buy you the time you need to escape.

He taught them the proper way to hold and conceal the knife in times of danger. Thetis to hold the knife with the blade tucked up the sleeve and not visible as opposed to holding it with the blade out like you’re about to butter some bread.

With the use of a training dummy the kids were taught non lethal puncture points specifically to slow your opponent down. Specifically the choice targets where thequadracept (avoiding the femoral artery), the calf, the top of the foot, the biceps (avoidingthe brachael artery), the palms and the right pectoral muscle.

They all learned how to properly use a knife to simply slow an aggressor down in anon-lethal fashion to allow them to run away. We kept tapes of all the training to be able to prove they were trained specifically to wound and not kill.

Embrace the reality that things are not about to become less violent. As tired as the saws I believe it’s better to be convicted by 12 than carried by 6.

Parenting Tips
, , , , ,