putting a curfew on your child is not taking away freedom or being control freaks. a cerfew is so a child can get enough sleep to learn and retain information the next day.also do u know how hard it is to get a child up after not getting their norm sleep? cerfews at the very least only give the kids so many hours of dark to go through their nomal destrutive phases.

I know that is the norm in the so-called American way to raise a kid, but that is far from the norm in other parts of the world. It’s hard to explain until you have experienced the freedom of peacefulness in a different world outside the US.

Take Spain for an example, they have siesta each day when they can take a nap in the middle of the day, not just for kindergarten kids but for adults in the workforce, where shops close in the middle of the day, and workplace shutdown just so that you can take a nap. They don’t have dinner until 10 or so at night. (To the American, this is way passed bedtime for the kids.)

They take their children out strolling in parks or on the beach after midnight and on Fridays and the weekend especially. It is a family affair to take kids out to enjoy life at night and on weekends. It’s absurd to even think about curfews. They stay up till 2 am walking around in the city at wee hours by American standards. It is extremely peaceful and no crime. The sad part of it is that the only place where you see cops around at night are the places where Americans congregate. The rest of the places where the locals hang out don’t need any police presence.

You will find that similar layback way of life in Italy where they also has siesta and nightlife. Nightlife is not just for adults but for family and children in the Mediterranean Europe, Latin America countries (South America and Central America), and the Pacific Asia. Teenage problems (like drinking problems, drug use or teenage violence in the US) don’t exist in those parts of the world without curfews or strict rules.

It’s tragic that nightlife in America is going to drinking bars for adults only, but not so in other parts of the world. Nightlife is a family affair. To put curfews on kids is unbelievable if you ever lived in those parts of the world, if not horrifying, not just taking away their freedom, but taking away the family ties to be together to enjoy what the world has to offer them – the peacefulness of life.

So is bedtime for kids. It is so anal. Most Americans believe that it is the right thing to do to give kids that rigid structure, but I totally disagree. Americans get so used to run their life by the clock – the 9 to 5 schedule, everything is run by the hour, by the minute. People become robots slaved by the clock. That is not normal human behavior. The consequent of that is the creation of all these stress and frustration type A personality people experienced, and turn into violence to express that sense of helplessness to be slaved by the society’s norm. That’s what I mean by people never question what they are doing and critically examine their value system and challenge the “conventional wisdom,” which I called “herd behavior” – just because everyone else is doing that so it must be right.

Just take a look at the south of our border, time is timelessness in Mexico, or anywhere in the Tropics. “We got a whole day, why rush” is what you often hear in the south. There’s even the joke for it – the Mexican minute – when they say, “I’ll be back in a minute.” That minute means an hour. It’s not they lie; it’s not that they are not trustworthy with their words; it’s their way of life to take it easy, taking the time to do so, that you don’t have to run your life by the clock.

Imagine taking your kids for a vacation to a deserted tropical island by the beach far away from people (or your fishing cabin in the lakes in upper Michigan), do you really run your day by the clock? I know some people still do, but it’s so sad. I throw away my watch when I’m on vacation.

The problem with America is that parents never give kids any responsibility, and therefore they never learn how to take responsibility for themselves or be responsible for their own actions. That is where the problem lies. The reason why kids in other parts of the world don’t have any of the problems experienced in the US, such as teenage drinking (which is uniquely an American phenomenon that no other countries have to that extent), is that they treat them as adults, i.e., expect them to take responsibility, and do not shelter them from the adult world. That is how they learn to be responsible and be an adult about it.

If you want to know the secret (or the key), it is very simple: This is how my dad taught me – he simply said this: “Go ahead and do whatever you want. Just remember, if you screw up, don’t come back home and cry about it.” We learn to take responsibility real fast. It is real life’s lesson, and I always remember it. We never need any curfews. We didn’t need any lectures. It is that simple.

Give your kids responsibility and they will take responsibility. Take away their responsibility, and they will never learn how to respect responsibility for themselves. Impose them rules, and they will resist them with every ounce of their strength and hate your guts for it. This is precisely what caused all these violent rebellions in America. It simply passed on from one generation to the next. That’s how you hate your parents for, and that’s how your kids will hate you for – very subconsciously. When the kids can’t turn their anger against their parents, they turn it into vandalism against others because it is easy target. It’s passing on the pain from one person to another.

