Parenting Advice | Effective Kids’ Discipline | Effective Discipline Methods
Past generations did; why cant we?
One morning while waiting for the bus to first grade, Andrea Murphy called me a booger. I kicked her in the shins. One driveway over, Mrs. Marino looked our way just in time to witness the deed. She clomped right over.
“Just what was that about young lady?” I looked at the ground. “Say you’re sorry.”
When I let slip to my mother that I was scared of Mrs. Marino, I had to tell her why. I got an earful about how I better have been polite to Mrs. Marino and how my mother had better never again hear about me kicking Andrea, or anyone.
And she would hear about it, I was sure, because back then, mothers unable to monitor their children’s behavior at all places and times, actually relied, gratefully and purposefully, on other mothers who were there, watching, ready to act.
We kids even had a name for it - The OMP - the Other Mothers Patrol. It was made up of moms with watchful eyes who expected good behavior from all children, their own or anyone else’s.
But that was then.
Now, so many years later, in the same New Jersey suburb, I am the mother waiting near my child’s class line in the parking lot of the elementary school when the third grade bully standing next to my son begins slapping my son’s face. Then he pokes a finger in his eyes. My reaction was not too different from that of my old friend Mrs. Marino.
“Scotty! Keep your hands to yourself,” I said, and not in the same tone of voice I might have used had I been offering him an ice pop on field day.
He dropped his flailing paws and shot a quick “sorry” in Paul’s direction. Then he turned to another child and together they began fake-farting.
Eight minutes later, as I put my key in my back door, I heard the phone ringing inside and quick-stepped across the kitchen to answer.
Angela’s voice was flat, firm.”This is Scott’s mother. I understand there was a problem this morning.”
“Not really. Your son was hitting my son and I told him to stop. It was over in three seconds.”
“I heard you yelled at him, and that Scott was very upset and humiliated.”
“Next time, if anything happens involving my son, I’d like you to call me instead. I’ll have a talk with him later. Please put my number on your cell phone.”
“You want me to call you?”
“Yes. You humiliated him in front of his peers. You embarrassed him. His self-esteem has been damaged.”
Ahem.
I think what you did was absolutely right. I would’ve done the same thing and actually have. I parent with the philosophy that it takes a village to raise a child and if my kids are doing something wrong and another parent sees it I would hope that they would correct them. Obviously spanking and correction like that should be excluded but a verbal reprimand is perfectly okay. When I corrected a child for blatently pushing my son down my husband freaked out when I told him. I explained to my husband that the kids parents weren’t watching and this little boy needed to know that that kind of behavior is unacceptable. I think if more parents had this frame of mind we would have better behaved children in general.
Is this just one example or is this behavior more universal? My daughter is 2, I grew up with the OMP, and I would hope that some parents still look out for other children.
I know I do.
I love Babble but this by far has to be my most favorite Babble article EVER! Mainly because I identify so strongly w/ it.
My son knows that when he’s at his friend’s house, he will be disciplined just as if he were one of their household.
I love that! I love knowing that no matter who my son is w/, he will be expected to show the same behaviour and respect I’ve spent so long teaching him.
Yay for OMPs!!!!!!
p.s. Yes, I’ve corrected other children when need be while nervously watching for their parents. *sigh*
I cannot stand how other mother’s get so upset when someone else corrects their child’s bad behavior. You were supposed to sit there and let her son hit YOUR kid?? What about YOUR son’s self esteem? What about HIS humiliation in front of the other kids because of HER son…the bully? I would hope that if my daughter were acting so inappropriately that another mother would say something to her. Other people have a way of exaggerating stories when they tell them to others…it’s called gossip. And with cell phones, it is so rampant and crazy. Can’t we all just get along?
“Past generations did; why can’t we?”
I suspect it has something to do with the fact that past generations were interested in raising their children into well-behaved, hard-working and respectful young people and didn’t mind others pitching in and contributing towards those goals. With too many of today’s parents, parenting is all about mommy and daddy’s bloated egos. Correct their special snowflake and there will be hell to pay.
