There are two types of people reading this article. The first, are teachers, coaches, or those that work in the child-care industry preparing to be taken to church with these next several paragraphs. The second are parents, who say as I have no children of my own that I have no business in telling them how to raise theirs. At first thought, the second category of people have a valid point. What do I know? Sure, as a result of having no children of my own, I am no expert. But, does solely giving birth to your child truly make you a parenting expert? (Sizzle.)

The first counter I tend to receive when trying to have this conversation with people is something along the lines of: "But you don't live with them so do you really know them that well?"

What if I were to tell you that between teaching your child in a classroom, supervising them at an after-school or summer camp program, spending time with them at any after-school activity, or babysitting them on the weekend, that among many other things…I spend a large amount of time with your children. Time is precious. Time allows us to learn. If we were to do a little math, let’s say that after you drop your child off at school, they will spend about six or seven hours in the school building. Once the dismissal bell rings, your work at the office is nowhere near complete for the day. So, a van or bus takes them to their after-school program or after-school activity where they spend a maximum of 4 hours doing homework with someone other than you, doing some sort of activity with someone other than you, and are being supervised by someone other than you. Lots of times, after-school programs are primarily used as a method of transportation from the child’s school to a facility where they can be supervised until a parent can pick them up, but as soon as some of the parents are off from work, they rush into our building in a massive frenzy.

“Grab your stuff! Quickly! Your younger brother is in the car, we are late to fill in the blank with as many after-school activities you can think of ranging from piano lessons to Boy Scouts.”

God knows how long that activity takes and before you know it, the clock strikes 8, you’ve just finished scarfing down a drive-thru dinner, and you maybe have an hour to speak with your children before they go to bed. Remember our math problem earlier? In an eye-opening grand total, your precious angel could have spent up to 12 hours (maybe more) with people otherthan you. So, regardless of what I am doing with your child, I know them inside and out. I know what makes them tick, when they’re lying, what their favorite color is, what they refuse to eat, when something is terribly wrong, and A LOT ABOUT MOMMY AND DADDY! (Honey, you don’t know the HALF of what I've heard about you!)

Are there parents doing excellent jobs raising children to be productive members of our society? Absolutely. However, are there some parents who just don’t seem to be getting the memo? Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. I want to preface the rest of this article by begging you not to interpret my somewhat constructive rants as me saying I could do a better job raising your child because don’t get me wrong; to each their own. But as someone who plays a big part in your child’s life, I don’t take my role lightly as someone who can positively impact them forever. Please, hear me out.

While many people like to write about the down-fall of “millennials,” the God-awful term people that can barely type “millennial” on a computer like to call the people of my generation, let me tell you what I am seeing in today’s children (who, by the way, are the ones raised by those that complain about millenials). I see both an educational institution and a parental team among other things that are setting these children up for failure.

Teach your children the value of hard work.

Today’s children are very bright. While they are acing End of Grade or AP Tests, accelerating through Academically Gifted Programs, and being accepted into early colleges, many of them actually lack a true work ethic. While some students are absolutely achieving great feats because of hard work, just as many of them are reaping in the success of their natural talents. In America, we don't "teach" to the highest-achieving students. We dump money into programs like Title I and "No Child Left Behind," when we could really benefit from dumping funds into academically gifted programs. Take a look at schools in Russia, Finland, and China for example. Their students are achieving at an amazing level and they pour lots of money into gifted programs. Finland also pays their teachers like we pay our doctors and have several periods of recess every day among other things, but that's another article.

Many of today's children aren't challenging themselves. When they encounter things that are difficult, however? Oh, boy. Cue the full-fledged panic attack. Today’s children have the confidence to go after even the most extreme goals, but nowhere near the type of work ethic to achieve them. When the going gets tough, lots of children are catered to doing one or a combination of these things:

1. Laying back and letting mom and/or dad come to the rescue.
2. Avoiding complicated tasks to get to the finish line.
3. Giving up completely.

It’s important that we teach our children what it means to work for something. Sometimes, success truly means putting your blood, sweat, and tears into achieving your goals and eventually being able to see those goals through.

Stop convincing your children that the world is being too hard on them.

This statement relates to what was said above, but is also seen in the many instances I offer rewards to children for certain achievements. It could be a balancing competition or a math problem written on the whiteboard. Before I can congratulate any winner, someone who did not meet up to expectations asks why they are not being rewarded. After explaining to them that they did not successfully complete the task I assigned, I am met with puppy-dog eyes and everyone’s favorite response: “But, I tried.”

