Community Parent

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Do you remember growing up and getting called out by other parents? I sure do. Friend’s parents, neighbors, teachers, coaches, random adults. You name it. These adults were helping me and my friends be good and respectful citizens. They did it because it was the right thing to do. When they saw a kid being out of line, being disrespectful, ill mannered, rude or just a downright jerk, they spoke up and put us in our place. 9 out of 10 of my friends were required to have manners. It was a must in their household and mine. If I had a friend that wasn’t automatically using yes ma’am and no ma’am, yes sir and no sir, they were quick to be corrected by my parents. I do not see the same demand for respect these days. I remember all of these life lessons and I still carry them with me. I like to call it community parenting, because it truly takes a village and if we want our children to be genuinely respectful and good, they need to be called out when they are acting up. This doesn’t mean they are bad. All kids are good, but sometimes they do bad things and if they are not afraid and do not respect the adult peers in their life, they will have a tougher time in life finding their way to the good path.

I say all of this because this way of life seems to be so far removed from what is happening this day in age. I see parent’s ignoring other kids bad behaviors every day. They just look the other way and I know why. They are so afraid of upsetting the parent that instead of doing what is right for the kid, they ignore the behavior which is in fact condoning the behavior. When did we all become so defensive? Who cares if an adult calls out your child for their behavior that is wrong? Not me and you shouldn’t either as long as it is done for the right reasons. I believe in speaking firmly and direct to children when they have behaviors that need to be corrected. Does a CEO speak in a soft gentle voice when their employee just took a 3 hour lunch? I sure hope not. That would not be a very successful company. Coaches are no longer allowed to truly Coach any longer because parent’s think they are being too hard.

The other week I spoke about the lack of grit in most kids and young adults. Accountability has a lot do with the fundamentals of grit. If you are never held accountable by more than just your direct chain of command aka your parents then you will not be successful in life. You will be incapable of handling criticism, feedback, rejection, ridicule, etc. Y’all. It TAKES A VILLAGE. So, if we are all here in this village why are we not doing better by our children? Instead of allowing this post to ruffle your feathers. I would love it, if you would think about this a little more. Give it a chance to soak into that beautiful brain of yours and penetrate to the subconscious mind where change truly happens. We are doing our little people a disservice by not holding them accountable WHEREVER they may travel.

I do not need to give it, but here it is. PLEASE correct my children when they are out of line. No matter how small the infraction is. Call them out. Put them in their place and I assure you they will be better for it and you have me and Joseph’s permission. Not that you need it. We have to start having each others backs when it comes to the way our children act. I don’t know about you, but we want our kids to be able to handle the hard stuff. When they are being held to a high standard by the adults in their community, their since of accountability is higher, which means they can handle harder things, which means we have less to worry about as they grow up in this big ol’ world we live in.

This post came out in a flash. I have been thinking about this topic since the very first time Hunt went to Faskin park and I saw some teenagers being way out of line at a park with a lot of small kids. Did I get on to them? You bet your sweet cheeks I did. Ever since that day I have been trying to empower others to be a community parent. We have to stop being afraid that Sally Jo is going to be upset with us for calling out her kid. That is Sally Jo’s problem, and not yours. She needs to take a good long look in the mirror, because little Bobby Ray is kind of a jerk and if she doesn’t watch it, he is going to grow up to be a big jerk one day. ( The characters in this post are completely made up). All kidding aside. I want more for all of our kids. Everything I do is done out of pure love for the kids in the community. Showing up for our kids is LOVE, demanding that they act right, be respectful and mind their manners, IS LOVE. If we can’t see that as a community we have a big problem. Let’s start showing up and pushing each other to be better.