I’m with you on this one, Lisa. I discipline other kids at the school bus and at my house. I’ve sent kids home from my house for misbehaving, and they learn their lesson, because everyone wants to play here at the Frat House for 5th Graders. My house, my rules.
But also the rules of society matter, too. If a kid is smacking another one, it’s our duty as adults to teach them that behavior is wrong, and most moms and dads I know agree with that. Plus, a little humiliation goes a lot farther than a sit-down discussion on appropriate behaviors.
The OMP lives on in my neighborhood. Keep up the good work, both at the bus stop and on Babble.
Jen Singer
MommaSaid.net
I’m glad you hung up on that lady. She had it coming. Bullies always are picking it up from somewhere. In a way,she was trying to bully you!
Among the moms I know, we give each other explicit permission to correct each other’s kids as necessary. I trust them to do essentially what I would do. It’s harder when you don’t know the moms.
I once had a problem with a boy on the playground who kept bumping roughly into my toddler. I told him several times to be careful near her, but when he shoved another small girl at the top of the play structure I started to get mad and finally asked him, “Where is your mom?” Turns out she was right next to me the whole time and had done nothing. I asked her why she didn’t stop her son from pushing around little girls and she just shrugged and said, “He’s a boy.” I felt bad for both of them, and some moms are no help at all.
I disciplined kids constantly before I even had any, this hands off attitude is killing me. If I see a kid skating on his heelies in a store or knocking over other kids I’m going to call him on it. If the parent has a problem with it too damn bad. It used to be that people were embarrassed when their kids acted like jerks.
If I had been in the authors place I would have done a whole lot more than nicely ask him to stop.
Right on. Nothing at all wrong with what you did. The tattle-tale mother and the bully’s mom should be ashamed. Like I’m going to stand there and watch some bigger kid hit my kid. F that. I’m all for letting kids deal with their own problems, but if I’m right there. Come on. It would take all my restraint not to boot the other kid across the playground.
I would point out, however, that while I agree with and enjoyed this article, I think it falls into the category of “things were so much better ‘back then’”, when everything somehow in the past was better than it is now. Most of these things I feel aren’t really worse, just different.
The presumption of Scotty’s mother. Harrumph. If I’m getting my phone out while little Scotty is bullying my child, it is not Scotty’s mother that I’ll be calling — it’s the local police to report an assault in progress. So, Scotty’s mother, do you really want me to use my cell phone? I didn’t think so…
Bully kid, bully mom. You know where the poor kid gets it.
I suspect Scotty’s mother was a bully or a mean girl back in the day.
Nope, you may not spank my child. However, if he is doing something that is bad manners, being a bully, or otherwise behaving badly, I welcome an adult correcting him if I don’t see it.
I have also ‘called-out’ other kids when out & about. And I, too, have spoken with the parents where my kids have gone for a play-date and advised them that they can reprimand my children if they’re misbehaving (verbally, not physically). And I have ALSO had some issues with other mom’s not disciplining their kids and actually damaging my property. Yes, when you have to deal with, (MY OPINION HERE) negligent parents — parents who can’t be bothered to TEACH their children how to behave in a socially acceptable fashion just because they don’t want to have to deal with the (I can only assume) temper-tantrum afterwards when the child is told ‘no’! UGH!!! It just infuriates me!!!
I sincerely believe in, as you have put it, OMP — although this is the first time I’ve heard the phrase. I too, would hope, that any other adult who saw ANY kids doing things they shouldn’t, would say something. And, quite frankly, any “parent” who has issue with you asking or telling their child not to hit, push, pinch, intimidate, bully, etc your (or someone else’s) child is obviously just too insecure and negligent to be a good and responsible parent to their child.
