Tomorrow Is Too Late To Discipline
One of my pet peeves concerning my colleagues in the mental health professions is the tendency of many to tell parents “it’s never too late.” That simply isn’t true, and by encouraging parents to so believe, psychologists et al. unwittingly contribute to parental procrastination on crucial child-rearing matters. I have concluded that this tendency stems from the desire to make people feel good, to not be the bearers of bad tidings, to encourage optimism. In and of themselves, these are admirable motives, but in this case, they are misplaced.
Believing in the “it’s never too late” myth, parents of this generation are prone to think that important developmental hurdles - i.e. learning to use the toilet and learning to go to sleep independently - can be delayed indefinitely. As a consequence, they let one window of opportunity after another open and shut and then complain they have 3- and 4-year-old children who are still having daily bowel/bladder “accidents” and scream bloody murder at bedtime unless one of their parents lies down with them. The fact is, such matters are enormously precedent-setting. If they are not negotiated successfully in a timely manner, they are likely to “haunt” the parent-child relationship in numerous unpleasant ways for who knows how long.
More often than not, however, the parent who asks, “Is it ever too late?” is dealing with an under-disciplined teen whose rebellion is escalating.
The honest answer is, “Yes, in many a parent-child relationship, a point is reached beyond which the parent’s influence, and therefore ability to bring about significant change, is negligible. It is impossible to predict, for any given parent and child, when that point will be reached, but the mid-teen years (15-17) seem to be the time of highest risk. The further problem is that the longer these parents wait to take charge of a problem, the farther upstream they will have to swim and, therefore, the less likely it is they will ever fully realize their goals.”
I spoke recently with a couple who told me they initially thought their first child’s behavioral problems were “just a stage” that he would “outgrow.” When the child went to school, they began experiencing extreme “ups and downs” with him. At the “down” end, just when the parents could no longer take the child’s unruliness and disobedience, he would suddenly and miraculously improve. Then, just when the parents were beginning to think they were out of the woods, he’d begin yet another downward slide. Up and down they went until junior high school, when all —— broke loose. By the time the parents realized they had a social misfit on their hands, the youngster was 15 and a budding delinquent. At this point, the parents tried therapy, “ToughLove,” and tightened up on their discipline, but it was too late.
“We kept telling ourselves it wasn’t going to happen to us,” the mother told me, “that things were bound to get better, but it did, and they didn’t. Today, (name deleted) is in jail, which is where he belongs, quite honestly. When our second child, 10 years younger, started doing some of the same things, we wasted not a moment’s time. We made it perfectly clear from the outset that we weren’t going to tolerate those sorts of things from him, and gave him a taste of discipline that, had we used it with our older boy before he went into junior high, might have turned him around. His younger brother is by no means perfect, but he’s going to be able to lead a productive life, that’s for sure.”
In short, parents who are experiencing serious difficulties with a child of any age simply cannot afford to wait, thinking “it’s never too late” to take corrective action. The sooner the better, for all concerned. As my stepfather was wont to say, “Tomorrow never comes.”
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Rosemond Charlotte Observer