Thursday, July 22, 1999
Speaker: Teach kids discipline
For author, Golden Rule says it all
BY SUSAN VELA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
PARK HILLS — While some politicians have been urging the need to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms, an internationally recognized speaker said Wednesday they'd be smarter to post the Golden Rule instead.
Parents need to treat children as they would want to be treated — and teach their children to do the same with their classmates — so more children can have greater self-esteem, said Barbara Coloroso, a Littleton, Colo., author who wrote Kids are Worth It! Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline.
She spoke Wednesday to about 50 Greater Cincinnati parents, teachers and social and day-care workers.
Some teachers might have a hard time teaching second-graders about the commandment that forbids adultery, but the Golden Rule has a message all people, no matter their religion, can connect to, said Mrs. Coloroso, a former Franciscan nun and teacher.
Speaking at Town & Country Banquet Center, Mrs. Coloroso, a mother of three, shared her personal experiences and sense of humor. She received one of her first rounds of laughter when she stated a desire to clarify that she had left the convent before she married and that her husband isn't a former priest.
She then focused on her main theme — that today's children need to learn how to think when they are young to deal with modern-day issues of teen promiscuity, suicide and drug abuse. But the challenge, she said, is that parents, teachers and other authority figures are usually more focused on telling them how to think.
She noted that parents have a tendency to tell children to bundle up when it's cold and to eat all their vegetables, for example, under the guise of teaching them thinking skills.
She stressed that parents and teachers need to consider what decisions they deal with when serving children and what they are willing to give up in that decision-making process. They also must let the children deal with the consequences of their decisions, which means they should not be dealing with any issue that could be morally threatening, unhealthy or life threatening, she said.
For example, 2-year-old children should not be allowed to pick their own bed time. But parents certainly could give them the choice of wearing the blue or red pajamas and, when they are older, deciding which of some pre-selected clothing they will wear to school.
These simple things will allow children to start thinking for themselves, she said, noting that children who blindly follow their par ents and teachers will be particularly susceptible to peer pressure when they become teens.
To help the youngsters through their decisions and the consequences, she urged compliments and feedback.
Mrs. Coloroso said she is opposed to competition at the elementary school level because “for every winner, there are 30 losers.” It destroys the unity of the class, and it works against the goal of having all children develop a strong sense of self-esteem.
She also criticized the tendency of some teachers to reward students for perfect attendance, all A's or doing a generous deed, for example, with stickers or popcorn.
This tendency, she said, is creating generations of children who expect a reward for anything good that they do.
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