In-Charge Parenting: In a P.C. Nation

By Domenick J. Maglio

  Is your child outsmarting you at every turn?
  Is talking back a problem with your children?
  Does your child still throw tantrums?
  Do your children embarrass you by their misbehavior in public?
  Does your child consistently disregard what you are asking him to do?
  Would you like to see changes in your child’s behavior and attitude?
         
……then this is the book for you !  IT WORKS!!
 
 
In-Charge Parenting brings cohesiveness back to the family, and puts the parents back in charge.  It reminds them of effective but now politically incorrect practices including moderate spanking of toddlers. It lays the foundation of discipline. Raising children is not a sprint—it is a marathon.
       
The parents’ current loss of power has severely weakened the most important social unit: the family, which has weakened all of our major institutions. Placing parents back in charge of the family in this PC world will revitalize our nation through the raising of self-reliant, intelligent citizens. Parents who take charge of the family are on the frontlines of restoring our country. 
        
Supported by natural law and biblical practices, In-Charge Parenting  details how to use purposeful discipline, effective consequences and training in developing moral values and normal behaviors. In-charge parents will find fulfillment in sacred duty of parenting—and discover the joy of raising wholesome children.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Creation House
• Release date: Oct 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781629985534

Book preview

—PLATO¹

PREFACE

IN -C HARGE P ARENTING IS an antidote for dysfunctional families. It brings together basic child-rearing training and moral lessons that have passed the test of time. Furthermore, it highlights purposeful discipline methods for parents to regain the control in their family. It spells out the games children use to negotiate themselves out of appropriate consequences for their inappropriate behavior. It teaches parents how to reverse the games to obtain compliance from their child. This book will spark a much-needed debate on how we are going to deal with children for the future of our nation.

Encouraging parents to be in charge of the family is essential to the revitalizing and survival of the America we love. The strong family unit teaches moral values, emotional, psychological, and social skills, the work ethic, and the American dream. He who rocks the cradle controls the world.

Many parents realize their children do not listen to them. Even when the child appears to do what they want, as soon as the parent loses focus, the child goes back to his misbehavior. These parents want and need some help.

Parents are exhausted from the latest child-rearing fads that go around the edges of the problem, never getting at the root. The lack of understanding and knowledge of developing a child-rearing approach that encourages a child’s respect for the parents has to be established.

Modern parents have taken shortcuts in raising their children. The usual reason given for not doing many of the things that their parents did for them and they would like to do is time constraint. They believe that giving material goods and being best friends with their child will produce a healthy child. These two factors of material goods and being best friends have led our children down the path of self-centeredness, instant gratification, and lack of respect for people with power.

Disrespect for authority, starting with their parents and spreading to other authority figures such as teachers, policemen, counselors, and principals has become the new norm. Even less physically belligerent children are ignoring directions from authority figures. We are witnessing assaults in our communities, beginning with preschoolers attacking siblings, teachers, and their parents. The media reports on adolescents physically abusing teachers, bus drivers, resource officers, and the police.

In many families, both parents are working outside of the home. The duty of being a parent has lost its significance. These modern parents are relying on the state and experts to do most of their parenting. Parents have been propagandized to believe that professionally trained caretakers are sufficient. Parents are told that being friends with their children along with quality time spent together should produce well-rounded adults.

The result of socialist presidential candidate Dr. Benjamin Spock’s child-rearing philosophy has been a major force in reshaping our nation’s child-rearing and political philosophy. He singlehandedly sold mainstream America on the replacing of many child-rearing practices that were working for an approach that relied on bribery and allowing the child to do whatever he wanted. This democratizing of the family structure has encouraged parents to abdicate their responsibility to the detriment of the children’s development.

Our present socialist perspective of child-rearing has spilled over into our businesses, government, and even into international relationships. It is no longer politically correct to be in charge in business or in government. From birth, we are taught by experts that a strong parent is mean-spirited. Power should be shared in a more empathetic, socialistic way.

The lack of consequences for misbehavior of children has become an acceptable and approved practice not only in our homes but also in our culture. Government officials and corporate businessmen who commit egregious errors and even crimes are no longer held accountable. Much of our foreign policy is not decisive even when red lines are drawn. There is no follow-through even if there is a blatant escalating provocation committed by our enemies.

This socialistic political orientation does not work in business or world affairs for the same reason it does not work in the family. It is not based on reality; rather it is suspended in thin air by false promises and notions that always crash to earth with horrendous impact. It is contrary to human nature. Tragedies happen when no one is steering the ship at home, in business or government. Leadership is necessary.

Many of the past proven and workable child-rearing practices have been labeled abusive. This is restricting well-established common sense ways of dealing with children and even the way we handle our foreign policy. We are ineffectual because of being so politically correct we are projecting weakness. Our logic has been turned upside down by the use of media manipulation to make disciplining consequences appear counterproductive and dysfunctional.

