Passwords: I hates them

September 18, 2008 – 11:21 pm
By skepticlawyer

Over at Club Troppo, Jacques (our redoubtable admin) informs us that a bunch of not very nice internet types have hacked Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account. This seems to be part of an ongoing attempt to prove that she improperly conducted government business using her private account, although it appears that there was nothing to find - pictures of her kids, and some emails back and forth with a staffer expressing concern over attacks in the media. The more serious issue is the ease with which her account was hacked. Among other things, her password was either ‘popcorn’ or her postcode and her security question was ‘where did you meet your spouse?’. Both are almost guaranteed - if a ‘not famous’ person suddenly becomes ‘famous’ - to invite hacker attention.

The worst version of this ’sudden fame leads to compromised security’ story I’ve ever come across concerned Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington. Bennington - reverting to the time before his band had made him a multimillionaire many times over - used ‘Charlie’ (his middle name) as his password to his mac.com email account. This allowed a cyberstalking fan into aspects of his life far beyond just email, and is much worse than what has happened to Palin. Even so, Palin’s situation is instructive, and something that really gets on my nerves. See, I actually can’t remember any but the very simplest passwords - or, rather, I can remember very difficult passwords, but only one at a time, and I need a couple of months and lots of practice to do so. The joys of dyslexia.

As I pointed out over at Troppo, I always hated the monthly requests to change passwords that used to come through at work - both JAG and at law firms. If anything, the constant requests for new passwords made my accounts easier to hack, rather than harder. Instead of remembering one fantastically difficult password, I just entered easier and easier passwords (and would routinely recycle passwords from elsewhere) so that I could remember them. Many of my passwords over the years have been as easy as ‘popcorn’, with ’security questions’ based on all the standard stuff - partner’s name, where we met etc. It took ages for me to get permission to be allowed to keep my passwords for a longer period - and I’m sure the only thing that led to that was IT people having constantly to let me into my account when I’d forgotten my password and the security system had locked me out. I’ve also had the experience of having my ATM/Cashpoint cards swallowed (regularly - can’t remember PIN) and not being able to use my Frequent Flyer points (which also requires remembering yet another password). I have never asked for a PIN for my credit card (according to my personal banker, I am unique among her clients in this respect). This is for the simple reason that I know it would be different from my normal PIN, and thus impossible for me to remember.

I have also been ‘famous enough’ to have accounts hacked by anonymous randoms for various unsavoury reasons. That’s why I have no hotmail or yahoo accounts. I only ever have one working email address, and it always has a fiendishly difficult password that I have worked very hard at remembering (or have written down and stored in my wallet). I never use online banking, always conducting my business in person at the branch. It’s tedious, but something I simply can’t avoid if I’m going to keep my financial arrangements secure.

This willingness to write passwords down and store them in my purse may seem odd, but to be honest I’m less concerned about storing important stuff there. I do have - thanks to my martial arts experience - a much better chance of defending both my person and my property ‘in real life’. That’s not something I’m ever going to be able to do very effectively online, unless security providers are willing to allow me to use my own method.

In the long run, all I can say is bring on fingerprint/retinal/biometric account identification. It’s about the only thing that will allow me to do stuff online that other people take entirely for granted.

UPDATE: There is a very good account of what actually happened on Michelle Malkin’s site. Malkin, like the rest of us, managed to get the wrong end of the stick, but when set straight, published the very tech-savvy correction in full. Highly recommended.

By skepticlawyer | Posted in Fark!, Internet, Technology | Comments (14)

Accelerated learning comes to Court

September 18, 2008 – 6:00 pm
By Legal Eagle

The mother of a very gifted child is suing the Queensland Government for failing to enrol her 9 year old daughter in Year 8 at a Queensland public school. There is no minimum age for enrollment in high school, but the Queensland Government cited fears over the girl’s social development as a reason for refusing the mother’s request. The case has now gone up to the High Court.

I must say that I have ambivalent feelings about accelerated learning. I did not learn much from Primary School. Perhaps I would have gotten more out of my Australian schooling if I had been accelerated. I’m sure that my parents could have accelerated me should they have wanted to do so. But, as I’ve said in a previous post, I have reservations about labelling a child as “gifted”:

I read a comment in a Stephen Fry book about gifted children which resonated with me. The protagonist said something like “When I was 7, I could read like a 14 year old. When I was 14, I could read like a 21 year old. When I was 21, I could read like a 21 year old.” This is essentially what happened to me. Yes, I was a very gifted reader as a child. I read Lord of the Rings when I was 6 or 7 years old. But by the time I was an adult, everyone else had caught up. Who cared that I was a very good reader by that point? (Of course, I had had an opportunity to read Lord of the Rings over 40 times, so there were some advantages.)

