by Patricia Dalton
The Washington Post, July 20, 1997; Page C1

I recently had a couple in my office, both professionals, who were having problems with their son, a middle-schooler. They didn't know how to deal with him. They were particularly concerned because he seemed so unhappy and so explosive. Almost as an aside, they mentioned that he had been shoplifting. When I questioned them, they said they had never asked him about the new clothes and other items he was bringing into the house. They dreaded confrontation, they said, and didn't want to make him anymore miserable.

I wish I could say I was shocked. I wish I could say it was an aberration. Certainly there are many parents who know how to set limits for their children and how to establish a clear, bright line between behavior that is right and behavior that is wrong. But the current generation of parents seem almost bewildered about some of the most basic principles of child rearing. When did parents become more concerned about their children's happiness and self-esteem than about their sense of morality and basic decency? And why has this happened?

Many of today's parents aren't comfortable with their position of authority -- a relatively recent phenomenon. Sometimes their discomfort amounts to a kind of discipline paralysis. Last spring, my mother and I watched a television newsmagazine report on a couple who sought professional help because their small children were out of control. Things were going so badly that the mother was instructed to pin her son down on the floor and brush his teeth, which he was refusing to do himself. The look on my mother's face was incredulous. In all the years she and my father spent raising five children, she couldn't imagine such defiant behavior. I had to tell her that it wasn't a surprise to me.

I've talked to many parents who are so influenced by psychological theories about child rearing that they disregard common sense. Some are critical of the way they themselves were raised, and are searching for another model to guide them. Then there's the romantic, New-Age view: Children come into the world uncorrupted, and therefore are best raised using principles of noninterference. From this viewpoint, "no" is a dirty word, children should be given choices and provided with explanations; punishment and adverse situations should be avoided as much as possible because they might harm the child's fragile self-esteem. There is an unspoken assumption that a child who feels good will never need to behave badly.

Family life has changed dramatically in America during this century. In earlier years, families were larger and the good of the group prevailed. Children were less doted upon, less observed, less scheduled and less pressured. Kids tended to interact with siblings and other kids in the neighborhood, not with adults. Religion is not the same moral force that it once was in the lives of many Americans; surveys have shown that few young people can name all Ten Commandments. And with all the mobility in our society, children are less likely to be exposed to relatives and longtime family friends who once served as role models and disciplinarians.

Children are also less exposed to their own parents, many of whom are working longer hours, traveling more and worrying that they're missing out on their kids' lives. When my first child was born almost 20 years ago, I remember being told that children of working parents would do fine as long as the parents were well organized and managed their schedules well enough to ensure "quality time" with their children. In real life, however, children -- particularly teenagers -- don't talk to their parents on demand. Children like to have their parents in the background at home and in the car before they come forward with their thoughts, reactions and feelings. It's harder for stressed-out parents to provide this kind of relaxed atmosphere, especially since it's a law of life that we become more self-centered when we are overburdened.

Tired, guilty parents make bad disciplinarians, and a lot of them are being seen in therapists' offices. I remember one mother who arrived home after a week-long business trip to find that her son had failed to change the cat litter while she was gone. She did the job herself, rather than requiring him to live up to his obligation. "I didn't have the heart to make an issue of it," she said.

If parents find it difficult to enforce the more mundane limits, they'll be lost when it comes to dealing with the big issues. It takes a confident, purposeful parent to say to a pleading 14-year-old daughter, "No, you aren't going to the HFStival" and to remain resolute if there is fallout. Saying "no" might cause some tension, but it won't permanently damage the bond a parent has with a child.

It is ironic that parents sometimes pit discipline against love. In reality, they are two sides of the same coin. "There is security in limits" is a mantra that therapists and teachers hear over and over in their training. Parents who subscribe to this notion tell their children that they love them too much to let them behave terribly; smart ones also have too much self-regard to put up with their kids' nonsense. Dr. Benjamin Spock, who has been inaccurately characterized as permissive in his advice to parents, actually advocated being firm but friendly with children. He also pointed out that American parents "consider the child at least as important as themselves -- perhaps potentially more important," which can make child discipline a harder job.

Discipline doesn't destroy self-esteem. Discipline builds self-esteem. Most kids crave limits, if they are administered fairly and clearly. One 13-year-old girl, brought to my office by her parents because she was having trouble in school, told me that one of her girlfriend's parents "don't seem to care enough about the problems she is having to bring her to a shrink." She wasn't ready to thank her parents for making the appointment, but she was letting me know that she was glad her parents had intervened.

Actually, some tension between parents and children is not just normal but desirable. It assists children in achieving the independence necessary to master certain stages of development and move on. Teenagers need to determine both how they are like their parents and how they are different -- so they can form a coherent, unique sense of self to take into adulthood.

Parents need to understand that they can kill their kids with kindness if they shield them from adversity and frustration. I have counseled many children who have problems making and keeping friends. I have found one common theme in their stories: Their parents often intervened in their fights and tiffs with other children, rather than letting the children work things out on their own. Children need to learn the laws of the jungle firsthand so they can build a sense of competence to face the inevitable slings, arrows and adversities of later life.