In-Charge Parenting understands the systematic effort to undermine the family. It exposes the irrational and corrupting indoctrination that has persuaded parents to allow their children to prematurely make adult choices and think in ways that are detrimental to their future. Dismantling the foundation of child-rearing practices that kept parents in charge has done this.

The politically correct (PC) indoctrination has led to modern parents rejecting their elder’s accumulation of wisdom over centuries on how to raise healthy children to adulthood. Instead, these parents follow the convoluted and contradicting advice of so-called psychological experts and their dubious studies. The overwhelming number of young people who were untrained under the permissive materialism approach (no consequences along with heavy doses of bribery) are today’s self-absorbed, noncritical-thinking socialists.

These overindulged people hate everything past and present about this country. They do not believe in snatching the brass ring of opportunity as they have been conditioned to be takers, not producers. The lack of parents exerting their authority to establish respect and responsible behavior has historically destabilized societies throughout history.

In the same way that a cancer cell can metastasize and spread to major organs, dysfunctional family units can attack a society’s institutions, weakening them. The radical cancer cells destroy the body just like the erosion of the family will do to our nation. Families are the most important social unit in determining the strength of our country. Certainly we need positive leadership in government, but the greatest impact in the long run in turning our nation around is daily parental leadership as the head of the family. The parents will train their children to pay attention and listen to authority figures when they are young and to question when they are mature.

In-Charge Parenting brings cohesion back to the family that puts the parents back in charge. It reminds them of the effective but now politically incorrect practices including moderate spanking of toddlers. Basic Training comprises the essential elements of behavior and moral values parents should want to instill in their children. Purposeful Discipline, an eight-step process, lays the foundation of discipline. In-Charge Parenting is an eyeopener that should be read by anyone who wants to raise wholesome children or wants to get a handle on an out-of-control child.

INTRODUCTION

For the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.

—WILLIAM ROSS WALLACE

The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.

—EDWARD, DUKE OF WINDSOR

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

—KAHLIL GIBRAN

THE HAND THAT is rocking the cradle is no longer that of the parents. Dr. Benjamin Spock’s child-rearing revolution of sixty-five years ago and the feminist movement has taken mothers out of the home far away from rocking the cradle.

Many mothers have been seduced by cultural indoctrination to view staying home with their children as a depressing, boring, and burdensome phase of life. In every socioeconomic level, many see motherhood as an unfulfilled existence for a woman. Government resources are being spent to provide services to assist women with their children in order for them to enter the work force. Many lower-class families are using free government day care services, while many in the middle and upper classes have both parents employed, so these parents can afford nannies and other professionals to nurture their children.

The absentee parents are part-timers in the raising of their children. This reality alone has caused significant gaps to appear in the character development of modern children. They are lacking the basic training and continuity that full-time parents were able to provide. The parents are no longer in charge. The children do not have the mental capacity and abilities to be in charge. Children should not be calling the shots, but by manipulation, they have gained considerable power. This power takeover has led to appeasement and endless struggles.

Today many parents throughout the world are not in charge. The children are in command. Many of today’s parents are themselves unable to challenge their children for the authority they rightly deserve as the adults in the household. The children have long ago taken over that place and are on the top of the organizational chart. This is an unfortunate situation for both parents and children.

Our families are in structural chaos. Modern parents do not have the time and energy to devote to the sacred role of being parents. Parents have so much to do to in training their child and so little time.

The process of raising a child is more a marathon than a sprint. It requires an immense amount of time, energy, thought, and most importantly, love. Like it or not, parents are in this position for the rest of their lives.

The children do not have the experience and development to train themselves. When parents are not there mentally, physically, and spiritually, the child’s development suffers. This child-rearing vacuum is resulting in many dysfunctional, emotional, and mentally disordered children. When parents are wholeheartedly there usually the children flourish.

This is a child-rearing book that gleans wisdom from previous generations, critically assesses contemporary culture’s values and child-rearing scripts, and provides a concise approach to Purposeful Discipline and Basic Training in specific areas. Parenting requires a real commitment that cannot be excused because of work schedules, poor health, marital problems, financial difficulties, or other adverse conditions that occur in adult life. This commitment requires a substantial investment in time and energy but in the long run will produce a loving environment and balanced quality of life for the husband, wife, and children while following the natural flow of our highly evolved genetic nature. When parents are comfortable in their role they intuitively learn the best responses for particular issues.

