Child Discipline New Millenium Style

People need to learn a thing or two about disciplining their children.

Having taught at an alternative school for a number of years, I have witnessed my fair share of kids who are out of control. Kids who cuss you out. Kids who throw desks at you. Kids that want to fight you because it’s 9am and you are blowing their high with that strange thing called “Spelling”.

And those are the kids that like you.

Many of you would suggest going old school. Grabbing whatever is handy (notebook, eraser, brick) and hurling it at the youngster before completely losing your mind and jumping on said child’s head, hollering things like “You musta lost yo’ mind…” My mother had several of those moments during the Seventies, the era where women wore those ugly sandals with super hard wooden soles…

I learned something working with young people. You can only beat so much ass, and usually, with kids like my students, you’ll never do as thorough a job as gets done at home. I had kids who got to stay out all night but got wrecked for drinking the last of the Kool-Aid. I took a young man home once who begged me to drive past his house. This kid was hard as all get out. No amount of anything moved him.

When I explained that I had to take him to his house and leave him with an adult, he almost broke into tears. Minutes later, I understood why. Mom was sitting on the front porch sharing a forty and a blunt with some dude who couldn’t keep his hands off her extremities. No, “How was school?”, “Did lunch suck today?” or my personal favorite, “Did yo’ little friend’s momma ask about me?” Mom kept sipping and puffing. The guy kept fondling, not even acknowledging the kid. I mean, as a man I understand why he was preoccupied, but would it have hurt to say, “Hey man, left you some chips on the counter in there. We busy here on the porch having grown folks time. Go watch Sponge Bob.”

Be honest: What amount of butt whoopin’ is going to fix what’s wrong with that child? It was in his response, however, that I had an epiphany.

Please spare me the whole “My grandparents did it this way…” schtick.

There was a time when parents, especially Black parents, had to use very harsh forms of corporal punishment to drive points home. Because if your child crossed the line in that society, he might die. Period.

Even those circumstances didn’t produce the best results. Our grandparents raised the Baby Boomers, a generation so well disciplined it gave us the heads of the most notorious street gangs, the drug counter culture, and a general “It’s all about me” attitude.

I am not against disciplining children. I am forced, however, to quote Ali ibn Abi Talib (no, he was not a hijacker): Raise your children differently than you were raised because they are meant for a different time than you.

See, I’ve been looking at parents lately, and let me tell you something: my generation? We make some good looking moms and dads. Admit it. We dress well; we have all our own teeth. We are the reason butt beating doesn’t faze our kids, because we are entirely too cool to really lose it, a la Rita McCallum circa 1975.

So if we want to really get under our kids’ skin, we have to try another tactic.

Shame.

It used to be almost everybody’s parents were ugly. I mean, later in life, as you started to look like them, of course you drank the “My folks were really beautiful people” Kool Aid.

Now kids tell other kids at the drop of a hat, “Your mom is a five star hottie!” And they are not lying.

We gotta get away from that.

We have to save our children. Our appeal is hindering our effectiveness as parents.
Ladies, the next time you get called to the school, stop on your way home from work. Change out of your cute professional gear, and change out of your jewelry. Even the earrings. Roll around in the bed for about five minutes. Yes, baby. Wreck that do.
Then put on the oldest, most tattered undies you can find. Over that, I need you to put on a house coat. The old polyester kind you get from K-mart with a button missing between your bosom and your hips. You may have to alter it yourself. Put some fuzzy pink rollers in your hair, ditch your contacts and find your glasses. Gargle with some Nyquil.

Most importantly, put a cigarette in your mouth. Kools. Only Kools will do. Even if you don’t smoke, have one dangling from your lips and shove the pack into your tattered brassiere.

NOW go to the school, white men’s sweat socks rolled down and your feet jammed into old school slippers. When the principal asks you to come in, stand in the hallway instead, and only answer in grunts. Like, “Huh. Huhn? Hem!” Lean over and look your child in the eye often, showing the gap from the missing button and a bra that can only come from the Salvation Army.

The social devastation will allow you to impart many nuggets of wisdom on little Shay Shay the next time she wants to tell adults exactly what she will and won’t do. In fact, you may be able to convince her that boarding school is the way to go, after all. Yes, your relationship will change. You will now be forced to endure her groaning in fear whenever you leave the house together. This one event is worth a year’s worth of butt beatings.

I won’t leave Dads out. We never get much credit and we get the lousiest gifts ever, but we can make it up in spades.

Stop showing up to coach with your FUBU warm up and new Ones. That’s why Junior won’t listen. He sees you are cool, and he figures it’s on him to emulate that. That’s part of the problem. There is no separation between “child” and “adult” anymore.

First, we’re gonna stop hiding that gut. You earned it, it probably matches your wife’s (but she got an excuse, like childbirth). Lil man will stand up and listen intently to every word you utter the first practice you arrive in a t-shirt two sizes to small with a hole ripped just above the navel. If you are in good shape, wear one of those sleeveless t-shirts that show off those deodorant caked afros under your arms.

Enliven your ensemble with some old, super shiny sweat pants (you may have to buy new ones and wash repeatedly with sand and borax) and black dress shoes.

Let your fade get a bit rough. Better for you to jam a baseball cap with “Ty’s Manure Hauling” emblazoned on the front and one of those mesh areas that cover the back of your head. Think “Smokey and the Bandit” meets “Dolomite.”

Most important is your entrance. No more smoothly pulling up to the school or the game, sliding out your ride and sauntering over.

I personally prefer to make my car pretend like it is backfiring while blasting the sounds of one Barrence Eugene Carter. That’s Mr. White to ya’ll. Then I heave myself out with all of the aplomb of a high school linebacker gone soft and do an exaggerated daddy dance bop over to the game site. I punctuate every sentence with a high pitched, "Woo woo woo!" That's hard if you hear my voice, but what is parenting if not sacrifice?

At first, the other parents thought I was on drugs. Now they too are showing up in house coats and shiny dress shoes matched with sweats or shorts. We look like some damn clowns but our kids are very attentive and well behaved, without us having to go crazy, wear out our arms or be on hypertension medicine.

These are tough adjustments, but I believe in doing anything for the sake of our kids. So let’s stop all of this hollerin’, puttin’ kids on punishment and thinking we are really making a difference when administering whoopins. Be honest with yourself: you don’t have it the way your folks did, and shoot, even with their child beat down skills (read: ABUSE), what were the results? Man, we have more gangbangers and easy teenage girls than ever before.

I’m telling you, I’m on to something here.

Plus, just try and have Family Services haul you into court over embarrassing your kids, they way they try to get bold when you done put your hands on ‘em.

And if that don’t work, please.

Grab a belt and beat they behinds silly. In front of their friends. THAT’S always a winner. If you gotta go to court, make it for something entertaining.