Dear Ann Landers: Last evening my husband and I visited with a couple we`ve known for a long time. When we arrived, their two children, ages 5 and 9, were running around playing. The father, ”Chuck,” sat down and we started to talk.
After a few minutes, the 9-year-old daughter came into the room, sat on her father`s lap and smacked him in the face. He calmly said, ”Please don`t do that,” and resumed talking. She struck him a second time and his response was to use his hands as a shield. When she hit him a third time, he pushed her off his lap. There was no rebuke, no punishment. Nothing.
When I asked Chuck how he could let her do this, he said: ”She`s probably over-tired. Whenever the kids have a good day, they get keyed up.” I said, ”You think that`s an excuse for such behavior?” He replied, ”She`s just excited.”
During the next 20 minutes, the children ignored their father when he asked them to be quiet so we could talk. His wife sat there like a bump on a log, making no effort whatsoever to control them. Finally Chuck said with a tone of resignation, ”The nicer you are to these kids, the worse they behave.”
Now I wonder if my husband or I should have removed the girl from her father`s lap, taken her into another room and said, ”We don`t like to be around children who are so disrespectful.”
We`d like your views on this.
Dismayed in L.A.
Dear Dismayed: What you should have done is taken the parents into another room and told them they are abdicating their responsibility by allowing their children to behave like brats. Children need limits set and they want discipline. It makes them feel secure and valued. Classes in parenting are offered through local school districts, community colleges, churches and hospitals. Your friends should look into this before their children are hopelessly out of control.
`Slow me down, Lord`
Dear Readers: These days, when too many of us are rushing around at breakneck speed, putting in long hours and often neglecting the most important people in our lives, we need to step back, re-examine our values and get a better view of the big picture.
The little essay you are about to read was sent to me by a dear friend. It was framed and hanging over the check-in desk at Tanyard Springs, a small resort hotel in the mountains of Arkansas. The author is unknown. If you see yourself or someone you care about, clip it out for frequent reference:
Slow me down, Lord
Slow me down, Lord.
Ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind.
Steady my hurried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time.
Give me, amid the confusion of the day, the calmness of the everlasting hills.
Break the tension of my nerves and muscles with the soothing music of the singing streams that live in my memory.
Help me to know the magical, restoring power of sleep.
Teach me the art of taking minute vacations-slowing down to look at a flower, to chat with a friend, to pat a dog, to read a few lines from a good book.
Slow me down, Lord, and inspire me to sink my roots deep into the soil of life`s enduring values that I may grow toward the stars of my greater destiny. ———-
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