The Jezza K show of parenting

If you live in an area similar to ours, you're probably no stranger to daily displays of irresponsible parenting.  Parenting isn't a label, it's a responsibility.  We are nurturing the future.

I know that kids will be kids and to an extent I believe this yet at which point are parents supposed to step in and instill some element of common decency and social awareness into them? At which point must parents take responsibility for their influence and indeed lack of as the case may be, realising that they're shaping our future society?

You are the God in your childs universe as your actions and words translate to them how they're supposed to be.  What you say and do as wells as all that you don't sends encrypted messages that only they can decipher.

Children learn through replicating.

If you swear at them or even in their company you are teaching them that it's an appropriate way to address people and communicate

If you smoke around them, you're teaching them that smoking is okay.

If you're violent in their presence, you're teaching them that violence is an acceptable problem solver.

Likewise if you fail to reprimand negative behaviour in them, you're teaching them that what they're doing is okay.

Be aware of your surroundings before you act and ask yourself if your behaviour is environment and audience appropriate.

Think.

In the school playground parents stand in onesied clusters, having desperately leeched every last lungful of cigarette, right at the school gates where all the children have to pass, effin' and jeffin' like teenagers on a bus where small children are waiting with parents for their not much bigger siblings.  I don't want my children subjected to your filthy mouth and you should be ashamed of the fact that you appear unable to restrain yourself and indeed wholly unaware that in the presence of children, this is not okay.

Children don't need to see you at half past three, with a can of lager outside the school gates.

So when you routinely swear at your child, seeing as you appear to believe profanity is acceptable bridging words in your sentences, they will swear back at you and to others because the message you have sent them, is that this is how we communicate.  When you grab and push them to hurry them up or chide them, they will in turn think asserting physical power over another is an acceptable way to control somebody, to get them to submit to your desire.  Your children feel comfortable littering in your presence because you never told them it's not okay.  Even The Toddler knows to bin it or pocket it.

There are certain behaviours and habits you're allowed to possess yet you need to realise there is a time and a place and in the presence of your children or other peoples children isn't the time nor the place.  Nobody is perfect, most of us are guilty of slipping a swear word out yet not in standard conversation rather in the true sense of profanity as an exclamation.  Children should know that there are things that adults can do and children shouldn't do.  Things they shouldn't repeat until they're older.  The key is to establish context and educate them.

It's like at the park, you sit on a bench in a childrens place and light up a cigarette. You seem to think this is okay, acceptable. Your child is pushing in front of all the smaller children.  You never thought to tell them that this is wrong.  Your apathy has told them this is an okay way to act.  Then they go on the swing, you're not there to suggest that maybe the other child who has been waiting patiently for fifteen minutes now should have a go.  Your child swearing around other children isn't okay.  Yet you've never told them that.  Should responsible adults attempt to verbally frown on their behaviour, they get verbal abuse back.  You never told them this wasn't okay.  You talk to them like that all the time.  They have never learned respect.

Your behaviour should directly inspire your children to be the best person they can be.

At home The Spawn are boistrous and fight as siblings do yet in public?  They always say please and thankyou, unprompted.  They help others without needing to be asked.  They hold doors open.  If they see you drop something, they'll pick it up for you.  If they find something, they'll give it back.  When your children push past them, they don't push back.  They let them past.  They wait their turn, even when your children blatantly aren't.  They'll get off the swing they waited ages for after only a short go, because another child is waiting. They're empathic and kind.  They have a healthy respect for grownups and peers.  They're articulate and expressive with no need to swear.  They're no angels, but they understand how to treat others and their environment.

It's children like ours, and if you're reading this, probably yours too that give me hope.  Hope that the future isn't entirely lost.  Hope that society can get better.