Children These Days

Normally this weekly feature has an attributed quotation.  Today will be the same, but I won’t tell you who created it, until the bottom.   Call it a bit of a quiz.  Before you scroll to the bottom and find out, why not guess?

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs and tyrannize their teachers.”

Questions to Ponder

– What do you see in today’s children (or the “younger generation”)?

– How does your viewpoint impact your decisions and behavior?

Action Steps

1. Consider your stereotypes and assumptions about other generations.

2. Ask yourself how you determined them.

3. Examine those assumptions and your actions that emanate from those assumptions.

My Thoughts

Have you figured out who said this?  Do you have a clue?

Before we get to the answer, I want you to really think about the action steps above.  It is very rare that I teach about leadership that people don’t want to talk about generations different (normally younger) than themselves.  One person will ask, and others will nod.  They want to know how to deal with them and all of their issues, challenges and unproductive beliefs.  They think the world is different now than it has ever been.

That isn’t how I see it.  I believe that generational differences have always existed – it isn’t something new.

I’m not going to say much more – I want you to scroll down, see the author, then read the whole post again.

Then spend some time thinking about your reaction and insights.

It will be worth your time.

The quote is from Socrates (who lived from 469-399 BC).  Guess what, he wasn’t talking about today’s children.