How many times have you seen parents tell their children, Not to lie, Not to Steal, and Not To Hit anyone, because it’s wrong? Then those same parents turn right around and do those exact same things, right in front of their kids. Like good old Dr. Phil says, “What Were You Thinking?”
First things first. There is this thing called modeling. What that is, is that children see what you do, and model there behavior after it. You can talk till you are blue in the face, and chances are they will do what they see you do, rather than what you tell them to do, or not to do. Very simple idea. So why are parents so shocked when they see kids doing things they shouldn’t? Chance are they learned it from you. Good or bad.
So, what are some of these things I’m talking about? Okay, they tell kids first of all not to lie.. I love this one. Then what do these dishonest, hypocritical parents do? They lie to their boss on the phone about why they can’t make it in to work, they lie to bill collectors that the check is in the mail, they lie to relatives about why they can’t come and visit, they lie about how much money they make so they can receive some kind of assistance, and so on. Guess who’s listening when all this lying is going on?
Let’s move on to stealing. These type of parents, bring home office supplies from work that don’t belong to them, don’t tell the cashier that she gave them back to much money, they keep those postage stamps they found in the machine that was left by the person before them, they don’t return that wallet they found because it had $50.00 in it, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. How many things can you think of that a lot of parents do on a daily basis that is “Acceptable Stealing?” Well, Guess who is watching?
This last one is my favorite. They tell their kids NEVER to hit anyone because it can hurt someone, and it’s not right. So what happens with these parents? They Spank (AKA HIT) their kids. Oh, but that’s different, they’re trying to teach them something. Your right, their teaching them that Mom and Dad are hypocrites. They tell their kids it wasn’t right for Daddy to hit Mommy, or the teacher to hit them, or for them to hit their sister or brother, especially if their smaller than they are. Last I heard most kids are smaller than their parents. You can try and twist this one into as many knots as you want, but you can’t tell your kids not to hit, and then hit them.
So, there it is. All these things I have mentioned, and many more that exist, is why we have Dishonest, Hypocritical Parents. The sad part is, most parents are guilty of at least some of the very minor ones. We need to take a good hard look at ourselves as parents, and ask the question, Is it our kid’s problem or ours?
On a finer note “What Would Jesus Do?”
