Words from WW Blog

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                             August 12, 2018

This past week I was doing laps around our middle school track. It was also a day when students were stopping by the school to check in and get their assigned locker. Most of them had a parent with them.

Our middle school is undergoing a construction project at the school entrance to provide a more secure environment. The work is not done yet, thus there were two construction indicators on the sidewalk leading up to the entrance. The first was a sign that informed parents and students that construction was being done on the entrance. It directed them to enter the building by the side entrance. The large arrow pointing the direction to the side entrance was visible at least twenty yards away.

The second indictor was a line of orange cones across the sidewalk. 

Each time I came around the track I saw the decision-making process taking place. First, a parent and their child, or children, would walk up the sidewalk to where the sign was located. They would then either turn and walk towards the side of the building…or walk past the sign and past the orange cones and proceed to the front entrance. 

A rough calculation of those I observed indicated that half followed directions and half didn’t! (One good thing about the experience is that it took my mind off the laps I ran!) 

Half followed directions and half did their own thing! And these were the parents!

Was there misunderstanding? Were the orange cones not bright enough? Was the arrow pointing towards the side entrance confusing? Was the sounds of the drill and the pounding of nails disorienting?

There may have been a few reasons why so many of them continued on the forbidden path. My cynical and critical nature tells me that some of them felt the sign didn’t apply to them. It was for those OTHER people! Kind of like those handicapped parking spots are okay to park in when no one is parking in them! Or that additional check-out line that just opened up  at the grocery store is meant for them even those six people are in front of them in the previous line! Or that person who believes he can speed by the waiting line of cars on the highway even though the road sign a mile back told him his lane was ending due to road construction!

There’s parental entitlement that is seeping through in various subtle ways. 

I know, I know…it’s only a door! Yes, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but my guess is that all of us have experienced every one of those situations I mentioned…and we gritted our teeth in frustration or dropped our mouthes open in disbelief. 

Perhaps Little Jimmy’s apple of attitude didn’t fall too far from the tree!

This entry was posted on August 12, 2018 at 2:30 pm and is filed under children, Community, Freedom, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: entitled, entitlement, following directions, middle school, middle school parents, modeling behavior, orange cones, parental influence, Parenting