I’m on the Washington Post today, talking about kids, respect for grownups, and boundaries. As in, do they exist anymore? Here’s a sneak peak:
This wasn’t the first time that one of my daughter’s friends had treated me like a fellow 8-year-old instead of a grown woman on the mature side of 40. A couple of weeks earlier, another little girl had smacked my butt. Another time I was repeatedly whacked with a pillow during some sort of couch-cushion battle scene.
Had I behaved like this with my friends’ parents? I tried hard to remember being a kid in the ’80s. Decades later, I’m still too terrified to even imagine such a scenario.
So tell me: Do your kids call grownups by their first names or Mr. and Mrs.? Do you think kids today respect grownups the way you did as a kid? Is your house flooded in Shopkins? I want to know!
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August 1, 2017 at 11:27 pm
25 years ago I had words with my daughter’s friend who opened my refrigerator and helped herself to food. She seemed totally unaware of having done anything wrong. She seemed to think we were friends. In my day, my mother would have punished me severly if I ever called s friend’s mother by her first name or disrespected the boundry between child and grown-up. My mother was right.
August 5, 2017 at 11:25 pm
Congratulations on having this post referenced on the Today Show.
August 9, 2017 at 4:17 pm
First of all, a big well done on getting your content published on The Washington Post. Secondly, I do think kids have changed from the time when I was little (the 90s). I think kids nowadays have a lot more power, even more than adults sometimes. At the same time, I feel like I was brought up in a way that my parents always taught me to have the utmost respect for adult (well, everyone around me really), and I’m making sure I teach my son the same things. So, I do believe that kids have changed, BUT at the same time what parents teach them at home makes a huge difference too
August 10, 2017 at 2:16 pm
Hello Meredith…Your article on kids vs grownups definitely struck a chord w me. Currently i am a part-time mentor at a local Club for kids and a Mom to three adult children; and a grammy too! I
Find myself in a state of disarray when children ages six through twelve see no difference in the way they are talking and relating to me as I go back to the days of Howdy Dowdy.
In my opinion if a parent or parents do not a time out to “teach their children well” I believe this
Issue will not be leaving the room anytime soon.
August 22, 2017 at 11:14 am
This is definitely something to think about. Nowadays kids are more free to do as they please, but some boundaries have to be set.
August 29, 2017 at 6:53 am
It really becomes hard to understand where to make a margin between a mother and a friend. Perhaps, you might look to be the worst enemy of your kid when things go wrong.
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