Children dont respect rules

Children Don't Respect Rules that Change from Day to Day

I was talking to Ruth, a friend of mine, recently. She's a caseworker in a juvenile court working with delinquent children on probation.
"Why don't these kids listen to me when I tell them that if they fail to follow probation rules there will be unpleasant consequences?" she asked.
"I take many teens back to court for violation of probation hearings," Ruth said, "and the judge locks them up. Many of these teenagers tell me they didn't believe it could happen to them."
As I tried to answer Ruth's question, I remembered something that happened to me in the fourth grade.
Mr. Winters was my fourth grade teacher and one of his rules was that you walked quietly down the wooden steps that led from the playground into our lower level classroom. I figured that that rule applied to other children, but not to me. After all, I was a good student. I got good grades. I helped out Mr. Winters by taking messages to the office.
So, one day I stomped down the wooden steps making a great racket. Mr. Winters was waiting for me at the bottom of the steps.
"You'll be staying in class doing extra homework the the next two recesses." he said.
"But that's not fair," I said in a hurt voice. "I was just playing around."
"You broke my rule," he said simply, but firmly.
I found out that day that Mr. Winters' rules applied to everyone - even me. I also learnd he played no favorites. It didn't matter that I had helped him clean the blacboards earlier that day or that he liked me. If you broke one of Mr. Winters' rules, there would be a consequence.
I did not forget the lesson I learned that day. And I never had to test out one of Mr. Winters' rules ever again.
Maybe that's the problem for many adolescents that Ruth works with in the juvenile court. Perhaps these kids don't have parents who have set rules with consistent consequences. Maybe both the rules and the consequences shift from day to day, depending on the parenst' whims or moods.
I've come across many parents who don't want their kids to be mad at them. Or they can't stand the temporary anger - sometimes even momentary hatred - that results when kids are given a consequence when they break an important rule. Some of these parents who end up being permissive just want to be popular and feel guilty when they disappoint their children by holding them accountable.
Fortunately, Mr. Winters wasn't trying to win a popularity contest. He didn't care that day whether I was emotionally hurt or that I might not like him for the rest of the day. He had the wisdom to know that teaching a lesson about rules and consequences was far more important than whether a student liked him or not.
Which is why Ruth has to be the person in a lot of teenagers' lives who finally says, "You broke the rules, now you have to pay the consequences." If no one else is going to enforce rules and limits, she must.
It's just too bad that more kids don't have a Mr. Winters in their life when they're young - before they become adolescents and have to learn one of life's bitter lessons the hard way.