Commentary
Sarah Clifton

It seems like every year children and teenagers are becoming more disrespectful to adults. While some people may blame television or music as the reason the youth is acting out, they really should be blaming the parents.

The reason why so many young people are disrespectful and don’t listen to anyone of authority is because of the complete lack of discipline from their parents. The people who are raising these children are the ones who have taught them how to behave.

Nowadays many parents don’t seem to spank their child because they don’t believe in it and think it’s wrong to do so. Coming from a girl who was raised in a family where spanking was allowed as punishment, I’m here to tell you it most definitely works. Now, I’m not talking about being horribly abused, just spanked.

When our parents threatened that we were going to be swatted if we didn’t listen,

we listened! We knew our parents were not playing games with us. We knew exactly what the consequence would be.

Your kid isn’t going to hate you if you swat them when they do something wrong. They might for about five seconds and then they’ll be over it. They need to know what they are doing is wrong! Repeating , “No, no, no” isn’t going to make your child stop, it’s going to make them challenge you so they can see how much they can get away with.

Even if you don’t believe in spanking your child, just follow through with some other consequence. Take away something that is special to them. Take away something that’s a privilege for a while.

My sister and I never listened to my mother growing up because we knew she would never follow through with what she threatened. We got away with everything.

However, we knew my dad meant business whenever he would threaten to take away something. The result, we listened.

Children need discipline and they need someone to tell them what’s right and wrong. If a child doesn’t listen to their parent, then there is no way they are going to listen to any other adult.