That’s how your government imposes rules on you, and you turn around to impose the same rules on your kids. This country becomes so control freak not by accident, but by this American myth.

The problem in America, is that for the most part we are no longer a God fearing society.
Marriage used to be union between a man& woman and God. Now it is a financial instituion, people get married to save money on taxes. That why all the gays wont the right to get married, its not about love. You do not need a piece of paper saying you love somebody, you need it to file your taxes.

"til death do us part", used to mean something. People believed that if you got a divorce you were going to burn in hell. Infidelity, addiction, domestic violence did not matter couples stuck it out. Now when the going gets rough they say "Fuck it" and get a divorce.

I grew up with 2 moms, 2 dads, and 8 grandparents and more aunts and uncles than i can count. it was impossible for my parents to punish me. If mom was mad at me, i would go to my dad's, id piss my pops off and go to grandmaw's. A never ending circle my whole childhood.

50 percent of children in America grow up like this. And many of these kids are not lucky like me with two families that care about them. They have one mom who has to work to support them plus try to raise them, along with hunting for another man to fuck. My step dad treated me like I was his kid. Most step dads just want some pussy and do not give a shit was his wife's kids do as long as they stay out of thier way.

In the words of Osama. "America is the Great the Satan, which deserves to be destroyed."

Maybe he is right.

I would never describe a women who says go ahead and pull the trigger, I don't think you can afford the bullets as being street smart.

I grew up in Houston where in the 1970's we averaged 600-700 murders per year. The rate has gotten lower and I have not checked it in awhile but I am sure we still average 300-400 murders a year. Harris County sends more people to death row than any other county in the US. I have had to sit on the jury in a capital murder trial myself. There are shootings in my city every night of the year. Violence can strike at anytime, anywhere in the US, it's a sad fact of life.

There are places on the globe where things are worse- try life in Colombia, Brazil etc. There are good people and bad people scattered across this amazing planet, no matter where you go or live you could be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the meantime party your ass off and hope for a lucky life. Not much else you can do.

I went to school in the UK in the eighties. There was the usual bunch of kids some well behaved some naughty. When I say naughty I mean smoking behind the cycle sheds or skiving. I don't remember any guns, knives or any teacher ever getting hit by a pupil. This was a pretty average school. The thing that kept us in order was our parents and teachers. There was always the fear and humiliation of getting the cane plus what our parents would do if we did get in trouble. 99% of us grew to respect both our parents and teachers. That is the natural human way! Now kids can do anything knowing they can't be punished. They are clever and cunning and make the most of this. Of cause they do, that is also the natural human way. The point is yes it's normal for kids to rebel, but it is just as normal for adults to stop this behaviour as much as possible. In the same way burglary, rape and murder are all "normal" human activities. Should we just allow people to do those things until they grow out of them ???
I believe in freedom until it interferes with others.

All I'm saying is that there are many peaceful alternatives that work in the past and in many other parts of the world without resorting to dictatorship, turning out back to liberty by going backward in civilization to join the Islamic movement of strict control, zero tolerance, prison lock-down and honor killing.

i havent read any of the above stuff but yes - i live here and all is wonderful with the world ;-)

withnail

There is an excellent book called “Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason” on the alternative approach to parenting by Aflie Kohn who pointed out all the flaws, pitfalls and myths in the conventional wisdom in raising kids.

Reward is bribing; punishment is withholding love. They work temporarily, but never work in the long run.

Love is unconditional, doesn’t matter if your kid is good or bad, it will always be the same. Most people got that mixed that you only love your kids when they behave and reject them when they are bad. That is horrible.

Reasoning teaches your kids how to make choices and decisions – the path to adulthood. Setting rules is deciding for your kids, which takes away their ability to making choices or becoming an independent thinker.

As least the Dutch did something right to produce independent thinkers with such a strong sense of pride in their younger generation. Ask them if they get this free spirit from control freak parents. The freedom of Amsterdam didn’t get there by accident. It’s built on the freedom culture of what people believe in.