Bottom line: If Scotty’s mother was at the bus stop, MONITORING, her child, as she should and as you were, this whole incident probably wouldn’t have happened. Why did it — um, because she was too lazy to get her a$$ up and to the bus stop???
Does this mommy run to the teacher to complain because her baby’s self esteem was destroyed by that well deserved F????
I might have told that lady to go F herself.
My husband has a friend with two boys, 4 and 5, who have grown to this age with NO correction. 2 years ago, when they came over for the first time, I was appalled that their parents just let them run wild. I do not put up with this behavior, not from my kids, not from my grandkids and certainly not from other kids. I apologized to their dad, but explained that children did not run wild in the house and if he didn’t feel comfortable disciplining his kids, that he had our support; and I would if he didn’t.I talked to my husband who talked to his friend, and it has been a long slow haul, but thehave improved. Apparently their own parents were as frustrated as I was; they just didn’t know what to do. Stranger kids? nobody gets to hit another kid in my view without intervention. I will call the police if I see vandalism or other such. And to the kids that have mouthed back to me, I have followed them home and reported their behavior to their own mom. Sometimes they care, sometimes they don’t; But I care.
I can’t imagine that Scotty’s mom’s behavior is at all the norm these days. I live in San Francisco, land of touchy-feely-ness, and I have never gotten that kind of reaction when I’ve told a child not to hit/ throw things at/ etc. another child. There’s always going to be a jerk somewhere, but that doesn’t make it a trend.
You have GOT to be kidding me? She didn’t want you to stop her precious snowflake from beating on your kid, because it might “damage his self-esteem”? So you’re just supposed to call her and wait for her to get off her ass to come down and tell little Scotty that beating on other kids isn’t “nice” (and you know darned well that as soon as he sees Mommy, he’ll turn into a little angel.)? Screw that. Keep protecting your kid. Let her be mad — it’s not like she can really do much of anything about it.
I have many issues with my own mom, but this anecdote is one that is worth it’s weight in gold: I was a target of bullies my whole life. One summer in the public pool (remember those?) my mother overheard two older boys debating who to dunk and hold underwater. They saw me swim by and agreed “Let’s get Andrea, yeah, let’s get her!” My mom said it was something primal in her but she came up behind them, put her hands on each of their heads and dunked them. (For like, 2 seconds). When they came up sputtering, she glared at them and said, “I’m Andrea’s MOTHER.” and swam away. I remained blissfully dunk free that day. : ) Ah, the 70′s.
That’s a great story, NoHo Mom. Your mom gets a star for that. When I was only 7 this older kid kept teasing me in the bus line (my last name is a very unfortunate one, ripe for teasing) and my dad and mom gave me a few techniques which didn’t work. One day, my dad arrived and parked the car near the bus line and watched. Sure enough the little asshole came into the line, cut in front of me and started in. My dad got out, walked over and put his hand on the kid’s shoulder. Excuse me little boy he said, but you keep your hands off Michael and your mouth shut do you understand me. Everyone was watching in silence including the kid. After my dad left the kid sheepishly turned to me and said, “Your dad has a stupid beard.” I said “you shut up!” and pushed him into the bushes where he fell. Everyone cheered and he didn’t bother me again. I don’t what the moral of this story is, but my dad was a f–king hero to me that day!
Sometimes you have to get involved to help empower your kids to fight their battles. Scotty has a great future in trouble and prison it sounds like.
You did the right thing. Not only is it important to collectively ensure that the kids in the neighbourhood behave appropriately, but it is essential that those kids who aren’t getting some behavior messages at home, are getting them somewhere else. After all, we all have to live with the outcomes of the child whose fragile ego is maintained by parents who think he can do no wrong. Maybe little Scotty’s mommy wants to raise a man who thinks he’s entitled to do whatever he wants to someone else (imagine this message carried through to a college-age boy in the dating pool) but if this child encounters several parents and teachers over the years who let him in on empathy for others and what behavior is appropriate, it may actually change the trajectory of who he is to become.
