Smile Smile Smile

Remember the hoopla when one of the parents was caught on film slapping the behind of one of the little ones? Is spanking illegal? No. Is it attractive? No, and although it is not how most of us treat our children, in this case it probably doesn't legally qualify as abuse. Is it in line with the pristine picture painted on TV? Absolutely not, and imagine being the little ones and having to smile smile smile for the cameras:
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Kate spanked the kids all the time for little things. When they didn’t listen to her the first time, she snapped out and tanned their behinds. Jon would tell her to stop, but that would lead to them fighting in front of the kids, and Jon didn’t want that so he let her go. The source said Kate would get angry when the kids wouldn’t pick up their toys, and she never gave them a second chance. She once kicked a Lego building the boys made into a thousand pieces because they didn’t put it away the first time she ordered them. Then Kate made the tots clean up the mess she made, all the time yelling at them to put their damned toys away.

The kids were afraid of mommy. All she had to do was look at them with that expression, and they grew petrified because they knew what she’d do to them -- completely different from the loving parent you saw on TLC. Kate always screamed at them and that’s one of the reasons Jon said they split up. Jon painted himself as the fun parent and Kate as the meanie. Jon let the kids make a mess while Kate demanded everything stay neat and tidy. She would get mad at them just for taking out their toys to play.

All this was very self-serving, of course, and we wondered just how calculated this report was. But then one of Kate’s former neighbors from Wyomissing said Kate always did holler at the kids, even when they were infants. She would run the house like a military base, expecting the kids to jump whenever she barked orders. “I saw Kate spank the kids many times,” the neighbor said. “She believed in old-school discipline. If she said something and they didn’t listen, they’d get spanked. It got to the point that the kids would cower when she yelled at them because they didn’t know if they were going to get hit or not.”
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(end of excerpt)
The reason I am printing this piece is to demonstrate the failings of reality TV when the parents have less than excellent parenting skills. I will use the Roloffs as a contrasting example. They aren't a perfect family, but they clearly love each other, and the kids know they always have a soft place to fall - on their parents. They also have areas of privacy in their home, and the kids are old enough to understand what's happening with the filming. Most of all, viewers get the feeling that if the family started to disintegrate in front of the cameras, the cameras would be removed by the family's adults.

A large part of parenting is understanding developmental stages and appreciating the child's experience and capabilities based on their ages and levels of growth. Yelling at infants and expecting toddlers to do everything perfectly the very first time displays a basic lack of understanding of children, and becoming frustrated to this degree shows a lack of maturity on the part of the parent. (This is not the parent's fault. Something was missing in their own parenting and they are doing the best they know how, given the limited skills they were given. This does not excuse it. It just explains it.)*

Anyone can be on a reality TV show, and with today's economy, lots of people want to be. Wouldn't it be great if families had to undergo counseling or have some sort of psychological screening in order to qualify to participate, as well as guidance throughout the entire process?

This is the third and last excerpt of my source's book-in-progress that I am going to print here. I hope you found my choices interesting and enlightening, and I look forward to your comments.

*Many of us were brought up with less than adequate parenting, only to become loving, non-abusive parents ourselves. Sometimes this happens naturally, and other times parents need help to become better parents. We have to admit we need to change in order for change to begin. Even the worst parents can become great parents with the help of a good therapist, as long as deep down inside they truly love their children. I believe these parents love their children.