I think that having very high expectations of oneself is a problem for many lawyers. At law school there are many very intelligent people with lots of potential. There’s a natural tendency to compare oneself with people like that Rhodes Scholar girl [a severe overachiever mentioned earlier in the post] and find oneself wanting. The thing is that we can’t all be the next Chief Justice of the High Court. And you know what? That’s okay.

As I’ve also said in another post, I think labelling someone as gifted can actually close their mind and lead them to become overly concerned about failure. Failure and questioning one’s conclusions are necessary parts of learning, in my opinion. Praising someone for being “bright” can lead to that person abhorring “boring” tasks. Well, boring tasks are part of learning, and also part of being an adult. I had to rote learn all kinds of boring facts for my A-Levels, but once I had done that, I found that the conclusions I could draw were so much more informed and exciting.

I’m not quite sure what the law is on this point. I presume that the mother of this child has succeeded on the basis that there was no statutory minimum age for enrollment in high school, and therefore the exercise of discretion to refuse the request by the Queensland Government was ultra vires and invalid.

But I do think there’s something to the Queensland Government’s fear about the child’s emotional development. I remember my sister’s friend’s younger sister was massively advanced through school (she was about three years ahead of her actual grade level). My sister said that this girl didn’t have real friends. She had schoolmates who treated her kindly enough, like some kind of a pet or novelty, but not as an equal. She ended up having a nervous breakdown and going back to her own year.

I think rather than accelerating learning, the answer may be to have different streams for students of different abilities. When I was younger, I was very much against this, seeing it as elitist and exclusionist. But then I went to a selective school in the UK and I flourished. The subjects were hard and I loved it. Nonetheless, I was still among my age group, and among people of a similar mindset to me (I wasn’t teased for reading books or for knowing nerdy facts, for example). The danger, of course, is that some people may be intelligent but end up in a lower stream, or vice versa: I think it’s really important to have some flexibility in streaming. If someone isn’t coping or if someone is outstripping their stream, then they should be moved into a different stream (if they want to be moved). We don’t want people to be pigeonholed for life. But on the other hand, I don’t think acceleration is the answer - it’s still elitist, just less openly so.

Anyway, I shall await with interest to see what the High Court concludes on the legal question!

By Legal Eagle | Posted in Children, Education, Law, Motherhood, Personal, Society | Comments (4)

Lawyer blues

September 18, 2008 – 1:25 pm
By Legal Eagle

I’ve written extensively on this topic before (here, here, here, here and here). It’s one of my bugbears - why are lawyers so prone to depression? Is it something about the kind of person who is attracted to studying law, or is it something which is created by the way in which the law functions? Or maybe a bit of both? The latter is my suspicion.

Yet another study has found a significant correlation between being a lawyer and depression:

More than 40% of law students report psychological distress, with little improvement in sight when they become barristers and solicitors.

According to a study described as the largest Australian survey of lawyers and law students, almost a third of solicitors and one-in-five barristers suffer levels of depression associated with disability.

The results are to be presented tonight  in an annual lecture addressing the issue of depression among lawyers.

Personally, as I have outlined in my previous posts, I think that law students and lawyers are more likely to be high-need achievers and perfectionists with unforgiving standards. So that’s a basis for depression in the first place, because you tend to be very hard on yourself if you make mistakes.

But I also think there are aspects of the way in which the law operates which lead to depression in individuals who would not otherwise suffer from depression. In law firms, individuals often have no control over the way in which they work or the volume of work. Further to this, there is a culture where long hours are glorified, which leads to exhaustion and alienation from one’s family. Or, if you choose not to work the long hours, your contributions are not valued.

And of course, some areas of law are naturally confrontational, like commercial litigation (the area in which I worked). I quite liked the challenge of a fight sometimes, but at other times, it really got me down, particularly if I didn’t feel that there was much justice in the claim I was fighting. Or if the other side was being unreasonably pig-headed and refusing to see the writing on the wall.