The problems being seen in young people today, however, go beyond mere petulance. Juvenile courts and therapists are seeing young people with far less regard for society's laws and mores and the social contract than their own parents have.

I find it especially troubling when parents respond to their child's misbehavior by blaming others. I once observed a number of families from behind a one-way mirror. They were in therapy because each had a child who had landed in juvenile court. The parents invariably had one trait in common: They never held their child responsible for wrongdoing, and it was always somebody else's fault -- a pal, a teacher, the police. I remember one teenager whose school put him on academic probation because he was frequently absent. His parents' response was to blame the school for enforcing its rules, rather than dealing with the reasons for their son's absences. Eventually, the boy dropped out of school.

The most pernicious situations I've seen are those in which parents are manipulators themselves. I remember one teenager who stole thousands of dollars' worth of merchandise from the store where he worked. His father refused to report him to the police for fear of legal repercussions, or even insist that his son make restitution. He seemed more worried about how it would look if his son's behavior became public than about the consequence of not forcing his son to face the enormity of what he had done.

I'm not the only one to see this kind of behavior on the part of parents. Robert Coles, in his recent book "The Moral Intelligence of Children," tells the story of a 9-year-old girl from a prosperous, dual-career family who was caught cheating at her private school. The girl, an excellent student, reacted to the charge with a "self-possessed cool." Instead of being alarmed at her audacity, her parents rallied around her. They excused her behavior, saying she was just upset because her grandfather had cancer and her mother had lost a legal case. They acted as if her cheating were a minor infraction. They admitted that she exaggerated at times, told white lies, and "hated to lose -- ever." Her ambition was to be a stockbroker, and it's not hard to imagine her taking her place among the new elite that former Labor secretary Robert Reich has called "symbolic analysts" -- adept at looking out for their own interests without much regard for family, peers, nation or mankind.

Today's parents seem just as hungry for guidelines as their children, judging from the tremendous popularity of books such as M. Scott Peck's "The Road Less Travelled" (which spent more than a decade on the best-seller list) and the radio broadcasts of Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Their views tend to be an antidote to what has been called moral relativism, and they are unafraid to take a stand on moral issues.

Another disquieting trend is the pessimistic view that American adults seem to have of today's children. A recent survey of 2,000 adults, conducted by the research organization Public Agenda, showed increased antagonism toward teenagers and even young children. Only 37 percent of those surveyed thought that today's young people will make the world a better place, and the failure to teach values to children was viewed as a broad-based social problem affecting rich and poor alike. The study's author, Steve Farkas, wrote: "The public believes values are like a vaccine. If you inoculate teens with them, they will be able to resist the world's many troubles and traps."

Discipline, to be imparted effectively, needs to begin at an early age. Research in child development tells us that there are windows of opportunity for learning everything from language and motor skills to learning increasingly complex feelings, from simple distress and contentment to more complex emotions like joy and pride and shame. The window for feelings of empathy -- and the related formation of conscience -- begins somewhere in the second year and fades during the 11th year. Once a child is close to adolescence, the conscience is formed. After that, it is too late.

We often think of tragedy as the things that befall people, like accidents and illnesses. But tragedy is not only what happens to people, but what they bring on themselves. Its roots lie in self-centeredness, in deficiencies of decency and kindness and human values. It can seem as if such people are not only getting away with what they do, but are also reaping huge rewards. The late author James Baldwin had a more penetrating view: "People pay for what they do, and still more, for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it simply: by the lives they lead."

Patricia Dalton is a clinical psychologist in private practice in the District.

YOU MAKE THE CALL

In these scenarios, it's easy enough to choose the right answers (C!). But the alternatives seem all too familiar. The trick is for parents not only to identify the right thing to do, but to follow through as well. . .

SHAUNA, 16, FREQUENTLY "DITCHES" classes and seems out of it when she comes home late from clubs on weekend nights. Her grandmother wants to search her room for evidence of drug use; Shauna's mother says she smoked marijuana at that age, and it was just a passing fancy. They seek professional advice. What happens?
A. The therapist insists that a teenager's room is her domain and should never be infringed upon.
B. He suggests grounding her for six weeks, restricting her telephone use and all extracurricular activities.
C. He tells them to search her room and talk with her friends' parents. The adults also must work out clear rules and consequences together, and then inform Shauna.

MAX REFUSES TO GO TO BED during his parents' dinner party. The 5-year-old tells "knock-knock" jokes, opens purses, insists on sitting with the adults at the table and throws a tantrum each time his parents try to put him to bed. They parents smile fondly at first, then nervously. Their guests are visibly annoyed. What happens?
A. Max's parents are so fed up that they yell at him in front of their guests.
B. His parents blame their guests for not truly understanding children.
C. This party's over. But his parents decide to stop treating Max as though he's the center of the universe. Before the next fete, they give him specific rules to follow and explain the consequences if he doesn't comply.