Early Childhood Education

I'm thinking of starting a new organization - the Coalition to Encourage Child Abuse.

We don't have enough people abusing their kids these days.

Now, wait - before you call Child Protective Services, hear me out. I'm using "child abuse" not as CPS would, but as a child would.

To put it another way: Say no to something.

Please.

Deny a whim. Stand firm against an indulgence. Forbid that latest form of wretched excess.

This form of "abuse" may be the kindest thing you can do for your child.

I'm emboldened to come out in favor of child abuse because of where my own two kids are in life. That is, grown. Ali is 27 and a mama-to-be. (It's a girl!) Corey turned 26 on Thursday. Both are married and Dallas homeowners. And the most amazing thing has happened: They have turned into a couple of old coots.

They love looking back on the "old days" of childhood and telling how rough they had it.

Oh, it's a real pity party when they talk about movies they were forbidden to see, expensive jeans they were denied, summer jobs they had to endure, the old clunker of a car they were forced to share. I swear, any day now they're going to insist they had to walk to school in the snow.

What's most evident is that they derive real pleasure from telling these stories of mistreatment.

Now, I have yet to hear a "thank you." And I won't hold my breath. But clearly the kids have come to recall these episodes with a certain sense of pride.

I think they now understand they were acts of love.

They sure didn't see them that way at the time. Ali swore she was the only grade-schooler forbidden to see the movie Dirty Dancing. And sad to say, she may be right. It was the home-rental rage of fourth grade.

It was about that time she alternated between calling us "the psycho parents" and "Mary and Joseph."

(I, on the other hand, never once confused my children with Jesus.)

With her own child on the way, Ali may now be ready to admit that the ideal children's movie probably wouldn't feature a girl's first sexual encounter with an older summer-camp dance instructor while she also helps a friend conceal an abortion.

Move over, Snow White.

What's clear to me in retrospect is that during these battles, I wasn't just teaching the kids a lesson in virtue or thrift or whatever. Maybe the greatest lesson they were learning was disappointment.

Let's face it, life stinks sometimes. And we had better prepare our kids for that.

But too many parents do just the opposite. They do everything in their power to shelter their children from disappointment.

Listen, I understand. It is absolutely crushing to see your child experience a disappointment - to struggle in school, to not make a team, to bear a social snub.

But enduring that pain and triumphing over it is one of life's greatest lessons.

My friend Dan Myers, a local child psychiatrist, said something profound. He said parents make a big mistake by trying to provide their children with, above all else, "a happy childhood."

The real job of parents, he said, is to prepare children for a happy adulthood.

And that means letting them learn to deal with disappointment.

Another local wise man, Zig Ziglar, said something else that has stayed with me. He's famous for positive thinking. But people don't know he's also an ardent proponent of realistic thinking. And he said this: "Unrealistic expectations are the seedbed of depression."

It's so true. And we've got a lot of unhappy young adults these days, adrift and wondering what happened to their happy childhoods.

Come to think of it, rather than child abuse, what I'm really advocating here is child disabuse.

Say no to something. Disabuse your children of the notion that life always says yes.

In the summer of 1944, I was a 9 year old kid and traveling with my mother to visit her brother (my uncle) at Camp Lejeune. One day while there, my uncle (Sgt. Stanton S. Brown) told me to go on ahead to the chow hall and get some lunch and he would join me later. I walked over to the chow hall and the very first thing I saw was this big sign over the door that said, "Take All You Want ... Eat All You Take".

I went inside, loaded up my tray (my uncle had called ahead to let them know I was coming) and sat down to eat. My eyes were way too big for my stomach and I didn't finish everything on the tray. When I got up to leave, a Sergeant stopped me and told me I couldn't leave until I had eaten all the food I had left on my tray. My uncle arrives and sees me sitting there trying to finish. When I told him I couldn't eat anymore he told me that if it took all afternoon, I wasn't going to leave the chow hall until my tray was clean. I don't know how long it took but I did finish.

When we left the chow hall my uncle turned me around and had me read the sign over the door again. I am 77 years old and to this day I have never forgotten that sign.

On the trip home my mother asked me if I had had fun visiting my uncle. I said that I had and that when I grew up I was going to join the Marine Corps.

When I joined I remember calling my uncle and asking him for any advice he might give me when I got to boot camp at Parris Island. He told me just two things. One: "Do exactly what you are told to do" and Two: The first and last words out of your mouth are "Sir".

Respectfully,
Richard A. Barr
Staff Sergeant of Marines