Kids of today

[El Pirata]

No wonder why kids of today are so screwed up. This one needs to switch to decaf and unplug forever: http://www.break.com/index/patiencechild.html

[Christine]

If this real and not just some joke then that kid needs to seek some serious help. He is extremely screwed up! A good slapping across the face might help too, sheesh!

[Capt Grey]

He could be autistic as well. These kinds of "temper tantrums" occur on a fairly regular basis. Frustration is a huge part of an autistic kid's life.

[Red-Handed Jill]

At the Bakersfield Faire this weekend I saw a little girl about four or five years old create a huge scene. She didn't want to go home and was shrieking at the top of her lungs. From what I could decipher I think she also wanted her parents to buy her something. She dragged her heels and pulled as hard as she could away from her parents. Eventually, her father picked her up and she continued to shriek at the top of her lungs as she struggled and kicked at her father.

I don't think there was a single person there who would have objected to her father giving that little Spawn of Satan a few choice swats. He might have gotten some cheers. I know I would have wanted to give him a high-five.

[WillTheobald]

My parents had thier tactics...and they were good at them. If I was doing something like that, I would have had my booty kicked to next week. Although I am young, I even want to say..."them damn kids."

[Matty Bottles]

I've seen this one before, but I didn't think it was because he was impatient. Something about the way he kept hitting the 'escape' key, and the fact that no parent came over to slap his face, made me think that perhaps the computer had frozen while he was looking at a site he wasn't supposed to, if you cath my drift, and the kid, in a blind frustrated terror at getting caught, flipped out.

[Arthur Richards from Kent]

in bakersfiel I met a family shopping in a store and this tall kid 20 years old Im guessing and 6'3" or so and he was with four younger and shorter siblings and his mom he was singin low along to the overhead music and harmonizing and then he picked up a basketball and was a damn fine dribbler and pass it to his two younger brothers and they back to him all this while mom was picking out something for their sister to wear and I thought how cool and grown up and no one was bitching or pitching a fit and I thought they were a cool family and so I told then so. They all threw something at me and I ducked and they all laughed and You will see him on american idol next season mark my words I stood and talked to the whole family who are quite tightly knit and very well educated and well mannered. I think there are some great kids around in fact last year (this year I wasn't invited) but kids day at southern had 12,000 kids there and not one (zero) altercation was reported.

[Capt Grey]

The biggest problem with unruly kids is parents that won't enforce the rules. In my Star Wars club we have a family where the oldest child is totally undisciplined because the parents don't want to "hit" him. They try to reason, plead, cajole him into behaving; all he has learned is that he can walk all over the adults. I cringe when we have meetings in a resturaunt because he runs all over the place. Of course if you mention discipline the mom reacts with horror that she would never hit her kids. If there was kid that needed a good spanking, this one is it.

On the other hand, my kids are always well-behaved because I enforce the rules. If they step over the line after several warnings, a spanking ensues. This is not "beating", it's disciplining.

Kids need parents to be in charge.

Okay, off the soapbox.

[The Doctor]

Hear, hear! Capt. Grey! The voice of reason in an Addled Age!

[Red-Handed Jill]

Exactly! From what I've observed, so many parents negotiate with their kids, when what the kids need is absolute boundaries. Boundaries make kids feel safe and if you take those away, kids will get scared and act out.

Twenty or so years ago, I used to work at a health club managing their cafe. Every once in a while, I would be asked to do a stint of duty in the babysitting room since I was CPR certified, trustworthy, etc. Now, I always insisted that the kids behaved themselves and guess what? They LOVED me and were very happy when told that I would be asked to watch them.

Now there was one kid named Christopher whose parents should never have reproduced. They had backbones the consistency of wet tissue paper and always cajolled or negotiated with this kid. It was no big surprise that he was a nasty little brat. One day when I was in the babysitting room, there were only two kids there: a very good-natured kid named Travis (who had the BEST type of parents) and Christopher. Travis was playing with a toy truck and minding his own business and Christopher pushed him down and grabbed the truck. Travis thought about it for a second or two and decided to just pick up another truck to play with. I told Christopher not to try that again. Naturally, he pushed Travis down again and grabbed the other toy truck. I stood up and ordered Christopher to sit down in the corner. He was so surprised at being disciplined that he did it before even thinking. I could see the gears in his head working and then he jumped up with his fists held in front of him. I stood up again and asked what he thought he was doing and he yelled, "I'm going to hit you!" I stepped closer to him and said, "If you hit me, I'm not going to really feel it, but if I hit you, you will definitely feel it. Now SIT DOWN!!!" He sat down immediately with a stunned look on his face and stayed there until his parents picked him up. A few weeks later, they were told that their son was persona non grata and they could never, EVER bring him to the club ever again, under any circumstances. I'm sure that kid is in jail or dead by now - his parents must be so proud...

[Arthur Richards from Kent]

so you smack em once across the chops just short of breaking the jaw and send them into another room on the fly. you back hand lifting and following through just like a base line serve return to your off hand side and you only have to do it once! Voila

[Patrick Hand]

I don't have any children of my own, but I've helped my Boss raise some....

Anyway... I discovered that little boys have an invisable switch ..... all you have to do is tell them when to be "Quiet Boys" and when they can be "Wild Boys"

In "Quiet Boy" mode, they were well manered, polite, and perfect gentlemen...

But, you can't leave them in "Quite Boy" mode too long, or their brains fry and they short out.....

"Wild Boy" is when they got to yell and run and be....... well Wild Boys.........

[Capt Grey]

Absolutely correct, Master Hand.

Kids gotta be kids and adults should remember that (and play with them). They are not miniature adults. Example: My husband coordinated a water gun fight at the Cub Scout campout last weekend; kids against the adults. It was hard to tell who was having more fun.

I used to tell my older son's preschool teacher that if he came home without a bruise or scrape that he wasn't playing hard enough.