The problem is not that the parents are too strict, it is that they have become too timid and the children too bold. The goal is to achieve peace in the home, to reduce tensions from within the children who have, until such compliance is achieved, been at war against their teachers, their parents, the law, society and even themselves. These are appropriate motives for a parent to have, both for the child, and the family. Yet we all know parents who allow their children to stay up all hours of the night, who allow their children to keep the company of fools and scoundrels, who allow their children to injure their bodies with drugs, alcohol and promiscuous sex. Not only are they NOT doing good, they are damning their children, souls placed into their care, by being timid rather than bold, and allowing their children to set standards of behavior and value.
Childhood is to be a time of innocence.
A time of freedom from the pressures of the world. Yet, with MTV, the howling programs on Television, with wanton violence in the cartoons, promiscuous and perverted sex displayed and taunted as merely a choice in lifestyles, many children have been thrust out of childhood, as ill prepared for the choices of adulthood as any child warrior in Bosnia. We believe that when parents assume their ordained position as the policy makers in the home, setting and transmitting values, and behavioral standards, the children become free to relax and enjoy those precious moments that occur between birth and their move out of the birth-home into the world as adults. We suggest four immediate steps to restore children, whether 4 years old or 18 years old, to the role of child, and to restore parents to the role of parents. Yes, it does require courage from parents to go against that record, but just reading it, you can see its imperative.