@Fred-the answer to your questions probably is yes. I used to teach high school and one of the reasons I quit was that I hated dealing with parents calling to complain about a (well-deserved) grade, requesting that I change my (stated in the syllabus) policies to make an exception for their little darling, or to complain about my classroom management techniques. And by classroom management techniques, I don’t mean humiliating or degrading a child, I mean nicely, but firmly, asking a kid who won’t stop texting in class to please leave his phone on my desk until the end of class. Yes, I did get a parent calling me threatening to make me pay part of the phone bill that month since I had the phone in my possession. She thought I should have called her so she could deal with the whole incident (pause class to call his mommy? I don’t know).
Excellent article.
I not only support the sort of interventions this parent describes, I also believe they will be a cure to a lot of society’s ills. Most of the time, people just stand around fuming when they see children misbehaving, but they say nothing because they believe it’s not their place to do so. That tension builds and builds and does nothing good for society. We have to view children as community property since they will one day grow up to become members of the communities we all share. Just as I would take responsibility if someone else’s child were about to run in front of a car, I advocate stepping in when appropriate. Spanking no, speaking, yes.
Great article!
A few summers ago at a water park a little girl who we didn’t know came up to my son and spit water in his face. I stopped her and told her that was NOT allowed and that if she ever did anything like it to anyone here she would be in trouble. She looked at me in that “make me” tone… and I followed up with, “would you like me to go talk to your mother?” She left and didn’t bother anyone again. But wow, I was quaking in my flip flops that I was going to have to face a mom I didn’t know!
I kept telling myself that if MY kid did that, I would want to know.
You know what I would have said to the woman? ” If you’d like, instead of correcting your son when he puts his hands on my child, I will call the authorities and let them sort it out, would that be sufficient?”
Oh man, these ridiculous hands off parents, they just get my blood boiling!!!! “Oh my child will just have their spirit broken if you look at them funny!!!” What the f is that teaching those kids? And what will it be like for the children who are raised that choices have consequences? Your kid is going to be up against that little jerk for jobs and things later in life! Can you imagine the wake up call these kids are going to get when they get their first write up at work or (gasp) being told they aren’t special at all? I would have done the same thing and I certainly would have said “how about I call the police now and report an assault. The next thing I would do is go to the school (waiting at the bus stop is a school activity) and ask them to check into their State bullying laws. In my state, if a kid is caught “bullying” there is a no tolerance policy and they are to be expelled. What would she do if her little darling biddy boy ended up getting his butt sent in front of a juvenile judge for slapping your child and was expelled? And I don’t think all kids who hit should have the police called, but if that parent had pulled that crap with me, I’d have definitely felt quite comfortable doing it.
I pulled a tiny boy, probably about 2 years old, off the top of the (6 ft. high) monkey bars at the playground. I was convinced he was a step away from a head injury and I thought there were no adults around… until his mother ran out of a nearby picnic shelter and gave me the third degree… now whenever I see stuff like that happening I feel torn about whether or not to do something. I’m sure a lot of people feel that way. I’m just not sure what the protocol is anymore. On a familial level, my sister-in-law and I discipline each other’s kids all the time, and often in front of each other. It’s kind of a relief to have that backup person – I never once thought of it as being an issue…
When I was a kid, my parents would never have believed me over another adult (if it were regarding a disciplinary issue.) I work at a university now and part of my job is holding students accountable when they violate policy. You wouldn’t believe the calls I get from parents telling me that I’m mistaken about something I’ve seen with my own two eyes. They simply CANNOT comprehend that their child would lie to them to get out of trouble. Hello, what is my motivation for lying about your child?? And these are COLLEGE students.But this is what happens when they’ve led a life where no one has held them accountable and their parents think they can do no wrong. If a teacher or another parent we know tells me my son is being a brat (and he is sometimes, no kids are perfect), I’m pretty much always going to believe them.
