I ran across this story today at CNN.com
This dad did the right thing by standing up to his child. Kids are not in charge- parents are. It's that way because parents know better what kids really need. This man's son obviously needs to learn that sometimes you just can't have what you want. You take what's offered and you say thank you. The kid threw a fit and the dad didn't give in. Now he's being told he's a bad parent for it and he regrets doing it.
The bad parenting being encouraged here is part of what's to blame for kids doing poorly in school and having behavior problems. Parents need to step up and stop trying to be friends with their kids while they are brats. If you train a child correctly during the early, bratty years, I believe it will pay off in wonderful friendships during the late teen and adult years. However, if you encourage and reward bratty behavior, you will never have a mature friendship with your child.
Finally, to cap it off, the wife takes the son to the restaurant, using the son's false affection as a "gotcha" against the father. This is just an anecdote, but both these parents look like basket cases.
CNN said:NY dad deemed unfit for not taking son to McDonald's
Published November 08, 2013
New York Post
A Manhattan dad is not lovin’ McDonald’s right now.
Attorney David Schorr slapped a court-appointed shrink with a defamation lawsuit for telling the judge deciding a custody battle with his estranged wife that he was an unfit parent — for refusing to take his son to the fast food joint for dinner.
“You’d think it was sexual molestation,” Schorr, 43, told The Post Thursday. “I am just floored by it.”
Schorr says in his Manhattan Supreme Court suit that E. 97th Street psychiatrist Marilyn Schiller filed a report saying he was “wholly incapable of taking care of his son” and should be denied his weekend visitation over the greasy burger ban.
Schorr, a corporate attorney turned consultant with degrees from NYU and Oxford University, had planned to take his 4-year-old son to their usual restaurant, the Corner Café on Third Avenue, for his weekly Tuesday night visitation last week.
But the boy threw a temper tantrum and demanded McDonald’s. So he gave his son an ultimatum: dinner anywhere other than McDonald’s — or no dinner.
“The child, stubborn as a mule, chose the ‘no dinner’ option,” the disgruntled dad says in the suit.
“It was just a standoff. I’m kicking myself mightily,” Schorr said.
“I wish I had taken him to McDonalds, but you get nervous about rewarding bad behavior. I was concerned. I think it was a 1950s equivalent of sending your child to bed without dinner. That’s maybe the worst thing you can say about it,” he said.
Adding insult to injury, he said: “My wife immediately took him to McDonalds.”
This dad did the right thing by standing up to his child. Kids are not in charge- parents are. It's that way because parents know better what kids really need. This man's son obviously needs to learn that sometimes you just can't have what you want. You take what's offered and you say thank you. The kid threw a fit and the dad didn't give in. Now he's being told he's a bad parent for it and he regrets doing it.
The bad parenting being encouraged here is part of what's to blame for kids doing poorly in school and having behavior problems. Parents need to step up and stop trying to be friends with their kids while they are brats. If you train a child correctly during the early, bratty years, I believe it will pay off in wonderful friendships during the late teen and adult years. However, if you encourage and reward bratty behavior, you will never have a mature friendship with your child.
Finally, to cap it off, the wife takes the son to the restaurant, using the son's false affection as a "gotcha" against the father. This is just an anecdote, but both these parents look like basket cases.