Tough Love in the Heart and Gut Yesterday, I grabbed my mail and as I was scrolling through, I found a health report stating a new shocking discovery that heart problems begin in the gut. That makes sense if you take Yoga because a weekly class is designated for intestines and detox. This also made me think about disciplinary problems in the school. Where do they start? A better question is: where does the inconsistency lie? It lies everywhere: the schools, the homes and everywhere else we dwell. Teachers blame parents, parents blame the schools, and everyone seems to blame teachers. Now I do not claim to know the origin, but it is nurtured in the movement of not denying children anything. When I was a child, my mom and dad said no quite often, and they did not have to give a reason. Other than the primary needs like food, clothing, shelter, safety and love, parents can say no all they want. As a child, I asked, “why not?” and my parents just said that they didn’t have to give an answer. There were boundaries. More importantly, those boundaries were tested, validated, and strengthened. Many students have never been told no, and even occasionally when they did, parents were often “pressured” to give in for reasons like maintaining sanity or not having the support of the other parent (those issues can be taken up later), but if you do not have boundaries, expect chaos. This results in school shootings. This results in road rage and physical fights in flights. This also results in “mostly peaceful demonstrations (especially during the summer of love 2020 and on January 6th at the Capitol).” When you are not prepared to hear no and have no structure, no boundaries, and no tough love, you become confused and angry because you discover that you were lied to only to appease you. The house of cards comes down. It’s time for parents to say no sometimes and back it up and it’s time for all adults, teachers, and administrators to support them. This culture of “grooming, moral bankruptcy, multiple genders (and every other pathetic example of Doublespeak) and appeasement policies in public schools is an indication that the government or “big daddy” is sliding in to replace the parents in their role.
James Pesutich