Bad child behavior = weak parenting.

[Goodparent1971]

I am reading these behavior issues in children as young as four and it reminds me of my niece who is currently four and just joined a pre school.  On day three her parents are already being confronted by the teacher for anger issues. It has been so sad to watch this beautiful girl degrade over the past few years because of her parents negligence.  Like all children she started out wonderful and still is for the most part but she is rapidly behaving worse and worse.  Anger outburst, hitting, peeing her pants and will only do what she wants when she wants.  The amazing thing is this behavior is predominately displayed when her parents are present.  We are very involved in her life and have her over to spend the night often.  When she is over she knows certain things.  We have rules and are in charge.  She must eat her dinner.  She must go to bed at a certain time and bad behavior is not tolerated.  I have never had to act on her bad behavior other than to mention her name.  Because from the very first moment I began to interact with her I taught her that I was the adult and in charge.  She knows I am there for her and she trust me completely.  We do what we say we are going to do always.  We feed her healthy food and stimulate her mind and exercise her body with lots of fun play.  She knows how to behave with us.  There is calm and harmony in her life when she is with us.  Conversely, when she is at home, her father is almost completely disengaged.  Very selfish.  I have watched her to many times try to get his attention only to be ignored because of football, hunting, fishing, you name it.  Her mother loves her dearly but only feeds her what she wants to eat, so mostly junk, rarely makes her go to bed at a specific time, rarely reads to her and when she does its the bible and has her face always buried in Facebook or some other such thing.  They consider themselves good parents and don't see their destructive behavior no matter how many times we try to show them things.  They just are baffled how different she is around us.  They asked us what we do and we have told them and have even stayed at their house for a week to help but they were unable to maintain the regimen  because it cut into the things they "needed" to do.  So they'd start to slack again.  Children need to be more than just loved, and praised, they need to be lead both in words and in actions.  They need rules and guidelines to follow and when challenged it is important to win those challenges.  Children need to know that you are the adult and as the adult you are going to take care of all the adult things allowing them to be children.  It is so sad to see my nieces life because you can literally see what her life would be like if she lived with us and you see what her life is like with two parents who love their daughter but are clueless and unwilling to put the time and energy into guiding her through the many stages of her life.  I am beyond frustrated watching her clueless parents continue to be baffled by her poor behavior when they witness a successful blueprint whenever we are around her but just refuse to do the things necessary to raise their daughter properly.  I know some children have real disorders and issues but often it is weak parenting that is to blame.  Put the child in another environment and they excel, take them home and they are a mess.  It's very sad.  You have to have a license to drive a car you really should be required to take parenting classes before having a child.

[Sandman2]

   I have been on this forum for years and I do agree with most of what you are saying and seeing.  I have always been amazed at the questions we get, that should have been covered in Basic Parenting 101.  The sad thing is that there is no such class.  
  Our schools in there rush to get kids ready for college and our colleges rush to get students ready for graduation neglect the real world problems.
   There are some good books out there.  Fay and Cline with their Love and Logic series,  and "SOS Help for Parents," by Lynn Clark are some examples if you want to give your Niece some ideas.
   Also, kids do need to be taught how to deal with anger. Look into buying "Cool down and work through anger" or "When I feel angry". This is part of a series of books aimed at 4 to 7 year olds and meant to be read to them at night (several times) and then practiced.  You can find them here -  http://www.amazon.com/Cool-Through-Anger-Learning-Along/dp/1575423464/ref=pd_sim_b_5
  

[baby2014]

We literally cut the cord to our television and have noticed a big difference in our child.

I do find it unfair that you are saying the freedom of bearing children should be taken away unless you've had parenting classes. Yes there are people who don't parent as well as others but no one has the right time say well since you didn't take this class and obtain a license for children then you can't have a child. Your last statement reminds me of the life in China where women who don't have a license to have children are forced to abort her very much wanted child.

Anyhow I do agree that parents should start being more consistent in children's lives with rules and enforcing them with proper punishment.  This world has too many distractions such as Facebook, television, and video games. We permanently deleted our Facebook account and cut all cords to our electronics. Since doing so we have noticed a big difference in our own child's behavior. I do agree it's because we weren't giving him the attention he needed. We will never have another television or gaming system in our home again. We didn't learn this from a parenting class it was from self observation.