To work for yourself, you actually do not need that much. The US and Holland have a treaty (I forget the name) which allows this. Basically you much deposit a certain amount into an account for your bussiness. (This is in addition to the amount which you must have to support yourself, while starting the bussiness).

(I think the Treaty is the something like 'The Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation". I have been looking into relocating to the NL for a while and actually have had about 3 phone interviews, but no takers).

Try saying that after the bombings in London, realistically, Europe is no safer than the US. In fact, it might be more dangerous these days. After what happened today, the UK is in panic. Europe is not as well protected as the US, a lot of it has to do with the rather loose immigration laws that are in effect. Just because you were treated well by some pretty girls in the RLD, it doesn't give you the full perspective on life in this part of the world. There are lot of problems in Europe, in fact poverty is more prevalent in Europe than in the US. In Germany, there is + 12% unemployment, the highest since the Depression, in some Eastern parts of the country, it is as high as 30 percent, and this is the richest country in continental Europe. Some of the continuing economic problems are going to turn into serious political conflicts, and even worse. The US may not be heaven for finding hot sexy women but there are many good things about it, and you cannot spend your whole life having sex with someone. As far as it being a war zone it depends upon where you live. I spent almost a decade in New York, there were some places I wouldn't advise people to go at night but I lived in a fairly good area. The suburbs of the city quite safe. I think the overall cost of living, even though New York was expensive, is lower than Europe. The basic necesseties of life are cheaper in America than in Europe. Housing is more affordable overall in the US than in Europe, I think nearly 67 percent of Americans own their own home, versus 45 percent for Europeans. Despite a lot of Europeans talking bad about Bush, I actually like him, he's the only world leader that is really doing anything about terrorism, compared to most of the EU leaders(Schroder and Chirac in particular) who are digging their heads in the sand with burkas on their butts.
Oidar, as far as you talking about Mexicans and Blacks, and their lack of initiative with regards to assimiliating into American society, Europe has an even worse problem. There is a massive influx of Muslims coming into the EU, and many of them have very strong anti-Western sentiments, all over Europe, there are massive numbers of radical Muslims. The Netherlands alone has a population of million Muslims, and that's not counting the illegals. The UK, where I live has a huge Pakistani Muslim population, and there are a lot of fanatics among them. Some statistics are even saying that by the end of the century, Muslims will become the majority in Europe. Considering all the craziness that happens in the Muslim world, as a former member of the British Special Forces, I have seen some of the most insane acts of brutality committed by these people. During the first Gulf War, me and my men were stationed in Saudi Arabia, while walking near a shopping mall, we saw a woman who was not wearing the traditional Muslim garb, she was an Arab lady dressed like a Westerner. Two Saudi policemen approached her, they manhandled her, and then one of them pulled a gun to her head and shot her point blank. Me and my men couldn't do a damn thing about it, it was one of the most horrific things I have seen in my entire life. What is crazy is that these types of people are coming into Europe, not by the thousands, but by the millions.

Good Lord! Great info, what a roll on thought.

There are many cities in Europe that are even more dangerous than Detroit or Los Angeles, try St. Petersburg, Sarejevo, Kiev, or Moscow. One time in Warsaw, I walked into a food market and saw security guard carrying an AKS-74U(not the AK-47) submachine gun, there's obviously a reason why there is an armed guard in a grocery store. London police today killed a man wearing a thick padded coat, a day after the bombings, its 70 degrees today, he was obviously hiding something to wear a coat like that in this heat. Much of the socialist protections that kept crime in Europe low are disappearing, talk to some locals, when I was in Germany, some locals were saying that in a decade, slums and ghettos will be a part of every city there, and he isn't kidding, some parts of the Ruhr looked really dingy.
In the UK, where I live, things are changing for the worse, the income gap between rich and poor is almost as wide as in the US. While violent crime is lower than in the US, in a decade things won't be much different.

As far as judging an entire country by Detroit, MI, is highly unfair. Try judging the UK by Liverpool or by London. By the way my old girlfriend, an American woman with large tits, studied for her MBA at U of Michigan in Ann Arbor, that was quite a pleasant area when I was there. She had some weird habits, she used to kiss me on the mouth and then kissed my penis before leaving each day for class. Anyway she wound up marrying some black football player, she had some thing for black blokes with large penises.