Paying For Bad Behavior...

Are our children learning lessons from these very visible tartlets behaving badly, learning how NOT to be?  I hate to even give attention to these flop stars here but as a mother, I wonder... 

About Paris and Britney (Jailbird and Unfitney)... is it lack of education on how to live or a parent's mistake and can they come back and overcome these horrid stains to their reputations, the propensity to behave poorly? Moms should think about how to teach failure and wisdom and self-responsibility. After I wrote yesterday's piece on Pay, Pay, Pay, I still was thinking about bad, bad, bad behavior and paying serious prices for bad choices.  You can think of people yourself, right off the top of your head, who still are paying for their misdeeds.

How do you rebound from difficult times, bad decisions, poor judgement, life mistakes?  How do you get past things, change, become a better person? 

Someone once told me that you want your children to make mistakes early, when you are there to help them overcome, learn from the lessons and help set them on a better path. Another good friend advised me about how you need to, as a mom, give kids specific examples of what consequences can be as we know now that until about age 25 kids can't extrapolate the consequences of their behavioral choices.  Instead of warning the children specifically (as in "if you do this, then you'll suffer this), you tell a story about someone else and what happened to them. When children find themselves in the same situation, they recall the story.

How not to be.  Jill has a post on how the media drives out the good stories to run the bad, asking where are the hero stories?  She's right.

 

How sad. Britney is being called Unfitney by the NYDaily News. Few ever want to be called a bad mother.  She's paying a harsh price, having her kids taken away.

Paris Hilton will forever pay the price of jail time. It might be her legacy.  Letterman just wouldn't let her move-on from the issue, giving her relentless intense grilling on the price she's paid (and continues to pay) for her mistake:

When my children make mistakes, it is painful. As kids, they can bounce back, take different paths, learn ways to cope and change.  As adults, mistakes can be ruinous. It is painful to see bad things happen to children, so sad to see it happen to grown ups who possibly can't live down their poor choices. As parents, we have a small window.

Comments

[Claude]

Unfortunately, I am not sure it has much to do with education. I mean, education is capital, but still, haven't you seen two people born into the same family, by the same parents and with the same moral values, go in totally different directions?
I think education is capital, but there are probably so many other factors.
And what society, the press, the news show us is far from teaching our children the right things. :(

[SusieJ]

Ahhh, more stuff to keep me up worrying at night. Actually, we use this stuff at the dinner table. We talk about what they're doing, what could have been a better choice, how this choice will affect them in the future. Better this way, than stuffing all the bad stuff in the closet, and learning later that the model citizens weren't model citizens.

[allison]

SusieJ is doing exactly what I did, and still do with my children, even though they are all almost grown. I try to seize every "teachable moment" to convey our family values, morals and spiritual beliefs. Especially when my daughter would come home and tell me about another girl in h.s. who was pregnant! But I would try to appeal to her intelligence and common sense about how her life plans would be completely changed, etc. Thinking about all the choices we do have, every day, and the prices we would or will still have to pay can be overwhelming or it can be encouraging. Every day is a tabula rasa, if we choose to see it that way.

[Kathy]

And if my kids are going to make mistakes they can learn from, I want them to be caught as soon as possible. Better to learn the lessons early, when it's easier to recover.