I also think many senior lawyers are appalling at managing staff. There are significant exceptions to this rule, but many of them really have no idea how to manage junior staff, although they are excellent at managing clients. So they blame junior staff for their failures in management, cause simple tasks to be last-minute disaster areas, and fail to adequately instruct junior staff in what exactly it is they are supposed to do. There’s nothing more demoralising as a junior staff member than being shouted at for something which really is not your fault.

And then there’s the culture of drinking. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no wowser. I like a drink or two. But I don’t like to get absolutely smashed, and drinking is not my main way of socialising with other people. Often, the main way in which lawyers wind down is to go out drinking and I don’t think this is healthy. It also doesn’t help anyone who happens to have mental health issues into the bargain.

It’s not a simple matter of providing counselling, or making working hours shorter (although these things will help). It is about looking at the bigger picture and understanding how the way in which legal work operates can cause individuals to become demoralised and depressed. It is about changing the culture of law firms.

It is also about trying to make depression more of an issue which is openly discussed rather than stigmatised. Even though I’m a pretty open person, depression was not something I ever felt I could chat to my bosses or colleagues about. One felt that even to talk about such a thing would be to brand one’s self unreliable or a “looney”. So all these lawyers go around feeling terribly miserable with no one to talk to about it, and with “self-medication” (ie, alcohol) as the only option of forgetting one’s problems.

Unfortunately, despite all the noise that is made, I don’t think things are going to change in a hurry. But I’m going to keep on writing about the issue and making my own small noise, in the hope that perhaps it might help someone out there.

By Legal Eagle | Posted in Depression, Law, Personal | Comments (6)

‘By Jingo if I do’

September 17, 2008 – 11:27 pm
By skepticlawyer

Before I get to DeusExMacintosh’s latest funny, a couple of announcements: regular commenter John Hasenkam now has his own blog (mainly matters medical), while another regular, Pavlov’s Cat, has moved blogs (although she’s still with blogger, natch). A nice feature of her new home is the series of rotating headers featuring what is quite possibly the most beautiful tortoiseshell cat EVAH.

UPDATE: In other bloggy movements, Rafe also tells us he’s blogging at Club Troppo (centre-left) rather than Catallaxy (centre-right). This does not mean, however, that he has turned into any sort of leftie ;)

DeusExMacintosh has also agreed to be our house cartoonist, and will supply Private Eye-esque photoshoppery on a regular basis (to go with her occasional pieces). Here’s today’s:

By skepticlawyer | Posted in Funnies | Comments (2)

Student evaluations again

September 17, 2008 – 12:29 pm
By Legal Eagle

I’ve written before on student evaluations, with a bit of a giggle about some of the answers I get.

As I have said, my worry has always been that the kinds of questions asked are too vague, and the responses don’t really reflect, well…anything:

There is also a “multiple choice” part of the questionnaire that students must fill out. It contains a really silly question which says something like “I felt part of a group of students and staff who were committed to learning”. What does that mean exactly? There’s too many variables. I suspect that the real question is whether the teacher actually cares about his or her subject and the students. One always enjoys a subject more if the teacher is enthusiastic. I like the written comments on the questionnaires the best. They are the bits I take to heart, both positive and negative.

It seems I’m not alone in questioning these evaluations.

Via Cearta.ie, I came across some posts on Concurring Opinions on the topic. First, Sarah Lawsky poses a series of questions about about student evaluations and their uses, audience and so forth. Secondly, Dan Hoffman finds an interesting paper which suggests (as he summarises it):

That is, well-regarded, young, inexperienced teachers provide better short-term results (hypothesis: enthusiasm), but over the longer term unpopular, older, experienced teachers add the most value.

And “good teaching” in introductory couses does not necessarily lead to good results in later follow-on courses. He wonders how much teaching surveys should matter in the hiring process of universities as a result of this information.

I think I tend to agree with Eoin’s point at Cearta.ie that some lecturers can be both experienced and enthusiastic. Certainly, I had a number of lecturers who fitted that description when I was at university. Experienced does not necessarily mean unpopular or boring.

I do wonder about the way in which questions are framed and the audience for whom they are intended. The generic questionnaires at my university are supposed to be “one size fits all” and consequently, some of the questions don’t really fit law subjects very well.

For example, there is a question saying, “The teacher made appropriate use of technology”, but in some subjects in which I have taught, a considered decision has been made not to use any technology whatsoever. Students always get confused about what to answer in response to that question. Surely an appropriate use of technology may be “none at all”? But obviously if one is doing an IT degree, one would expect a very high use of technology.

