Similarities Between Shaw And Goodwin

Johanna García Menchaca May 18th

Essay

The purpose of this essay is to compare the content of two articles. The first one is called “How we gave birth to the toxic teenager” by Robert Shaw and the second article is called “No means no” which was written by Daisy Goodwin.

To begin with, both articles deal with a very important issue that is becoming more and more frequent in most of today´s families. The most remarkable characteristic of today is that parents find it very difficult to enforce boundaries to their kids. They are reluctant to disciplining them because they are afraid of the fact that their children may get upset and, for example, can have tantrums. Kids obviously do not like the idea
of being told off at all, so what parents strongly believe is that doing what their children want and do not argue with them is the easiest choice. “The truth is that saying no to a child is a lot harder than saying yes.” The problem of all these is that it is sometimes seen as a negative aspect. Therefore, parents may do not feel entitled to catch their children´s attention. “Discipline often has negative connotations: it´s no longer seen as neutral or positive in the way it used to.”

The two texts agree with the concept that bad behaviour is related to the first years of their kid´s life.
They should be taught how to behave and also what types of food are appropriate for them to consume, when they ought to stop playing and go to sleep and these kinds of things. “The breeding ground of the epidemic of bad behaviour goes back to infancy.” “The change is evident right from birth” One common mistake is to suppose that a baby can decide when he can start doing certain things. They are not mature enough to make their own decisions so parents should tell them what to do. “...a child will spontaneously decide when to use the lavatory on his own...” “The idea that if a baby is presented with a sufficient range of foods it will instinctively choose a balanced diet.” Nothing good can be the result from their
determinations.

Society is also to be blamed regarding kids´ development. As time goes by, children rely more on the use of the internet and on television. Having this last into consideration, it can be said that it continuously blasts children with sexist and sexual images. “These are signs that society has become toxic to children.” Consequently, they do not behave appropriately enough. Even teachers complain about this fact as they claim to be more focused on disciplining them than educating them. Regarding what Goodwin wrote, children are treated like “little adults” due to the fact that they have access to information they did not use to have years ago.

However, the articles do not share the same points of view.
Robert Shaw remarks that as parents “are spread too thin to spend time” with their kids, they feel that the right thing to do is to soothe their kids with unhealthy snacks, faddish clothing, toys and television so that they can compensate, in some way for the lack of attention coming from them. As a consequence, they lavish pointless praise on the back of children without noticing it and they are doing them a disservice. On the other hand, Daisy Goodwin lets the readers understand that nowadays parents are so desperate that they even try to be their kids´ friends. Therefore, children feel so confident that they tend to treat them with contempt. She expresses her disapproval of their behaviour towards the kids. “The idea that some parents think of themselves as a friend to their child more than their parent is insidious.” She also claims that the parents job sometimes involves upsetting their kids as they can´t have always what they
want.

After stating all these aspects of how parents are actually managing to give rise to their kids, it is possible to come up with a solution that both articles suggest. Needless to say, the children of today are completely different from the ones who were kids a long time ago because they did not have the same childhood and all the habits and tastes are very different. The best thing to do is to try to understand this new generation of children and to learn a way of dealing with them. Consequently, both parents and kids will have a better relationship and they will play their corresponding roles.

Taking everything into consideration, these pieces of news mention that childhood and adolescence have changed a lot throughout the years. The sooner parents talk to them and make it clear who is the boss the better their relationship will be. Both articles agree that this is a very important issue that is going out of control and that is worsening as time goes by. Therefore, if parents do not start making up for all their mistakes, their kids will not grow uo into “matture adults.”