Bratty Argentine Children & Public Tantrums

[katti]

My family is 2nd generation Italians in the USA and we got hit all the time when we were little.

I don't think "being hit al the time" is a good thing (although we all survived that), but I agree that at times, some kids need a small tick on their buttom...

Kids need rules and limits. It makes them feel safe. If a rule is set, it can not change. If kids disobey the rules, they should be punished. I don't hit my kids, but punish them with something that touches them. For example, my son when he was small, he loved to watch tv, so he could not watch TV for a week (or more), when they are very small it can be 'no cookie' or 'no bedtime story'...

You have to be consequent, if you say no to a question the 1st time you are asked, you should also say no the 2999th time he/she asks the same question. This also means that when he/she throws himself on the floor in a supermarket, it is still a no. That's when he thinks (is certain) you will give in.

As a parent you have to be strict but fair. It is not easy and you must often make a stone of your heart confused, but in the end it pays off. My kids are 14 and 17, and when I talk about some of their friends who are behaving badly, they tell me "mom, it's all in the education". So I suppose I've done my job well...

All over the world you see kids behaving badly, and it is often (not always) a consequence of 2 parents working, the child being alone a lot, and when the parents finally have time, they spoil the kids, often out of guilt. Don't want to be angry or set rules. At least that's what I see in my circle of friends.

I don't know how it is in other countries, but In Belgium, everyone seems to have ADHD. The docters put them on medication, while in my opinion, the majority of these kids just need to be diciplined. (I can't imagine 30% in a class being ADHD).

Anyway, this is how I raised my kids, and up to now it worked very well on them. Let us hope it stays that way

 

[Napoleon]

Not everyone's down with a little smacking.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/17/new.mexico.flight.incident/index.html?iref=allsearch

 

[katti]

slapping a 13 month old in the face does not seem a clever thing to do...

 

[Georginar]

In my experience, I HATE it when kids start crying and the mother doesn't even try to calm them down, or when you see kids slap their mother, or pull their hair... I have a 12 year old daughter, and since I hated that before she was born, I guess that it was into me, to raise her as not to make the same things that I use to see as annoying in public.
I hated it when they run into you and don't even say sorry when they're old enough and able to say it, or go to someones home and touch everything and the parents don't even care if they're about to brake something.
But I proudly say that Victoria turned out to be very polite and well mannered and it's really nice when people congratulate me for it .
I am argentinian and I do see a point here, because it bothers even me!!!

 

[fifs2]

Your stepson is very lucky to have you in his lifeand good for you for taking on such a challenge..let´s hope he learns to respect other women if not his own mother. The constant use of Te odio by small kids here breaks my heart as does the kids hitting their parents in public (what do they do behind closed doors). For all the complaining I did about my son I trust he will never use his words or fists against another to express himself.

 

[fifs2]

we were left to run round the smoky pub high on coke and E additives..ah the good old days...when noone had heard of lung cancer or ADHD.

 

[arlean]

I could not agree more on the bratty Argentine kids--but I don't think it is worse than in the US. I have seen kids both places throw themselves onto the floor and scream because mom would not buy them what they want. In both countries they were allowed to scream. I don't know the problem in Argentina. When my kids were young they'd have gotten a good spanking when they got home--and before people turned so crazy they would have gotten it in the store. But now parents in the US can lose their kids for administering what is just discipline (save your howls they won't work on me--I am 73 and when I grew up kids--including me--were spanked and we could leave our doors unlocked in Miami, a city of over a million at the time, where I grew up). We are ruining the U.S. by letting kids be undisciplined, smart-mouthed brats. Not all, of course, but many. But I see it in Argentina as well.

By comparison I have spent quite a lot of time in Chile. Different world there. I have been on buses with Chile children and didn't know until I got up to go to the rest room that there were even kids on the bus. I have watched a little girl about age 3, two little pony tails in back and a doll in her arms, stand for perhaps 30 minutes where her parents stood her and told her to stay there while they loaded up boxes on a vehicle. I watched a little boy run out into an empty street from the sidewalk once in Valdivia, Chile, and his dad caught him and popped him a few good ones on the backside and set him firmly on the sidewalk, tears and all.

But when it comes to Argentina (and the U.S.) you are completely right.

 

[arlean]

About sleep-deprivation, perhaps that is true. But my experience is that people here take a nap in the afternoon. Some of my friends that I know well actually get in bed in the afternoon, and then stay up till perhaps 1 a.m. Of course if they don't do that, then I'd say you are right. Sleep-deprivation may be rampant.

 

[Lucas]

Here is a good and effective (well almost) solution for brat kids...Argentines or otherwise

>>Click Me...<<

.

 

[Santiago F]

Lucas, that commercial has a very terrible message, although if you look at it from a different perspective it's funny (funny haha, not weird).

Going back to the topic, I think that there is a reason that no one has mentioned yet for apathetic Argentine parents. I'm a teacher-to-be (just a copule of final exams from the degree), and in my practice lessons as a trainee teacher I have seen and suffered bratty children and what's more, I know, from my teacher friends, that these children's parents are absent at home and don't care for them.

Anyway, when talking about this with my Argentine friends (I am myself Argentine / Argentinian), we agree that our own parents' education was different (I am 33 now). And our parents' parents' education was even more different, less lenient and more severe.

We have a reason that may play a role on this: just 30 years ago we had a disastrous dictatorship and a dirty war that killed thousands. I think that nowadays everyone is afraid of being severe and "authoritarian" with their children because they associate that with the authoritarianism of the dictatorship, at least at a subconscious level.

I don't really know if this is plausible, because at the same time these apathy on the part of parents and these bratty children are in other countries where there wasn't such a cruel dictatorship. But what I can tell you is that more or less most agree that this state of apathy on parents was not like this in the past.

Just my two cents,
Cheers,