As I’ve said in my previous post, I always get some feedback saying that students love it when I don’t have Powerpoint, and an equal amount saying that they hate the lack of Powerpoint. My personal opinion is that Powerpoint is a tool of the devil. Its usefulness is restricted to typing case citations and headings onto slides so that I don’t have to write them on the board.

By Legal Eagle | Posted in Academia, Education, Law | Comments (21)

All Change in Zimbabwe

September 16, 2008 – 6:18 pm
By skepticlawyer

We are indebted to DeusExMacintosh for her comedic Photoshoppery…

By skepticlawyer | Posted in Funnies, Politics | Comments (10)

Boys’ Club

September 14, 2008 – 10:15 pm
By Legal Eagle

I don’t think that I realised that the phenomenon of Gentlemen’s Clubs still existed until I’d left university and started work. A male academic friend was invited to lunch at a particular club recently, and told me it was full of judges and barristers and prominent business men. I was fascinated by the concept: social clubs to which women could not be invited as members, and where prominent businessmen and lawyers met. It just seemed so antiquated. Then it struck me that this was a concentration of power which I would never be able to access.

One of these Melbourne-based Gentlemen’s Clubs, the Athenaeum Club, has been split by a proposal to admit women as members. Some prominent members began a push to include women as members:

The group wrote a discussion paper for the club stating their case. “The Athenaeum Club was founded to provide a venue for civic, business, academic and political leaders of Melbourne,” it said. “While such leaders may have been predominantly men in the past, that is clearly no longer the case. Such leaders who also happen to be women should also be admitted. To do otherwise is to relegate the club to decreasing engagement with this city and country.”

They also argued that by moving first on the issue of women, the Athenaeum would embarrass the city’s other large men-only clubs, the Melbourne Club and the Australian Club, making them look outdated and sexist.

But the push to include women was greeted with open hostility by many Athenaeum members. Surprisingly, the strongest opponents were younger men - dubbed the “young fogeys” - who attended several heated meetings in the club, arguing that women would “change the culture, demeanour and openness of the men’s environment”.

A comprehensive majority of the members decided against admitting female members when the proposal was voted upon in December 2007.

I’m in two minds about this kind of thing. On the one hand, it causes me to feel resentful that I can’t join an organisation in which powerful men come together, just because of my gender. I feel that they should take women, and I am impressed with those men who have made a stand.

On the other hand, do I really want to be a member of a club where over half the members resent my very presence there? I’m not going to get much out of it in that situation, and if they resent me because I’m female, they are probably not people with whom I want to socialise with anyway.

To be honest, I’m not the kind of person who is comfortable in exclusive groups. It reminds me unpleasantly of cliques in the schoolyard. In fact, the whole thing seems…well…a bit childish to me. A bit like boys retreating to the cubby house and putting up a sign saying, “NO GIRLS ALLOWED”. It would be laughable if there weren’t some powerful and influential people involved with it. Incidentally, I breastfed my daughter during a function at the Melbourne Club once. It gave me an immense amount of satisfaction to do such a female thing in such a male space (childish, I know, but I couldn’t help it).

Hopefully the culture of these clubs will gradually change. The fact that there was a push by members for women to be admitted is encouraging. My understanding is that some of the Gentlemen’s Clubs tacitly excluded Jewish men from joining, but have now reversed that position.

Presumably maybe one day these boys will make it into the 20th century and realise that we of the female gender don’t have girl germs.

Note to international readers: “Gentleman’s club” means a building where only men can enter and can eat nice food and drink good wine. It does not mean strip joints, lap dancing venues or anything like that. A man who attends the latter kind of venue could not be called a gentleman…

By Legal Eagle | Posted in Fark!, Feminism, Society | Comments (23)

A masterpiece of the copywriter’s art

September 14, 2008 – 5:05 am
By skepticlawyer

It may not be the done thing to sing advertising’s praises to the skies, but this is simply superb.

By skepticlawyer | Posted in Art | Comments (4)

Illjury prone

September 12, 2008 – 11:00 pm
By Legal Eagle

A friend from uni dubbed me “illjury prone”: meaning illness and injury prone. I can’t really defend myself from this claim with any confidence. I do have a tendency to get into scrapes of one sort and another.