This is a great article. What I don’t understand, though, is how you can write about something like this without creating a firestorm in your community. I’ve been writing about parenting issues for 5+ years, but I have never written about a conflict that I’ve had with a specific person. Lisa, I’m curious, did Scotty’s mother read this article? What did the other mothers at your child’s school say about it?-Jenwww.annarbor.com/jeneyer/
i don’t get this attitude, but it is extremely common where i live.In my group of friends, there is one mom whose son has delays – she never corrects him. I do – i’ve got a big brood, and generally i try to make it toward the group, but if i didn’t correct him, nobody would, and my friend would not be invited to our get togethers. Actually, already all of the moms have misgivings about including her because of her boys behaviour. i like her! I don’t get why she just ignores his bad behaviour…
This made me think of what Frank Furedi writes about at length in his book Paranoid Parenting: Why Ignoring the Experts Might Be Best for Your Child Among other things, he has an extensive analysis of how the “compact between parents,” and between adults in society in general, has broken down as a result of the last few decades’ “stranger danger” hysteria, the disappearance of public space and mass transit, the suburbanization and privatization of the family unit, and the cultural obsession that has redefined parenting as an individual’s all-consuming JOB, rather than seeing it as an integral part of society. And how this phenomenon actually compounds the problems that caused it, because children are actually in much MORE danger when no one is watching them and when they don’t feel accountable to the eyes of the adults around them.
This issue goes to the very central core, to me, of how we want to envision the society in which we are raising our children. Do we want the insular, nuclear family to be the be-all and end-all of ‘who matters’ — where no one outside of the family unit (or not on the family’s payroll) ‘counts’ as an authority, a caretaker, a trusted and respected adult? Or do we want our children to see the world they live in as consisting of many different people in many, complex social relations and roles — with the ones who aren’t blood-related to you being AS important and as worthy of consideration as the ones who are? It’s not hard to see how these lessons about who is ‘us’ v. who is ‘them’ affect the way kids see themselves as members of racial, class, religious, and national groups.
@doubtful – I live in SF also, and I agree with you. I have had to discipline other kids before, and nobody has gotten angry with me. (Actually, one mom seemed relieved.) Maybe we are not so touchy-feely after all? Most of the parents I know are actually strict about how their kids act in public.
I correct other people’s kids all the time. I mean, I don’t go out of my way, but when they are shoving their way past my son at the playground or just not being nice, I tend to ask them to act appropriately. I see no problem with it and would be fine if someone asked my child not to hit/be rude/whatever. I did this before I had kids too, but only because I worked with school aged kids for years in an after school program. It’s kind of ingrained in me. If someone has had a problem with it, I haven’t been aware yet, but I’m sure once we get into grade school we’ll see it more.
Do writers on Babble respond to questions? Lisa, I would still love to hear your response to my question, above.
Hi JeninAnnArbor,
Since I write almost exclusively about personal experience, I often do deal with the quandary of whether or not to “go public” with something others involved in the story might be upset about. For the most part, I’ve learned that regardless of whether they are portrayed in a positive OR negative light, there will ALWAYS be someone in my family, neighborhood, community, or extended network who may be unhappy about being included in something I write. The only way around this, I find, is to stick to the truth and try not to hurt anyone; just lay the story out and let the readers decide.
In this piece, as I often do, I did change the names of those outside my own family who I figured would not want to be publicly identified. Usually it’s to help protect their privacy, and in this case I suppose, to protect the “guilty”!
As for reaction from my local community, I did hear from a handful of other parents who more or less said, “Oh, I know just who you mean; we’ve had run-ins too.” Time takes care of the rest — usually. I suppose the response may be different had this been a local news source rather than the diverse national forum it is.
Thanks for asking, and I appreciate all the above comments from so many Babble readers, too.
- Lisa Romeo
I don’t like disciplining someone else’s child, but don’t see what you did wrong (as someone else mentioned, should you have simply allowed your child to be hit and humiliated?)
