Dr. Ray Guarendi observes that a lack of parental fortitude plays a major role in the struggle of mothers and fathers to raise their children

by Doug Bean

A new Education Week survey found that 64 percent of teachers reported classroom behavior has become worse over the past year. Educators blamed parents, saying mothers and fathers need to do more to instill discipline and stop undermining corrective actions such as detention.

The results of that survey wouldn’t come as a shock to Dr. Ray Guarendi, a Catholic psychologist and popular radio host, speaker and author. He told the audience at the Bringing America Back to Life convention earlier this month that discipline is by far the number one issue he’s asked to address by parents and grandparents.

Anyone who’s been out in public can plainly see that children’s behavior has taken a turn for the worse over the last several decades. Backtalk, belligerence, disrespect, laziness and outright disobedience for parents and adults is running rampant in modern society. Even in church, the lack of respect is evident in the disengagement and immodest attire of young people.

Most behavioral experts place the blame on smartphones, the internet and various forms of technology. Children and young adults have grown up with easy access to information. The culture is heavily influenced by the so-called TikTok generation, which aspires to fame and fortune as an influencer that often requires bad behavior to get noticed.

There’s no doubt that the digital age has affected young minds and consciences, but who’s to blame? Is it the kids’ fault?

Stop for a minute and think about who put the smartphone or some other device in their hands. The answer is most likely going to be the parents of the child. And so, like it or not, parents shoulder the responsibility for behavioral issues.

In the age of so-called “soft” parenting, adults have become fearful of disciplining their children. Guarendi emphasized that the lack of parental fortitude has played a major role in their struggle to raise their kids.

“In my experience, you were the last generation to know across the board who the parent was,” Guarandi told an audience that included a number of older parents and grandparents. “You parented out of a mindset, ‘I am mom, you are not.’”

Today’s parents are turning to psychologists, self-help articles and other so-called experts to help them understand how to discipline their children. He posited that the prevalence of strong-willed children today stems from adults lacking confidence in their parenting skills.

“Parents will say to me, ‘This is the toughest thing I’m confronting,’” Guarendi shared. “Give me a technique to discipline less” rather than more.

The only way to do that, Guarendi joked, is for parents and grandparents to lower their standards or expectations. Seriously, though, he said parents need to develop a strong spine and stand against the behavioral tricks that undermine their authority. Parents should adopt the mindset that they discipline out of love for their children.

“You know what I don’t like? I don’t like the word ‘tough love.’ It’s not tough love. It’s love,” Guarendi said. “I’m fine telling folks that discipline without love may be harsh, but love without discipline is child abuse because, ultimately, that kid is going to run into folks out there (in society) and he’s going to get hurt. The world doesn’t get mitigating circumstances. Some employer is not going to say, ‘You are just so cranky. Did you get a nap today?’”

The popular hot-button topic when it comes to raising children in today’s culture is self-esteem.

“Go to a computer, type in child self-esteem and hit search. The last time I looked, there were over 100 million options,” Guarendi said. “The shrinks believe that self-esteem is the apex moral virtue.”

But do a search for “child humility” and the results are a fraction of what they are for self-esteem.

“When’s the last time you heard a secular expert talking about humility?” Guarendi asked. “Humility is at the very center of Christian virtues.”

Guarendi and his wife have 10 adopted children. Many of them were considered high risk and could have been aborted. He’s thankful for pro-life groups that, through their witness, have helped mothers of those children give birth despite difficult circumstances.

Parenting them has proved to be a challenge at times and has taught him a great deal about discipline, which he also learned from his own parents.

“Sometimes I will tease my clients and say, ‘What would your mother have done if you had talked to her the way your daughter is talking to you?’ (The response is,) ‘I didn’t talk to my mom that way,’’’ Guerendi related.

“Why not? You were a teenage girl,” he asked before receiving the response, “’I may have felt like it, but I didn’t do it.’ Why not? ‘I knew something would happen.’”

Gentle parenting has replaced firm, confident authority in a household – and that has led to frustration of parents who visit Guarendi’s office saying they’re so frustrated that they can no longer enjoy their children.

“Discipline, it’s a relationship,” he said. “You try to apply a formula and you’ll get frustrated.”

“We are a microwave culture,” he continued. “We want results. We want them right now with minimal effort. This has impacted discipline.”

Guarendi empathized with today’s mothers and fathers that parenting isn’t easy, but they tend to make life too complicated.

“Everybody wants a how-to,” he said. “‘How do I quit gossiping?’ Quit gossiping. ‘How do I control my temper?’ Control your temper.

“We’ve turned it into a how-to like a psychological formula and we’ve pushed out the will, the will by God’s grace.”

In some cases, parents are dealing with an issue today that Guarendi never thought was fiction when it was discussed while he was in graduate school many years ago.

“There was a notion that I thought would gain no traction whatsoever because it was so ridiculous,” he recalled. “It was so counter to science and reality and everything else we know about the human condition. I thought this isn’t going anywhere, but it’s back with a vengeance.”

That idea, he said, was that there is no difference between male and females, that humans are just socialized in different ways.

He’s speaking of the gender confusion that has invaded the culture, influencing some parents to allow their children to delude themselves into thinking that gender is fluid rather than accepting the biological reality that God created male and female.

Considering the challenges that parents face today in raising children, Guarendi was asked how mothers and fathers should combat the permissive parenting trend.

“One parent at a time,” he said. “What tends to happen is people who stand strong against the culture and raise their kid a certain way and get grief along the way, more often than not (someone) will say, ‘You’ve got great kids.’”

Sometimes, a parent will be accused of being too strict – that being strict implies a parent is doing something wrong.

“When you intentionally parent – I like that word – you try to raise a kid to seek God,” he said. “You’re not going to be understood by a lot of people. And after you raise a great kid, you don’t get credit for it, but you are so lucky.”

If parents aren’t so lucky and a child or children lose their faith or abandon the virtues that were instilled in them at a young age, Guarendi offered some advice.

“If you torture yourself, I’d like to take away your guilt,” he said, asking, “Is there a God? Is Christ God? Was he sinless? Could he perform miracles? Did he have a perfect understanding of human nature? Could he get most people to follow him?

“My wife and I will never tether our peace to the decisions our adult children make because we cannot control that,” he said. “I had a lady call the radio show once and she said, ‘I will never be at peace ever again in my life until my children return to the Church.’ And I said in the most gentle, sensitive way, that you’re making a liar out of Christ. She said, ‘How is that?’ Well, He says, I’ll give you a peace the world doesn’t understand.”