If a child is behaved badly, sould the punishment be given to the parents?

Question

This is being discussed by the government. What do you think?

Answer 1

I have two children who have been brought up in exactly the same way. One is a hard worker at school, has manners and is respectful. The other is a nightmare, I have suffered physical and mental violence. Temper tantrums, being sworn at, stolen from and problems at school. Thankfully he hasn't been in trouble with the authorities and is calming down with the help of an anger management councillor. We had to wait over a year to get an appointment with the councillor!

Unless there is obvious neglect or mistreatment then I don't see how it can be the parents fault.

Answer 2

To me it would depend on the age of the child. If a child is 10 years old then I believe the parents must take some of the responsibility. If a child is 16 then the child should know better and the parents should not have to take the punishment.
Again I think the family should be investigated tho. Maybe the child is receiving beatings or molestations at home and does not know what to do about it and the bad behaviour is a cry for help.

Answer 3

In Australia there was talk that parents should be taken to court beacuse there child or teenager did something wrong. The premise is that parents should be held accountable for the actions of their children. However there are so many laws and rights for children and teenagers its hard to hold parents accountable. And parents have a hard time trying to control their children with all the rights and laws. There is a lot of confusion as to who has what rights.

Governments need to understand that half the issues in countries - Youth homelessness, youth acoholism, youth drugs taking, pregnant teenage girls, runaway youth are due to all the new legislation bought out in the last 15 years. Young people can leave home in some countries as young as 14. Some social service centres actively advertise youth living away from home allowances and other services aimed at very young people. Gun ho youth workers and social workers are out there encouraging young people to leave home and parents are at a loss as to what to do. Now on top of all these laws there is an expectation taht parents should be held accountable - why ? If laws encourage young people to leave the safety and security of family (when there is no abuse) what do you expect parenst to do? Governments cant have it both ways.

In my oppinion if you are a young person and not living with your parents then you cop the punishment and if you are living with your parents and are just doing what you want to do - because you have rights - then you cop it to.

Added to this issue is the increased morgages and rents and the cost of living. parents are having to work 12 hours a day and longer with travel to put a roof over their families heads - and who is looking after the children - nobody!!! that is not the fault of the parents - its the fault of giovernments allowing house prices to get so high and in some cases so unacheiveable.

Answer 4

Yes and no. No because it is the parents responsibility to disipline the children and no because so many kids now a days have no respect for their teachers and each other that I think only if the parents do nothing about the child's behavior and it persists like say the child talks back to their teacher than the teacher should be allowed to punish the child. However the old dunce caps don't need to come back as that just humilates the child.

Answer 5

depends if the parents are to blame, e.g. if a child is spoiled and behaves badly because they can't get what they want then the parent should be punished bu t usually is by the embarassment of the child screaming in a busy shop, that always makes me laugh

Answer 6

Absolutely not. Nowadays, you're not allowed to spank, or punish. THAT is what should be discussed. The child should be disciplined in an appropriate way.
I know some parents don't really care, maybe THOSE are the parents that should be punished.

Answer 7

I seem to be disagreeing with the majority view but as a professional, I see that most of the children, though certainly not all, get the way they are because of poor parenting. Because of parents who don't know how to bring their children up, who are too timid or disinterested to set boundaries so that when their children have outgrown testing their parents, or more usually their partnerless mother, they test everyone else. Now if parents were made financially responsible for their children's behaviour, then they'd soon make sure they behaved. It sounds harsh but if the children are too young to take responsibility, the parents must take responsibility for them. Who else should?

Answer 8

If the parents can prove that they agree the child has done wrong and that they have disciplined their child it wouldn't be fair. However if the parents weren't concerned about the chiild's actions and were going to let them get away with it then yes, they should be punished.

Answer 9

Not really no, theres no proof at all that behaviour stems from the parents. There are many theories and more so sways towards parenting being the reason for childrens behavioural problems but there's still no definate proof.

Answer 10

No, not unless the child is acting out because his or her parents are strung out on drugs or they have no supervision or they are abusive. If the child is acting this way because of their parent's lack of responsibility than the parent should be punished.