It's an incredibly fine line to teach young children to walk. Follow the rules, but be suspect of everything and everyone, lest you fall on the wrong side of some authority looking to make an example of you or enforce some arbitrary flypaper rule with the zeal of a murder attempt. You are not alone in walking that line.mamabearCali wrote:I do not dislike the soldier. I do not dislike the individual police officer.
I no longer trust our gov't, with good reason. I no longer trust the "police", with good reason. I did not grow up that way. I had my blind patriotism beat out of me by corruption and obvious usurpation of law by those in power. I had my propensity to give all LEO's the benefit of the doubt beat out of me by daily stories of LEO's acting in illegal and immoral ways. You cant get the bad apples out of the lot when the "good apples" protect them.
How does a terrified 10 year old tell the difference between a bad apple and a good guy. They can't. So I have to protect them in the only way I can. If you teach your kids to tell everything to a LEO, better hope nothing bad ever comes their way when they are over the age of ten.
I teach my children morals. I teach my children right from wrong. I teach what should be, but I cannot teach them a lie.
I teach my children to respect legitimate authority. I will not teach them to automatically give allegiance to whomever says they are in authority.
This isn't like Santa Claus. It isn't innocuous to teach your children to trust those who have proven to be false. If they think the world is as it was in 1960, they will be eaten alive.
No, I'd rather teach them that the world is broken. That our country is broken, and not as it should be, not as it could be. In order to fix it, or even to survive they must be wise and think carefully. Stand for what is right and expect the tomatoes (if not worse) to be thrown. Instead of teaching them to be grateful they live in a wonderland, I try to teach them to be strong, to be wise. That they are not guaranteed a wonderland, but instead must try to make the best decisions they can to heal our land.
Blindis not going to do the trick.
You teach your children as you see fit.
I recall an instance where my child was involved in an altercation he did not start, tried to avoid, in fact. Out of fear of "being in trouble" he was overzealous in taking responsibility for what happened. When the facts were fully revealed he and I sat with the authority figure while he watched me give a lesson in right and wrong, enforcement of rules that punish victims for self defense and an admonishment that if the school expects my child to take a beating to avoid similar situations in the future, they should also expect to be subject to civil and criminal liability for their complicity that results in any injury to my child.
Then I spent weeks (in small doses) trying to explain to my young child how to walk that line. What it boiled down to is, "stay to the facts, not the feelings, and call me immediately". Unfortunately, that is the world we live in today.