There are many ways that parents deal with children’s tantrums. How parents handle tantrums is a good indicator of who is really in charge: the parent or the child. Effective parents know, if you give in to children’s tantrums, they learn that such tactics work and more will follow.
On Tuesday, our school found a threat written on a bathroom stall indicating there would be a bomb on Friday. This is the second time this has happened. Kids have learned that this kind of tantrum works; they can take our school hostage with a bit of graffiti.
Although threats like these happen in many schools, none have ever been carried out. There has never been a school bombing in Illinois. However, it is natural for this kind of incident to make parents anxious. Some parents and children are so anxious that they could not function while worrying about a threat like this.
However, most people understand that this is merely a tantrum, an attempt at manipulation on the part of a misguided child. The police call it, a “low level threat.” Yet, school attendance plummets on these days. Although our school reported 70% attendance on that Friday, I saw fewer than half my students. Are there that many parents and students for whom this anxiety is paralyzing?
No. Students are very open about their motives. They talk about taking advantage of both the situation and their parents. “If I can get my parents to let me have a day off, I am going to take it,” they say. It is not about bomb anxiety.
On Friday, our school was safer than it has ever been. If parents wanted their children to be in a safe place, those kids would have been at school. Police canine units had swept the building. All students and staff’s bags were checked on the way in. Police were in and around the building. Our school was a fortress. Students were in far more danger out of school, especially if their parents left them alone. So why did thirty percent of parents allow their kids to stay home?
That is the question. Kids are open about the manipulation involved. Are parents aware they are being played? And what did kids do with their day off?
The sad truth is that too many parents are not in charge. Too many teenagers run the home and make the real decisions. The real scare is not of a bomb, but of an epidemic of weak and ineffectual parenting.
The child who wrote the bomb threat is manipulating the entire community and these parents are giving in to the tantrum. If everyone came to school and held a regular day of classes, there would be no incentive for students to write threats in bathrooms. These parents are encouraging this behavior to the detriment of the entire school system. We all suffer because of their poor decisions.
No wonder weak parenting has bred the entitled child epidemic. And never was this problem clearer than on Friday. Entitled children and their wimpy parents allowed the entire school to be held hostage. Thousands of dollars were spent and who knows how much was lost in state funding because parents could not say to kids, “I know you would like a day off, but it really is safe to go to school today.” If everyone came to school normally, we would be far less likely to have another bomb scare. Children throw tantrums sometimes – even dangerous and scary ones. Giving in only reinforces that negative behavior and encourages more of it.
