Good blog Brant. But one of the things I have seen that is happening is that... so many of the children of today have parents who are still acting like children themselves. There is not that much "adult" interaction for the children to gauge their life by.

And there always will be. The children of such parents used to be referred to as precocious,or self centered. Those characteristics are becoming more and more common among young people today.

Somehow, we have gone into an indulgence mode with our kids that fails to stress the importance of self discipline and goal achievement.

Today's kids are drawn too quickly towards adulthood and the simple pleasures we 50 and 60 somethings knew as children are long gone. Bikes, pick up baseball games and playing in the dirt have been replaced by computers, highly competitive adult supervised athletics,and other activities that will "prepare" kids for adulthood. Even our school forgo basic education and teach to measurement tests and standards.

Interestingly, with all this attention,our kids continue to fall behind from an educational standpoint. Did anyone watch the national spelling bee in DC? ....the top kids were Indian and Asian. The parents of these kids make a different kind of sacrifice....rather than indulge their kids they make them sit down and study, and do so relentlessly.

I would tend to agree with BW that kids should not be the absolute center of their parents lives and should remain at the "kids table"
until they display signs of maturity.

It's for the parent's own ego.

Every generation of parents complains about "kids today".

Our kids today are GREAT kids! We live in a changing world, and our kids' activities have changed since we were kids.

There's still plenty of pressure on kids, in fact a lot more...it's just a different kind of pressure.

I do agree Brant that parents today "over-parent". A lot of kids can't just play ball for the fun of it anymore. They hear the words "atheletic scholarship" before they are ten years old. And it's not just sports; our kids are dragged from one activity to another for years.

Our kids are bombarded with technology. Computers, cell phones, iPods, etc. Keeping up with changing technology is necessary for our kids to be competitive.

Unfortunately, it's not the simple life we once enjoyed. Our kids are almost forced to multi-task.

I think parents need to give kids today a break. They need to let them be bored enough, safely sneaky enough, and trust them enough to make tough choices so they can actually learn to think independently. Parents need to let kids fail!

Our kids are trying in their own not-so-understandable ways, just as we did, to seek their own identity.

Of course they are self-centered! It's nature. It's the stage, the phase and the age. Fortunately most of us outgrow it.

When I run into old friends and conversation turns to our kids, they always ask "what are your kids involved in?" They want to know: "Do they play ball, cheer, play an instrument, dance?" That is their measuring stick for success? How much a kid can multi-task???

"She's an avid reader" generally earns a blank stare.

Our kids only have a short time before they'll pretty much work until they die.

Tonight while I was gone my teenager and a friend put a plastic tarp on a slope in the yard, added baby oil, water and themselves in swim suits. I'm cool with that. It's a complete waste of time and I hope they waste some more.

Parents, please STOP micro-managing your kids!

Probably the biggest thing wrong with kids today is adults, and their perception of kids.

My oldest has a phrase she frequently uses whenever I question the manner in which she is doing a task. She plainly says "don't judge me". I get the message.

Kids today may listen to some distasteful music, their hair may be look funny, their piercings might not be in their ears.

But when you talk with them, if you listen really closely, and you don't block your memory, you'll find they are very much the same inside as you were at that very age.

I'm really not sure why so many parents recently decided kids have to be perfectly polite, expectation-meeting, report-back-to-me-when your poop looks weird, high achievers.

I have to say to my own spouse about once a week in different ways:

"The kid's are alright".

Statistically, the kids today are alright. Maybe even more so than us. We should try not to interfere so much. We were once kids. The hard part is remembering and admitting just how stupid we were at times.

BrantWW, I lived the same kind of life that you did when I grew up. When I was a kid, we played outside all the time that there was day light. We had TV, but did not want to stay in and watch it. We loved playing outside, building forts, playing marbles, hopscotch, volley ball, dodge ball, tag, soft ball, basketball, riding bikes, sliding down hills on card board boxes from refrigerators, camping, water skiing, swimming, etc. I loved sitting in swings and rockers on the front porch of my grandpa's house and listening to all the adults (grandparents, parents, and aunts and uncles) tell their tales, and believe me they told some funny tales. We really were allowed to be kids when I was a kid, and we had our places as kids (separated from the adults).

