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Antidote to Childhood Mental Disorders: Parenting

Domenick J. Maglio, Ph.D. Neo-Traditionalist

The modern parent has been indoctrinated into being a friend instead of a parent. This notion may have liberated parents from many former responsibilities though with a great cost to the child. Too many children are left to their own devises leaving them with great gaps in their development. These voids in children are being seen as indicators of mental disorders. Although minimal or ineffective parenting may be the culprit for the deficiencies, the child not the parent is labeled and placed on psychotropic drugs. Unfortunately this path is usually one of lifelong suffering.

This agony of children with diagnosable mental illness is an epidemic experienced by 21% of all parents who have children between the ages of 9 and 17, according to the surgeon general’s report of 1999.

In the 19th century there were two diagnoses: idiocy and insanity. Today there are 40 childhood mental disorders listed in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual IV. Peter Breggan, M.D., an expert in the field of childhood medication notes there are 5 million children on psychotropic drugs in the United States and we use 90% of the world’s Ritalin.

This explosion in the number of childhood mental disorders is a clear indictment of our current permissive/materialistic child rearing practices that are destructive to too many of our children. Providing a child with too many material goods and freedom to do what he wishes is a prescription for an underdeveloped moral, social, emotional and spiritually vulnerable human being. Over the past 45 years modern parenting has failed the test of time.

In the short run it is easier to be a friend to one’s child instead of a parent. It takes self-discipline not to buy favor with one’s child especially when circumstances make it so inviting such as working long hours, seeing the child only on weekends or less. Buying presents or being lax with rules and standards is a form of laziness in performing parental duties. Not setting limits, not supporting one’s spouse, family members or teachers, is easier than doing the right thing.

It takes minimum planning and effort to reach our current culture’s non-existent milestones. Waiting for a child to potty-train himself at four or five-years-old, allowing him to eat when or what he chooses (grazing), appeasing or ignoring unacceptable behavior does nothing to mold the child into a well-socialized human being. The approach fails to recognize that a parent has a finite time, approximately 18 years, to instill a conscience to guide the child through the moral pitfalls of growing up. Permissive materialistic parenting is weak incompetent parenting that does not do anything to develop coping or competency skills.

Most modern parents are very careful to focus their attention to correct any physical defect. Rarely in the United States do we ever see children with hair-lip, clubfoot, or even crooked teeth or other physical defects. We have been trained to take immediate measures to repair the physical problem and disregard the totally inappropriate behavior of the child.

The opposite is true for the correction of obvious social, emotional or psychological tendencies that are inappropriate. Our modern materialistic culture is consumed with superficial appearances not with the heart and soul of the person.

The predisposition of the characteristics of a child is evident early in a child’s development. Activity, loudness, sensitivity, compliance, irritability and aggressiveness are variables that differ from child to child. It is the responsibility of parents to recognize these tendencies and temper them to normalize a child. This does not happen magically. It takes work. The later parents begin the process the more difficult it will be.

One of my four children was an active, affectionate and bright child who at the age of 4 started to tell lies for no apparent reason. My wife and I observed this proclivity. We took corrective measures using consequences mixed with loving discussions. He is now a 30 year old successful, professional, husband and father, who is a wonderfully honest man.

In the long run, modern parents are paying a steep price for not training their children in proper eating, manners, toileting, obedience, honesty, empathy and conscience development. Authorities will pass judgment on the inappropriate behavior of the child. The negative evaluation can take place in a preschool classroom, a doctor’s or psychologist’s office or eventually in the courtroom. All eyes are on the child’s inappropriate actions not on the parent’s malfeasance in training the child.

The parent is not the victim the child is. Although this is not a positive experience for any parent, it is the child who is labeled and drugged into submission. The parents are granted a pass by our society as they have followed faithfully the disastrous modern parenting formula.

For the sake of your child and yourself, adopt traditional preventive medicine to inoculate your child against vulnerability to mental illnesses. In the event the child is labeled with a mental disorder the parents can often reverse this maladaptive behavior by a large dose of traditional loving discipline making the label no longer valid.

  • Be a parent not a friend. Children need to learn the word “no”. When you tell the child “no” you are no longer the friend but are the parent. In time he will love you for the discipline.
  • Role model what you want your child to be. Children follow your actions not your words.
  • Unite with spouse and other authority figures to insure a consistent set of values and standards of behavior for a child to develop into a successful adult
  • Judiciously use moral consequences. This is how a conscience is developed.
  • Find safer activities for your tweeners than going to concerts, unsupervised sleepovers with mere acquaintances or dressing like a harlot or gangster.
  • Direct your child's exposure to music, television and internet.
  • Take vacations with your children regardless of their age or desires
  • Eat and pray together every day.

Unlike being a friend to a child, parenting is a time consuming, life long commitment. It is a hands-on approach that does not allow parents to lapse back into a self-centered, instant-gratification lifestyle that may have existed before the children arrived. Comprehensive parenting is an antidote against children having significant delays and gaps in their development. These deficits often are indicators for a mental health professional labeling the child with a mental disorder. The positive training of the child is a significant investment in time that pays incredible dividends. Mentally healthy children are the parent’s legacy that continues to bear fruit through the grandchildren and for five generations beyond.