Neglect

Some children don’t have any idea of what discipline is at all and it’s sad. They have no self control, no self esteem, and no means to get any. Everything is met with an angry, frustrated adult who piles on the negativity. There is no starting place in chaos; it’s just a wind of mess and noise, and the child responds with horrible behavior and tears.

Kids are kids. Sometimes they are going to mind, and sometimes they won’t. The goal is to make minding fun and rewarding so that a child begins to understand that good behavior results in positive goods and services and ultimately ends in that primary goal – a good and fabulous me.

But what’s the point of a “good me” when it’s never noticed, not respected, and growth and development met with the parents’ anger and frustration? “That’s good, Johnny, now shut up, my favorite song is on.” Up goes the CD and the child kicks the back of daddy’s seat, and daddy reaches around and gives the child a good crack. The child kicks over daddy’s coke and spills it on the fancy carpeting, and a curse is let out against the child. The child cries and receives another slap, and so goes the evening.

The saddest part of careless or no interest and no real discipline comes from home. When the focus is on the adult and not the child, when the cost of living is a tidal wave of self indulgence enhancing the adult’s life and not the child’s, when the child takes a back seat to nearly everything, of course the child is going to be lacking in social skills. He is so hungry for positive attention, for love, he will scream out in just about any unformed cry he can think of to cry.

Every year there are always a few children who just break your heart. You know no matter how hard you work and everyone around you works, the ultimate outcome will be a child who is still desperately in need of constant reconstruction simply because the parent continues to entertain himself at the child’s expense. The parent is the primary educator of the child. School is a compliment to a home, not a substitute.

Neglect is the number one child abuse issue.

When parents are the first family to arrive and the last family to pick up a child, and the child is obviously not ready for the day, it shows. Same clothes, no bath, no breakfast, it all shows.

When children come in with smoke-run on their faces – a chronic runny nose brought about by cigarette smoke, it can only mean that an adult’s habit comes before a child’s health.

When the teeth of a child are black with decay, neglect is the cause. A toothbrush costs less than a pack of cigarettes, and helping a child to brush his teeth takes less time than smoking one.

When a child hasn’t learned to eat with a fork, doesn’t know that one sits to eat, can’t manage a cup – even a half cup without spilling it, can’t toilet himself – thinks he can sit on the urinal, wash his hands, can’t understand the simplest request, it’s neglect. It’s a steady diet of French fries from the drive in, men’s rooms on the dash, and a regular audio intake of senseless booming from some quasi-music that hisses out of the radio like a bad dream.

When a child is four and has never worked a puzzle, has never even seen a puzzle, has never even heard of a puzzle, and does his first one, and his little face lights up, and he can’t wait to do another, it’s neglect.

When a child is nearly five and can’t hold a pencil, and doesn’t know what holding a pencil is for, doesn’t know what a letter is or cares, doesn’t know that we count – anything, and doesn’t know that we are not always the first or only, it’s neglect.

When a child can’t play, can’t stack blocks, doesn’t know that one builds a garage, a road, or that a train is supposed to run on tracks, because he had never been introduced to toys, it’s neglect.

Rearing a child is expensive, but it can still sensibly be done on a shoe string. Careful diligent parents can rear children on very little and do it right all the time. Those children who have little, if they have their parents’ love, have more than the affluent child with a house full of things.

But there’s also the child who has nothing and no one to share the nothing with, and for him the hope is that he will find a place who can teach him.