Weekend Kindness
Reaching Others Through Kindness

I read a really great article by Kathleen Deveny titled Your Child Was Out of Line  which highlighted the difference between cultures as far as what was expected from children:

[O]ur ideas about community parenting shift dramatically over time. In Colonial America, children expected to be disciplined by any adult. “Kids were not raised to internalize their own family’s particular values, they were expected to share the community’s values,” says Stephanie Coontz, a professor of history and family studies at Evergreen State College. That began to change in the 1830s as class distinctions grew sharper. “Often it wasn’t so much ‘our family has different rules’ as ‘our type has different rules’,” Coontz says.

In mid-20th-century suburbs, there was enough homogeneity that many parents welcomed a resurgence of community and of common discipline. I feel as though I spent much of my ’60s childhood in Minneapolis being scolded by neighbors for cutting through their yards or throwing snowballs.

During the past 15 or 20 years, however, we have become less likely to discipline even our own children, and bristle when others try. “If someone criticizes your child, it’s like they’ve criticized your whole family, your whole life,” says Dr. Wendy Mogel, author of “The Blessing of a Skinned Knee.”

She goes on to say that she doesn’t expect someone to physically discipline someone else’s child, but that she does figure that it’s appropriate to correct a child in a positive way– so that the parents are reinforced.

I know that a few times I’ve caught a kid running away from their parent, or stood in their way and told them to go back to their mom (this one girl was especially bad in a clothing store).  The mother thanked me.  My wife said that I took a risky chance.

What say you?

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