Permissive parenting is dangerous

[Guest]

From personal experience, my kid looks to me as a parent and yes, as a friend, BUT not as a "buddy". My role is not to be her buddy and cave in to her every wish. A kid will never tell you this but they want to know the boundaries and limits. It is up to the parent(s) to set them and enforce them.

My 2 cents, I'll step down from the soapbox.....

Psychologists discuss dangers of permissive parenting

By MELISSA KLEIN

THE JOURNAL NEWS

(Original Publication: September 20, 2006)

A parent who pals around with her adolescent daughter and other teens may seem like the "cool mom" but is likely not doing her child any favors, psychologists said yesterday.

"The role of a parent is to guide, direct, shape as well as, of course, listen to your kids and connect with them," said John Northman, a psychologist in Amherst, N.Y., who specializes in family and relationship issues. "There has to be an appropriate type of generational boundary whereby there's a difference between being a parent and being a friend."

Without that boundary, Northman said, "you lose any degree of reasonable parental authority."

The issue of parental boundaries undoubtedly was raised around many breakfast tables yesterday over the news that a Yorktown mother took her 15-year-old daughter to a New York City nightclub Sunday night and then crashed the car on the way home.

The mother, Ann Marie Ciarcia, 46, was charged with driving while intoxicated and vehicular manslaughter. Emily Cornish, a 16-year-old friend of Ciarcia's daughter, Alexa, was killed in the accident.

Ciarcia had a page on the myspace.com Web site in which she calls herself "RoccerMom" and says she wants to "rediscover her punk rock roots."

There is a photo of her with her daughter and other teens with a caption that says "Just another hard night entertaining the kids."

If other parents thought Ciarcia's behavior strange, it also did not sit well with some teens.

Four seniors at Yorktown High School, the school Cornish attended along with Alexa Ciarcia, said they were particularly disturbed that a mother would spend a night partying with teenagers in a Manhattan rock club and then drive home intoxicated.

They said they had never heard of a parent going out for a night on the town with underage children.

"It's very irresponsible, and she never should have done that," said Taylor Frickman, 17.

Wayne Gersh, a psychologist with offices in White Plains and Pound Ridge, said that if parents demonstrate inappropriate behavior, "how do we expect our children to model appropriate behavior?"

Gersh, the director of the Westchester Center for Behavior Therapy, said he often counsels parents who are unwilling to be disciplinarians for fear of offending their child's sensibilities.

"Many times being an assertive parent means that the child will not necessarily like you or like what you say," he said. "But there's a vast difference between liking you as a person and liking your behavior."

Allan Shedlin, a former school principal who is now a parenting coach based in Chevy Chase, Md., said parents often think that if they set fewer limits, their children will like them more.

"Frankly, my sense is that the opposite is true," he said. "That actually setting very clear and firm boundaries is what gives people comfort."

To demonstrate his point, he said that when he gives workshops, he often tells participants to close their eyes and imagine driving across a big bridge and then crossing the same bridge without any guardrails. He said people often grip the edges of their seats.

Shedlin said he happened to be in Westchester on Monday visiting his family and heard about the incident. He said he felt profoundly sad for all involved.

The little good that can come of these cases, he said, is that they can make people "much more sensitive and conscious and that it gives the possibility for some self-examination," he said.

[res6cue 67]

*gets up on Hoss' soapbox*

The real crux of the problem is that some "parents" are nothing but adolescents themselves, and age really has nothing to do with that either. How can you control your kids if you can't even control yourself? Ridiculous. You have to be a certain age and take a test to drive, you have to be 18 to vote, you have to be 21 to drink, etc. yet any fool can become a parent and potentially ruin not only the child's life, but others they come in contact with.

*steps off soapbox*

NEXT!!

Edited September 20, 2006 by res6cue

[X615 0]

as someone with an adolescent mother in-law and a dysfunctional, anti-social, socially retarded brother in-law i'm all too familiar with people like this. their lack of maturity, common sense, rational, reasoning, empathy, compassion and inability to restrain themselves from giving in to every primal, self serving, self indulgent urge is mind boggling. people like this make my skin crawl.

[Guest EMSwhitecloud]

Amen to that!!

[10-Buff-4 0]

*gets up on Hoss' soapbox*

The real crux of the problem is that some "parents" are nothing but adolescents themselves, and age really has nothing to do with that either. How can you control your kids if you can't even control yourself? Ridiculous. You have to be a certain age and take a test to drive, you have to be 18 to vote, you have to be 21 to drink, etc. yet any fool can become a parent and potentially ruin not only the child's life, but others they come in contact with. 

*steps off soapbox*

NEXT!!

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Res6cue- You got it right. Some parents are indeed worse than the children. I wonder sometimes if this permissive parenting, in addition to killing people, is (takes deep breath trying not to open a political pandora's box) hurting citizenship, that is, making people unaware of their civic duties or just apathetic. Just my two cents, and I certainly do not mean to start a political debate.

Stay Safe and ROCK SOME DISCIPLINE!

-DA BUFF

[Remember585 815]

as someone with an adolescent mother in-law and a dysfunctional, anti-social, socially retarded brother in-law i'm all too familiar with people like this. their lack of maturity, common sense, rational, reasoning, empathy, compassion and inability to restrain themselves from giving in to every primal, self serving, self indulgent urge is mind boggling. people like this make my skin crawl.

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I'm back. I had to change my pants cuz I pissed myself laughing.

It's sad but true - any tool can parent a child, but it takes more then a pulse to raise them!!!

[X615 0]

"as someone with an adolescent mother in-law and a dysfunctional, anti-social, socially retarded brother in-law i'm all too familiar with people like this. their lack of maturity, common sense, rational, reasoning, empathy, compassion and inability to restrain themselves from giving in to every primal, self serving, self indulgent urge is mind boggling. people like this make my skin crawl."

it still amazes me how many seinfeld episodes i'm able to relate to due to these people ........... as well as deliverance, grapes of wrath, beverly hillbillies, green acres, cops and that show with corky the retarded kid. if you have relatively normal inlaws be greatful.