However, American parents have become more and more confused as to their role and less and less knowledgeable and understanding of what comprises good child-rearing practices. In essence, they have seen a disconnect between modern-day parenting and time-tested, age-tested child-rearing practices that have worked over the ages. They have seen the middle- and upper-class me generation of the 1960s become the child-rearing standard bearers for all social classes in our society. Children are showered with material things while becoming paupers for parent involvement, especially in transmitting culturally approved habits, values, and knowledge. This affluenza or overabundance of material things is infecting the spirit and soul of the child.

Modern parents act more like grandparents than parents. They often feel guilty for not spending time with children. The limited time they have with their child is being spent enjoying them and marveling at the natural development as the child matures. There is little time devoted to training and disciplining the child.

The emphasis of modern parenting is to be liked by the child. Parents give and do things for the child rather than training him to do it by himself. Household chores and homework have become responsibilities of the parents not the child. Children being relieved of these obligations are not developing needed skills and habits.

Many modern parents often do the heavy lifting for their child at home and at school. Yet they are stunned by the lack of the child wanting to complete his responsibility and the ability to perform independently. Parents appear confused by their child’s ungrateful entitlement mentality and frequently hostile actions.

Even though the child demands, and for the most part gets, everything he wants, today’s child rarely expresses genuine appreciation and too often has a pout plastered on his face. Yet modern parents appear to be blind to their children and act as if their children are healthy and happy even though they constantly whine and are required to take psychotropic drugs to function in school and at home.

It appears that modern parents are unwilling to face and deal with the reality of their children’s behavior, but grandparents, childless persons, and professionals frequently perceive the sadness, self-centeredness, and anger of many of today’s children. Modern parents are totally involved in their own activities and are disconnected from their children’s life. They may be in denial of their children’s behavior and attitudes, but this acknowledgment of bratty behavior, or bratlash, occurs on many levels of society.

Modern parents’ refusal to face the reality of the child’s behavior is a consequence of their lack of courage. They feel more comfortable ignoring problems with their child rather than confronting him. It could turn into another long drawn-out discussion ending without resolving anything.

Many modern parents are fearful to critically examine the behavior of their child. They are smothered by their own careers and social media obsession. The confusing messages and rationalizations parents receive from today’s psychobabble experts have paralyzed them.

To raise a child and socialize him to become a functioning adult takes a real dedicated commitment of energy, focused priorities, thought, creativity, and a substantial amount of time to teach the right way to do things. Helping the child to think logically takes time, observation, and involvement with the child. This crucial involvement produces common sense, which is uncommon today.

Even the teaching of tying shoes has been shirked by buying shoes with Velcro closures. This time commitment to parenting cannot be negated. Quality time even sprinkled with high doses of positive reinforcement of mediocre behavior called false esteem cannot compensate for time lost. Quantity time is necessary for monitoring, seizing upon, and creating the opportunities for training in Purposeful Discipline and many areas of Basic Training that are no longer practiced.

The lack of parents’ ability to understand their own child’s manipulation, deception, and lies can be attributed to the shrinking of the family, often to a single child, and the lack of spending quality time with their children. Because of the lack of time spent with their child and no other children to rat them out, too many parents believe that the child is always telling the truth. In the same way, a beginning teacher learns to be more skeptical of children’s stories after being burned by too many of them.

Not me is a spontaneous answer by a child to any question concerning misbehavior:

Did you leave these clothes on the floor?

Not me.

Did you drop the vase?

Not me before the question is fully stated.

The problem for the modern parent to this not me response is the inability of the parent to believe the child can be such a convincing liar. They have minimal quantity time to understand this.

There is little impetus for the parents to track down the truth even when the parent saw with his own eyes that the child created the mess. It is easier to disregard the incident and focus on something more important to the parent.

Modern children are also experts at not following directions. The child is automatically able to switch into the dumb act when cornered by the parent for being disobedient. This game is difficult to eliminate since parents do not have enough experience with their child to realize the child is playing them. Often it takes another adult to point out to the parent that the child is faking his inability to do the simplest task.

Other games that are familiar to modern parents are I can’t do it, which really means I won’t do it. The I forgot it game normally translates into I didn’t do it or the procrastination game, I waited until the last minute, and then, I couldn’t do it. These are negative habits that need to be reversed to establish a healthy attitude in becoming responsible.

Lying is a natural phenomenon while telling the truth has to be taught. Denying, blaming, avoiding, distorting, and manipulating are usual responses of a child to protect himself. Children will continue not to take responsibility until their games are exposed and eliminated. Once the parents recognize and understand the various conning techniques of their child, they can begin to develop strategies to reverse these incredibly complex webs of deception.

When children have no fear of the parental power, the door is wide open for them to use their creative instincts to outsmart their parents. Parents have to be intimately involved in all facets of their children’s lives to understand their child’s thinking and actions and the best way to deal with common everyday issues.

This book makes it