Bet you thought i was talking about the US Presidency...well, not true.
LDD, as i see it, was coined by my favorite 'child psychologist', John Rosemond. He is turning around the ways kids are raised today to more closely resemble the way older generations were raised, perhaps so we older ones can rest easy, thinking the younger generations will pull the load for a while now. :) Here is what John discovered while out on the stump lecturing parents about raising kids today to be well-behaved and able to work well with others of different life styles...such as teachers, relatives, friends, and neighbors.
John believes that the most important aspect of all leadership qualities is decisiveness. He maintains that the principles that define proper leadership do not change from one leadership context to another. Therefore, if one understands leadership in, say, a business environment, then one understands how to lead children.
Out on the lecture trail, John has taken to challenging parents. He reports that he simply asks parents to raise their hands "if your children know, without a shadow of doubt, that when you give an instruction, you are going to make sure it is carried out, that when you state a rule, you are going to enforce it, and that when you say 'no,' you mean nothing less than 'no.'" In recent audiences of about 200+ parents each, generally only 5 parents respond affirmatively.
After that very revealing question, he asks: "Now raise your hand if as a child you knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, that your parents were going to enforce their instructions and rules and that when they said 'no,' they meant 'no,' period." In the same audience that he first reported only five responding to the first call...over 150 parents raised their hands! He claims the relative proportion has been approximately the same in over 50 other such audiences across the United States.
So how do parents respond: The du jour explanation for a child who will not take no for an answer, who tests every instruction and every rule with the full might of her or her free will, is that an inherited chemical imbalance causes knee-jerk resistance to authority. Supposedly, the child has oppositional defiant disorder and/or childhood bipolar disorder. Concrete verification of this proposition is lacking, but as recent audiences of John's demonstrated, proof abounds that many if not most of today's parents are suffering from Leadership Deficiency Disorder (LDD).
If John is right....imagine how simple it will be to straighten out the kids now!!! Making them feel safe and warm and, yes, loved by parents who know where to draw the line. The kids aren't all crazy like everyone says now, and parents do have respect built right in their job of being leaders who expect their children to be their disciples...thus the term "discipline" arrives in our lives.
Like to hear what you all think about it now....