Anyway, unfortunately, I’ve had a bit of trouble with my legs and hips over the last two weeks because pregnancy hormones have loosened the ligaments in my hips too much. Coupled with pre-existing difficulties from childhood, this meant I was in a lot of pain and a bit wobbly on my pins. In fact, I had to stay sitting down for a few days because I had a couple of falls. They didn’t hurt Baby, but I did get big bruises.

Thanks to physio and rest, along with lots of TLC from my dear husband, my legs got a lot better. So much better that I ventured into a shopping centre to cash a Medicare bill (a whopper from the obestetrician). All went well, until I got on the escalator to go to the carpark. At the end of the escalator, as I stepped off, my shoelace got caught in the step. I’ve had trouble with shoes; my feet have swollen up, so most of my shoes don’t fit, apart from ones where I can loosen the shoelaces. But I can’t reach down very well to do up the shoelaces, and obviously one had come undone.

I had visions of being sucked into the escalator. I was hopping on one leg and couldn’t get my shoe off. The escalator was dragging my foot. It was quite horrible. Some nice lad from Safeway helped me take my shoe off, and then ripped the shoelace from the escalator. Thank goodness my daughter was at home with my in-laws. Otherwise she might be having nightmares about Mummy getting stuck in escalators.

I tell this story as a form of therapy. I have enough distance from it now to laugh, and to wonder if this kind of thing could happen to anybody but me? I also wanted take my hat off to the Safeway fellow, he was fantastic. It really warms your heart when a stranger helps you like that. I might have just written a rant about manners, but this proves that there are still good people in the world.

Still, I think I might avoid escalators for the foreseeable future; at least until I have the baby! Only a few weeks to go now…

P.S. My naughty daughter is taking advantage of my immobility and increased girth by hiding behind her cot when it comes time to get dressed. I can’t get to her and she laughs maniacally. I just warn her that I’ll be back to crawling behind the cot in no time. Gee, children are clever at assessing your limitations!

Update

My mother-in-law has the same size feet as me, so has given me a pair of sneakers with no laces. They’re elasticated and I can just slip them on, so I should be safe from now on.

By Legal Eagle | Posted in Fark!, Personal, Pregnancy | Comments (4)

A Comedy of Manners

September 12, 2008 – 6:44 pm
By Legal Eagle

Recently, a discussion about manners has developed in the comments thread of SL’s latest post on Sarah Palin. And so my interest was sparked by a post on The Age’s Essential Baby blog with regard to modern children and their lack of manners.

Apparently, the Australian Scholarships Group and the National Excellence in Teaching Awards organization have recently released a guide entitled Parent-Teacher Partnerships, which contains 6 rules for establishing a successful parent-teacher partnership to help children get the most out of school.

Rule No. 1 is “Prepare your child for school”, and essentially deals with parental responsibility towards children’s education, including education in respect for others and manners. Inter alia, the guide says:

When it comes to parental responsibility, teaching children respect was high on the list. And not just respect for teachers. Respect for the opinions of others and respect for personal property also rated a mention, as did empathy for, and treatment of, fellow students. Teaching children acceptable behaviour and good manners ran a popular second, followed by personal hygiene, punctuality, acceptable mobile phone use, knowledge of healthy food choices, and the benefits of exercise.

…

Teachers want parents to check homework. They want parents to teach younger children to wipe, flush and wash, and say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. …

…Teachers are asking for respect, and for the parents who seem unwilling or unable to say ‘no’ to their children, the message is that increasingly, these kids are finding the discipline of school hard to take.

The blog post wonders whether parents are too busy to teach their children manners these days or whether parents consider manners old-fashioned and irrelevant.

My parents were relatively strict. Both my sister and I were taught manners, and were expected to be polite and respectful of others. We were also taught to be open-minded towards people of different backgrounds, and to empathise with others. Sometimes I wonder if we weren’t actually brought up to be too nice for this dog-eat-dog modern world: we both had difficulty appearing “pushy” enough for law firms when it came to job interview time (although once we got a foot in the door, we were both fine).

I think that manners are very important insofar as they indicate and promote respect for others. We have to share this world with many other people, and it’s a lot easier if we respect others. At a most basic level, that involves saying “Please” and “Thank you”. Additionally, being aware of one’s personal hygiene and the like shows respect for others (eg, covering your mouth when you cough). Then there’s respect for other’s personal space and property (eg, not pushing people out of the way, not talking on one’s mobile phone loudly in confined spaces).