We didn't have computer games, i.e. X-Box, Nintendo, Gameboy, etc. All my grandsons want to do is play those type computer games. It is the first thing that they do when they get up in the morning. They spend hours playing X-Box games. My son-in-law is a gamer so he sets the example for them. His selection of games he plays with his, also adult, brothers are pretty brutal. My son-in-law does play adult hockey at the local ice rink to keep from getting fat. He is only 36 years old, has anxiety attacks, and is border line diabetic, so he has to watch his weight. At least the kids will get out side on the driveway and play hockey with him.

I think that a lot of influence on our kids behavior is from the TV shows that they watch. I Carly, Hanna Montana, Sponge Bob Square Pants, etc., are the good shows that my daughters let my grandsons watch, and my grandsons turn around and talk smart-mouthed, just like they do on TV, to their parents. They don't talk to me that way, because I won't let them. We were not allowed to talk that way to any adults. We were taught to be respectful.

Things have changed. Parents seem to be too busy for their children today. When both parents work, they are both to tired to deal with the kids after the house work is done in the evening. My mom didn't work, and I loved coming home from school to amazing home cooked meals. The smell and taste of Mom's home made apple pie, yeast bread, fried potatoes, and meatloaf or fried chicken was to die for. When Dad got home from work we all ate dinner, us kids cleaned up the dishes, and then we played outside until it started getting dark.

Because of the micro wave oven, those days of the home cooked meals seem to be gone. Women don't want to slave behind a stove today. I honestly can't blame them, because it is not fun after working all day at a job away from home, to come home and cook. Things are just not the same as they were back then. We want too many things (bigger houses, more and newer vehicles, four wheelers, etc.), so both parents have to work to pay for all that. There is where we have gone wrong.

I remember a secretary at work a couple of years ago complaining that she found that buying diapers for her walking-talking toddler was putting a strain on the family budget, and was irritated that her child did not seem to want to graduate to toilet-training. I asked her if she had discussed this with the child, to help the child understand the difficulties a Mom and Dad had to deal with and how the child could do his share. She looked at me, stunned, wondering if this was a subject a child could deal with: I told her I thought children had to learn to start dealing with the ups AND downs of life to get a full picture. I remember when my parents and I had my first "adult" talk: it sure opened my eyes and helped me understand that life was not all about ME.

Before we go blaming this and that for ruining our kids, we should take a moment to consider our own arrested adult development. A lot of the folks in East Tennessee seem to have topped out somewhere in High School, in spite of their chronological age.

Boys usually stop playing "Army" by the time they are 10 or 11 years old. What is a HUMMER but a big, dangerous Army Toy? Then there are the people who dress up in camo and shoot paintballs at each other at special "camps" on the weekends.

And when did adults start celebrating Halloween? It has become the biggest commercial event right behind Christmas. And don't even get me started on Christmas, the grossest display of material excess imaginable. And this year, in case hard financial times should curb one's excessive compulsion to satisfy material cravings, the "official" Christmas shopping season has already begun at major retailers, and it's only July!

Infantile thinking is demonstrated by an incessant urge to "have it now." Isn't that where our culture has arrived? What is Fed-Ex, overnight delivery, Rooms-To-Go, fast junk food, drive through windows, cell phones, 24 hour ATMs, but the "adult version" of I want it now and I can't wait. Sure, we have "adult" reasons for why we need these "necessities," but is it any more valid than the reasoning of a young child?

Living and teaching Earth friendly sustainable agricultural practices.

FL , you nailed that one.

Perhaps some of the problems you list are the residual effect of the do it "for the children" mentality of the parents of the do it for me, need it now people you point out.

Just because MOST seem to want to celebrate Christmas and Easter materially,they are not forcing me to be part of it! Sure,I may give a few gift's but,I try and focus on the true meaning;the birth and death and resurrection of my Lord and savior,Jesus Christ!

I am glad I have a mind that let's me decide what's right for me! We have an AWESOME God!

Mom raised 8 of us on here own. She worked 2 jobs to do it. If we did not stay in line, we got out butts beat. If somebody in the room was in trouble, everybody in the room got it. I guess she figured we would do something sooner or later, lol.

And, when she cranked up the belt, I just knew it was electric and adjustable. It flew with speed, and hit you no matter where you were in the room.
And then, there was the rubber arm. Seems like no matter how far you got away, she would reach out and pull you back in.

But hey, 5 boys and 3 girls turned into fine men and women. I may have exagerated a little about the punishment, but we all turned out OK. And, I thought somebody needed a good laugh.