I hate to admit it, but I frequently watch a show on Monday night called "Wife Swap". This show takes two women from two families and places them in each other's homes for 2 weeks. During the first week, the swapped "wife" must follow the rules of the household she is sent to. The second week, she makes her own rules, as she sees them, and the family must follow them. They are reunited with their 'real' families after this and meet as a group with their husbands to share their experiences. For the most part, the wives are total opposites and this makes the show interesting. Since I have been watching this, I have realized why a lot of the children that are admitted to the Adolescent Psychiatric Unit where I work have the behavior problems that they do. I am not basing this conclusion on just one episode of this show; I have observed many with the same issues that I am writing about and it disturbs me.
Last night's show had a mother who wanted to be her children's "friend". She did not work, she devoted every waking hour in making sure that her kids were 'having fun'. The father accepted this and worked fulltime as well as did what housework he could because Mom didn't have time to clean. The house was deplorable, and when I say this, I mean that the Health Department should have intervened. The woman had a total of 25 different animals or pets living in the house. The animals lived as freely as the kids and excreted their waste in the house wherever they needed to. There were no rules, no bedtimes, no limits, no scheduled meals, they ate fast food for the most part. They didn't even have a dining room table because they ate whenever and wherever they wanted. There was a teenage boy, another boy and a little girl living in this total lack of structure, filthy home. This mother was convinced that she was raising her child to be healthy, productive adults. They could have sleep-overs with their friends whenever they wanted without even requesting permission to do so. The mother took them wherever they wanted to go regardless of the time and whether or not they had school the next day or not.
One might think that this is unusual, but it isn't. I have seen several mothers on this show as well as on other shows such as SuperNanny where a nanny is called in to solve 'behavior problems' and also on Dr. Phil where the parents can't cope with their children's acting out. I find this so sad. Parents are not parents anymore. It is not rare to have a young child, even 4 to 5 years old brought in by the police department where I work for admission. Can you believe it? Well, it's true. We have become a nation of parents that want to be friends, buddies, pals with their children and they are doing them a horrible disservice. They are not being parents.
In this country, currently children are encountering an increasingly hostile culture resulting in a growing number of children experiencing mental health problems. Mental health resources are currently treating only one of five children requiring treatment, and resources are diminishing at federal, state, and local levels. When children are admitted due to lack of parenting, this only compounds the problem. Most of these children that I have commented on above are not mentally ill, they are behavior issues that are not handled by parents. They are forced onto our police departments and our adolescent psychiatric facilities, which are decreasing by the day and they eventually will become part of our criminal element if this problem is not addressed.
Teachers now are required to dispense medication in the school to kids with 'behavior issues'. Teacher are not medically trained to do so, but due to the lack of School Nurses, they are forced to. This is a very dangerous trend, in my opinion, dispensing medication without the knowledge of pharmacology and medication side effects is a slippery slope. I don't blame the teachers, they are actually forced into it in order to conduct their classes without behavior outbursts. Our police are now forced into becoming the intermediary by going to the home and taking the child (usually in handcuffs) to the psychiatric facility that is available, if they accept children of course.
Children need structure, they need limits, they need rules to become emotionally healthy adults, they don't need parents who want to be their 'friend'. I hope that our country's parents wake up and take responsibility for raising their children. If they don't, their children will pay dearly in the future for this growing problem of lack of parenting.
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