Now I hope this doesn’t come as a surprise to you but bad parenting is demonstrated by behavior which is inferior to average. What might surprise you, however, is that I am not referring to the children who behave inferior to average. Rather, I’m referring to parenting which is inferior to average.
There is a lot of parenting masquerading as good parenting which upon closer examination is revealed as bad parenting 101. Over the next two posts, I’m going to give you some detail about those inferior to average parents pretending to be poster adults of good parenting. The hope is that something you read will allow you to completely recognize bad parenting. Even better maybe you will read something that encourages you to make some changes to your own behavior so that your children become the extraordinary to superior children you expect them to be.
Bad Parenting Example # 1 – Sports Parent
When my son was preschooler and first began playing soccer, I watched with other parents as our cute little kids ran around and played kick ball. I know you are probably confused. I started out talking about soccer but now I’m talking about kickball. Let me deviate for a moment because in this country soccer and kickball are almost one and the same.
When little children begin to play soccer in the US, most parents are clueless that what our children are playing is actually not soccer at all. What our children learn to play and we commit to pay outrageous fees for is an overpriced, over coached, race and socio-economic elitist form of kickball. A game that seems to be especially sold to parents of children living almost exclusively in North America.
It was only when my son began chasing his dream of playing what the world calls football that I was converted fully to this perspective. Now I know – depressingly I might add – that all this time I had been had, took, hoodwinked, bamboozled, lead astray and run amok! I had wasted a lot of time, energy and money watching him and other children play kickball. But I digress!
At any rate, what I discovered during my son’s pre-school to elementary school years on those Saturdays and Sundays on the soccer field was the propensity for inferior to average parenting coupled with an unrealistic expectation of extraordinary to superior performances from children. From the overweight father whose only recent physical exercise was earlier that morning when he lifted donuts and cup of coffee to his mouth to the mother who couldn’t tell you what the rules of the game were if her life depended on it – both mother and father yelled and screamed incessantly at their children without any self-awareness – demanding that their child run faster and play harder.
How crazy it is that every Saturday and Sunday all over the country, the overweight and chronic illness waiting to happen father and the mother who is too lazy to read the rules of the game have the audacity to want their children to be something they themselves are not nor willing to make any consistent effort to be – healthy and good readers?
And so it continues, fathers who are slow, overweight, unhealthy and out of shape – inferior to average father’s – have the nerve to put demands on children that they won’t themselves live by.
Mothers who can’t be bothered to read the rules of a game – they pay for their children to play I might add – will soon find fault in their children when they discover their children are inferior to average readers. Like their mothers, the children shouldn’t have to be bothered with reading either. If inferior to average reading is good for mom, it has to be good for the children.
Sadly, the sports parent is not the only inferior to average parent giving birth to inferior to average children. However, you will have to stay tuned to learn about the Helicopter Mom, Absent Parent and the discussion of what came first the chicken or the egg.
Do you have the audacity to expect extraordinary to superior outcomes and results from your children when your parenting is inferior to average?