Ah...last full week of school. I am not sure if I am glad that school is going to be out.....as much as I am just ready for a break from the same old, same old. At any rate, I know that just about everyone in our building is ready to be done with this year. There have been many challenges this year, not that other years don't present us with challenges, it just seems that this year has been more challenging than others.

I have been working at the school for 13 years and one thing I have concluded is that there is no normal. Normal is anything can happen and just when you think you have everything under control chaos has a way of sneaking up on you and knocking you down. Once you have lost control.....you can't regain it, at least not completely. You have to expect the unexpected at any time. Anyone who works with kids knows that. However, having said all of that I do feel that kids and parents have changed over the years and not always for the better. I don't know when it happened, but somewhere along the course of time, it became the school's responsibility to raise the recent generation of children. Unfortunately, what they learn in school doesn't always stay "learned" after they get home. Many of today's children are rude and disrespectful. They have no respect for authority. To them adults are just obstacles preventing them from doing want they want to do. Often times it ends up that our presence and rules only challenges them to be a little more subtle in their behavior in order to obtain their goal. I am not blaming the children entirely for this.....their parents are enablers and actually encourage their behavior. Oh they may not intend to be, but they are.

When I was a child/teen if I got into trouble and ended up grounded, I was grounded for the duration. There was no trade offs because there was some event I wanted to attend. That's the whole point of being grounded. Once you trade off the time the punishment is over! Children do not learn that their behavior comes with consequences because there aren't any if the punishment is lifted to accommodate their busy social calendar. They need to learn that they are indeed in control of their own lives....and it's the choices they make that will enable to succeed or cause them to fail. It's no ones fault but their own. Mom and Dad are not the bad guy if the child makes a bad choice and ends up being punished for it. School...even lunch...is all about making choices. Once you make a choice that is it. You live with the choices you made...like it or not! We joke around about when we were kids how lunch had two choices...Take it OR Leave it! The same could be said about any choice a child is about to make that he knows may not end with a postive result. He can choose to "take it or leave it." Once the choice is made he lives with the results....good or bad.

Imagine the child's reaction when upon becoming an adult, he makes the choice to speed and gets a ticket for it or makes a disrepectful comment to a police officer. If they never learn to respect authority and the rules they may end up with more than a week or two of grounding that never stuck in the first place. The excuse "because I wanted to" won't sit too well in court when asked why he/she committed the infraction. They might get off with a slap on the wrist, but it will cost them in attorney fees...there will be some form of payment either with their time or their money for going against the rules and authority.

I would urge all parents to teach their children well. The school can teach them history and math, but it's the parents that should teach them about life and the respect for others and the best way to do this is to teach by example. Parents...if you don't live it.....don't expect your children to either. I won't say that parents who do everything right won't have children who still choose to go the wrong way, that obviously happens. However it is usually the parent who has consistently made excuses for their child or fought against the people who were trying to make a positive difference in their child's life who end up asking why their child would do something that comes with serious repercussions....just take a look in the mirror at your child's real teacher, the biggest example is staring right back at you!