Another polite thing is to listen to and be responsive towards others. I have noticed that when there is a troublesome workmate or the like, the most common complaint is that the person doesn’t listen to others. That is, they just talk over what someone else is saying, or they ignore it. It’s really about appreciating your audience.

These kinds of manners are all about respecting other people as human beings. It is essentially saying, “Yes, your personhood, comfort and needs are important to me, and I respect them. I recognise that you are a person of equal worth to myself.” It is about not being selfish and purely wrapped up in one’s own needs.

There are other kinds of manners which are about respecting people with special needs in society: standing up on the train for an elderly man on a walking stick or a pregnant woman, helping a person in a wheelchair across the crossing if they get stuck on the curb and so forth. I also think these kinds of manners are important. I have to say that when I was pregnant with my first child, I was really shocked by how infrequently other train passengers offered me a seat without being asked first. Perhaps they were just wrapped up in their own concerns, but that’s still pretty sad.

Then there’s manners as a matter of form. Some manners are designed to show social status, and to reflect certain cultural values. These are the kind of manners where we have to be careful, because they may be culturally or socially specific, and we should not judge other people from different backgrounds for not conforming to them. It’s always interesting to travel to a totally different country and observe how different manners operate there. When I went to Japan, I learned that slurping one’s noodles loudly is an expression of respect to the chef, whereas in Western society it would be rude. But I don’t think it would have been fair if I had been judged for my failure to slurp had I been unaware of that rule.

It is this latter kind of manners which can be divisive rather than promoting respect. Different social rules can entrench class values (eg, sticking one’s little finger out when drinking tea is a sign of “breeding”). To my mind, it is these kind of manners which do not matter so much - the fundamental issue is whether a person has respect for others.

Sometimes, as I said in comments in the thread below, manners do not prevent people from being rude. The English upper middle class excel in being able to be rude while still technically observing manners. It’s actually really difficult to respond to such rudeness, and I grew to dislike it intensely when I lived in the UK.

I think many parents still do teach their children manners (myself among them) but it is a lot less common than it was. The reasons why it is less common are varied.

To a certain extent, some parents may think manners are old-fashioned and outdated. They may have had an overdose of manners for manners’ sake when growing up, and decided to throw the baby out with the bath water. I think this is a pity, because respect for other human beings is not old-fashioned and outdated: it is essential for a civic society.

I also think that the modern parent is very busy. I will confess that when I was juggling work, study and looking after a child, I sometimes let matters of discipline slip because I was just too tired to fight the point. I was just struggling to get by and to keep my head above water. I think there are a lot of parents in this boat.

Also, I think children do sometimes get bad habits from creche and the like. My daughter came out with “I shake my little tush bum” the other day. I don’t know where on earth she got it from, but it certainly wasn’t from me or any other family member. I suspect it was creche. I think she was trying it for effect, so my tactic was to ignore it totally. It’s somewhat inevitable that this will happen. I remember coming out with some terrible swear words learned from other kids at primary school; I didn’t know what they meant. Of course, the person I tried them on was my dear Grandma - the priority to go for maximum shock value.

And then there’s the parents who don’t want to say “no” to their children for fear of warping their little psyches. Snort! I’ve noticed that this tends to be a characteristic of older parents. Now, I certainly don’t believe in hitting children or being strict with them for no reason. But when children may potentially hurt themselves or other people, I believe it is essential that they be told not to do [insert offending conduct here]. It’s all part of showing respect for other people. My heart always sinks when I see some child dismantling a shop window display while the parent ignores it or says mildly, “don’t do that, dear”. Meanwhile the shop assistant looks on in dismay. Again, it’s respect for others: the child is showing a lack of respect for the property of others, and creating a lot of work for the shop assistant who will have to repair the display. Of course, it’s inevitable that children will run amok sometimes, but I do think they should be told off if they start dismantling shop windows.

I also think that children actually need some kind of boundaries, particularly after watching a friend who was brought up by hippy parents with no rules and was very unhappy as a consequence. To her parents’ surprise, she eventually converted to Christianity, and I suspect that part of the reason was to have some structure and rules in her life. One is more likely to warp the child’s psyche by failing to teach him or her boundaries and respect for others than by occasionally saying “no”.

The bottom line is that the form of manners does not matter as long as we show respect for one another, regardless of ethnicity, religion, class, political orientation or the like. This means treating other people as human beings, and listening to them as we would wish others to listen to our ideas.

By Legal Eagle | Posted in Children, Education, General, Motherhood | Comments (10)