33°Quick links: Boys ranch moves assets • GU basketball • WSU basketball • Kendall Yards plan • Swine flu
Even when the child is not my own.
Sometimes the parent isn’t paying attention because he or she is distracted by another child. But once in a while, I meet parents who simply ignore their child’s bad behavior or brush it off with a simple, “Don’t do that,” without actually taking the stick away or making an effort to stop the child’s potentially harmful actions.
On the other side of the coin, I’ve also witnessed other people scold my child. It’s annoying at first, and frankly, a little embarrassing, but in the end, I usually appreciate the fact that they’ve intervened during a moment when I was perhaps too preoccupied or tired to do anything.
A recent poll on Parenting.com asked parents if it was okay to scold other people’s children. Nearly 60 percent of the respondents said “yes.”
What do you think? When you see children misbehave, do you
intervene and discipline other people’s children? Or is it better to mind your
own business and leave it up to the child’s parents?
999 W. Riverside, Spokane, WA 99201
P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210
Main switchboard: (509) 459-5000 • (800) 338-8801
Newsroom: (509) 459-5400 • (800) 789-0029
Customer service: (800) 338-8801
© Copyright 2009, The Spokesman-Review
je9je9 on September 28 at 10:23 p.m.
It seems that there are some parents who are perpetually looking the other way when their kid is hitting or pushing or just being obnoxious. Or else they seem to think “kids will be kids” and don't want to thwart junior's creativity. How they are supposed to learn some civilizated behavior without a little adult help, I'm not sure, but my intervention is probably not going to make much of a dent in the long term. However, if I see a child being mean to another child and the child's parent looks the other way, I'll say something in a nice way for the sake of the kid getting thumped or bullied. If it's a case where the child's parent is someone who's usually on top of things I'm more likely to point out to the parent, “Um, did you want him doing that?”
Flag as inappropriate
garfnagn on September 29 at 6:14 a.m.
Unfortunately one of the core values of America is this rugged individualism nonsense that keeps us from parenting as communities, the whole it takes a village to raise a child thing. So you do it at your own peril, risking angry parents resenting your interference. Unless the kid is doing something unsafe I pretty much just ignore it although I might shoot off a dirty look or two.
Flag as inappropriate