I was at a friend’s child’s birthday party; he took my umbrella and whacked me in the shin while I was seated; I grabbed the other end, gave him a stern look, and told him “that’s not nice”. He pulled at the umbrella again, then started screaming (similar things happened at his first 3 birthdays). His parents didn’t say anything negative to me, and it became a running joke (will I be the cause of his screaming at his own birthday party?). I am not proud of making him upset, but I will not have anyone’s child hit me or my own child.
In your case, I can’t imagine what else you should have done. If I hadn’t known what the article was about, I would have thought that your phone was ringing with an apology when you got home. I still kind of wonder if her friend, and later her son, had misled her as to what happened. The only thing that would stop me from intervening in a circumstance like that is that I would be so angry I couldn’t control myself well. I once got a little primal at the playground when two boys of six or seven were being mean to my three-year-old. I only said three words (“Stop it. NOW”), but I said it meanly for sure. A few minutes later I saw one boy crying and both getting ready to leave. I wasn’t sorry, per se, but I did know that if the shoe were on the other foot I would have preferred that the other parent handled it in a calmer fashion.
However, I have to admit that in a different context, if I’m there and in the company of friends or aquaintances, I do have a bit of a hang up about it. Not that another mother can’t look at my kids sideways, but I need to have seen her discipline her own child at some point in the past. More than once. I do plenty of correcting my own children’s behavior; when my oldest was younger I probably did it too much, expressly because I know I wouldn’t care for someone else doing it. So if I haven’t seen the other mother do the same, I will probably see her as someone who thinks her child is the victim in every conflict. But in practice, there’s only one mom I’ve known over the past six years that I feel this way about. Mostly I’ve known reasonable people.
A few years ago my niece was playing on my parents cursed trampoline with a group of other kids at a summer BBQ. Several of my sisters friends were there with their kids (aged 6-7). Predictably, there was a collision on the trampoline and my niece bit her tongue and started screaming her lungs out. In my sisters absence, I went over to assess the injury and tend to my niece. When I reached the trampoline, one of my nieces friends blocked the entrance through the net and told me that I wasn’t allowed on because I was “too big”. Keep in mind that I’m in my 30s and my niece was bleeding. I said: “Evan [I knew this boy] back up so I can get Natalie”. He persisted and said “no”. I explained quickly that I was retrieving my niece and that he should move. He said “no”. I gently forced my way past him retrieved my niece and took her in the house to my sister.
10 minutes later, as we debated inside whether the ER would stich a tongue) Evan’s mother (who witnessed the entire incident) came into the house and berated me telling me that if I ever “laid hands” on her son again her husband would “kick my a$$”. I explained the situation and apologized but insisted that I had asked him several times to move and when I moved passed him I did so as gently as possible. She insisted that I should have retrieved her and she would handle the situation as she could handle my niece better as well (keep in mind this is my God Daughter). She left the room and everyone just looked perplexed.
I discretely asked several other parents in the back yard if I was too rough and universally they agreed that the way in which I forced my way past him could not be described as a hit. When her husband got there he awkwardly talked to me about it and at the end said he was “sorry”.
What if the mom is doing something to their kid you feel is wrong? I recently witnessed a mother with her 3 yr old [who didn't want to play in the game that day] get in his face and yell at him and tell him if he didn’t play he wasn’t going to a friends after the game. He was crying. I wanted to scream at her …srtop it! Can’t you see you are hurting your little guy!!! Anyone else experience this? What would you do? Why would she do this?
Tell her that her kid’s out of line! Start a revolution this way
Awesome article, agree with every word. I’d welcome verbal discipline of my kids from others much more than I would welcome other moms whispering behind my back, “why doesn’t she teach her kid not to do that?!” and tsk-tsking about my parenting skills while they stand there silently judging me about a behavior I might not have have had the opportunity to correct myself simply because I wasn’t present to witness it.