It’s tough being a kid. In this day and age, it is worst now for the youth. Kids are growing up in the digital age. With every kid having a smartphone filled with applications, it can be over stimulating for their little mind. This over stimulation can really affect their behavior. What do we do as parents? In my day, parents would beat their children. This leads to broken adults with most suffering from drug addict and cases of domestic violence. Now more we need to take a second look at how we raise our children.

We as parents have feelings. We have emotions and a right to them. We can get upset at and lash out. Our children also have feelings, except they have not yet developed the coping mechanisms to deal with their feelings. As grown up’s, we have to instill ways for our children to deal with their emotions. They are little sponges and will emulate what they see. For children, everything is bright, new, and exciting. It’s is important for us parents to lead by example. Controlling our emotions, especially our anger.

When you beat a child, you are teaching them that when something doesn’t behave the way you want, it’s okay to damage it, to hurt it. When we as humans learn something is right and it is consistently reinforced, it hurts when we find out what we were doing was wrong. When you beat a child out of anger, that child will hurt someone else out of anger. After a while, it becomes habitual. These behavior will carry on to their adult lives. Damaging any and all of their relationships.

Leading by example is crucial in parenting. Taking time to talk with your children. Finding out what you can do to better serve them as their parent. Balancing your child’s want’s verses their what they need. Showing them a sense of compassion and making an effort to understand their behavior. Taking note of patterns and if they might have trigger that insights misbehavior. Being mindful of your own disposition, taking the time you needs and for your own self care. If needed, you the parent should count to ten and calm down from a heated situation with your child or children.

In the Dark Ages, we humans were brutal. Barbarians with no sense of morals or compassion. There is a saying ” spare the rod spoil the child.” We would beat children, women, whoever displeases us with whatever we could find. 2000 years later, there hasn’t been much change on how parents are raising their children. We need to look deeper inside of ourselves and how we can be better for our children.

“The children are the future, teach them well and let them lead the way”

Whitney Houston