As children and adults, “I tried,” does not get you into college, does not get you a license to practice medicine, does not get you a starting position on the school’s baseball team, does not get you a raise…the list goes on. These kids are almost certain that if they try just a little bit, things will still work out the way they want them to. This is not the case! I’ve even been in situations where parents have accused me of picking on their children when I do not reward lacking effort! As a parent, what in the world are you doing? You are essentially teaching your child that when things don’t work out the way they want them to, that it is in no way a result of their own actions, decisions, or behavior, and they should instead place the blame on others. Although it breaks my heart, I’ve made the decision to let some kids fall, but they definitely learned a thing or two. Your child can be upset at the end of a competition…but when he or she succeeds the next time and receives a prize, that prize will mean infinitely more to them.

Teach your children that they will be held accountable for their actions. When you skew reports of poor behavior into false accusations made by your child’s teacher, you destroy the credibility of any adult in your child’s life…including yourself.

Teacher: “I confiscated Timothy’s cell phone because he continued to use it after I repeatedly told him to put it away.”

Parent: “Sorry to hear that. We’ll discuss this at home.” (walks outside, immediately hands Timothy his cell phone)

Teacher: (Screams internally)

For the most part, I properly behaved in places outside of my home. I knew that if I ever did something so stupid that my mother or father needed to be interrupted to come and pick me up as a result of my actions, I would face a wrath like no other. My teacher could have been deaf, blind, and downright senile; if Mrs. Smith said I misbehaved in class, then without-a-doubt I had some explaining to do. She was the adult. She was right.

When I speak to a parent from the perspective of an adult in charge of their child who made a poor behavior choice, you should never respond in one of these ways:

1. Look to your child and say, “Sally, is that true?”
2. “That doesn’t sound like something they would do.”

Do our children embarrass us with their behavior sometimes? Sure! In a sense, they are a reflection of you as a parent, but don’t ever let your embarrassment or your apparent ignorance blind you from the fact that we can completely move on from a mistake that your child made by showing your support of my consequences, calling the child out on it, and implementing some sort of consequence at home. Why on Earth would you ask your child if what I said was true? I JUST TOLD YOU WHAT HAPPENED. That isn’t as bad, of course, as flat-out denying any accusation. Don’t ever make the mistake in thinking that your child isn’t capable of making a bad-decision. By denying something that your child knows they did in front of them and their teacher absolutely destroys their teacher’s credibility. Sally could push Katie into a mud puddle during recess and not think twice. Why? Mom knows that’s something Sally would never do and therefore Sally will face no punishment at home.

Is your child having a behavior-problem at school or elsewhere? Let the teacher inform you of the behavior, be prepared that when asking your child about the behavior problem that it will be almost instinct for the child to skew the story into a terrible misunderstanding, and lastly, meet with your child’s teacher to discuss ways to prevent things like this from happening in the future. (This is a big problem in schools today…I can hear some of you teachers getting your praise dance on!)

Teach your children that above all, “Who you are is how you treat people. The definition of yourself is written based on your treatment others.”

This is one of my favorite quotes from one of my heroes, Mr. Ron Clark. He is an amazing educator who runs his own school in Atlanta and his grandmother told him this when he was growing up. I'll never forget what it was like to be disrespected by some of my fellow students when I was in school. The worst thing I would see was the mistreatment of others based on the color of their skin or their religious beliefs. I wasn't an avid church-goer until my late middle school years and when the girl beside me at the lunch table in 3rd grade told me that I was going to hell for not going to church every Sunday, I freaked out! I would also hear some absolutely hateful remarks uttered towards people while their backs were turned and still hear these sorts of things today. Discrimination is a learned behavior. Kids at a very young age don't see skin color or financial class in their friends. Instead, child development theory tells us that young children classify friends as quite literally "someone who will share their toys with them."

People will forget what you did. People will forget what you said. But people will never forget how you made them feel. One of the most valuable lessons my parents and the other influential adults in my life ever taught me was the importance of respecting other people. Build others up, give compliments often, smile more, invite the lonely kid to sit at your lunch table…so on and so forth. By raising our kids to be thoughtful and compassionate, we are then lighting that torch for so many other people to do the same. Start out by teaching your kids the basics of common courtesy, like holding the door for people or saying "Yes ma'am" and "No sir." Then as they get older, you can teach them things like giving back to their community and helping others in need.

In conclusion, all of this is much easier said than done. I think behind every child is a teacher, coach, or parent convinced they are doing everything wrong. There are times I drive home from work or school and I say to myself things like, "Did I handle that correctly?" or "Man, did I even speak to this child today?" I think losing sleep at night reliving my interactions with children isn't necessarily healthy, but speaks volumes to the kind of person I am and that we all should be. It definitely takes a village to raise a child. As the teachers, coaches, and parents of our children, it is our responsibility to ensure that this village is as positive of an influence as possible.