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Kaz is right. Society has become all too politically correct, to the extreme. It has become almost a social sin to do anything less than praise failure, accept bad behavior and disrespect, and expect too little from children.
GraceKrispy says "parents became unable or unwilling to discipline their kids." That is certainly true too, for many reasons.
Many parents want to be their kids' friend instead of their parent. They don't want the kid to be mad at them.
Some others are afraid of their kids, and others are afraid of having their kids taken away if they discipline. Things have swung too far in the kids' favor. Let's face it. It doesn't take much these days to have Child Protective Services knocking at your door and taking your kids away because your kid got mad at you for taking away the X-Box and told someone a tall tale about abuse to "get even" (or other various scenerios.)
The first thing my daughter learned in Kindergarten from her teacher was, in so many words, that her parents could do nothing to discipline her.
She came home from school and informed me that her teacher told the class that if Mommy or Daddy spanked them, touched them or made them cry, that they were to tell the teacher and she'd have the parents arrested and they wouldn't do that any more. She, in her 5 year old mind, heard the teacher's words and understood them to mean just that, but she didn't know what arrested really meant, or any other consequences to "telling on your parents."
So she had already learned (even if by mistake, or misunderstanding) to threaten her own mother that if I did anything that she didn't like, she could have me arrested, so I wouldn't dare take any toys away or make her do anything she didn't want to, etc. . .
The teacher stood by her words and admitted that, in essence, that's what she told the kids, and it was unfortunate that some of the children may have misunderstood what she meant, and shouldn't have taken what she said literally. (I know, as a child, I took EVERYTHING literally.)
I knew right then we were in for a loooong road ahead, butting heads with teachers that weren't careful with their words. Nothing like having your parental authority undermined by a teacher who thinks she's talking to kids much more sophisticated than their years would indicate.
Granted, no one wants to see kids abused and they should be protected from abuse. But the pendulum has swung too far and given too much unsubstantiated power to children and other busy-body do-gooders over parents' efforts to raise their children.
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