The worrying new trend of getting kids to override parents
It looked like a completely innocent, run-of-the-mill newspaper article, entitled, “Kindergarteners can learn healthy habits and teach their parents.” But just as I was about to turn the page, an alarm bell went off, so I went back to read the whole thing.
The report focused on 74 Israeli kindergartens which decided to undertake a project based on the adoption of a healthy lifestyle and exercise. Sounds great, right? The 8-month program, called an “intervention” involved 1,048 children, along with their teachers, who received specific training on what to teach and how to instruct these young children on self-regulation, control acquisition and sensible decision-making abilities.
With such lofty aspirations, such as preventing childhood obesity, in order to avoid future health risks, it was wonderful that someone understood that in order to reach those goals, a lifestyle change would need to occur.
Unfortunately, only one thing was missing from the equation. No one informed the parents that their children were going to be used as a test-case, for researchers from Tel Aviv University School of Public Health, Hebrew University-Hadassah’s Braun School of Public Health and Medical School as well as the Technion and the University of Haifa.
Once the study was completed, results were published in a medical journal, called, “Nutrients,” under the title, “Developing Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors in Early Age - An Intervention Study in Kindergartens.”
While all this may sound positive, and a change for the better, as someone who worked in the capacity of an Israeli school principal, for nine years, I had to ask myself, why wouldn’t these educators and researchers notify parents of their intention to undertake such a life-changing program with their children? Our policy was to inform parents of every significant decision, program or change which would, somehow, impact their kids, so why were these parents left in the dark?
Towards the end of the article, there was speculation that, although parents had not been informed, it was likely that an improvement in snacks, being sent to school with these children, was a direct result of the kids’ influence on the parents during the period in which the program was ongoing.
It was that one sentence, sandwiched toward the end, of what appeared to be such a “good news” article, which I found particularly troubling, and here’s why.
Over the past couple of years, ever since the Covid-19 pandemic, Zoom-learning revealed many worrisome elements of teaching, causing U.S. parents to become embroiled in many heated fights to be in the loop of what is being taught. What sounded more like indoctrination, on a variety of non-academic subjects, became one of the reasons for the resounding defeat of, at least, one prospective Democrat governor of Virginia, who insisted that educators knew better than parents and that no interference would be tolerated.
Parents who voiced their disapproval, and started coming out, in droves, to school meetings, were met by armed guards, police and even labeled as domestic terrorists simply for expressing their outrage at the politically-driven, social agendas which were being force-fed to their children – something they never realized until then.
Once teachers discovered that parents were in on their secrets, many told their students not to reveal anything further to their moms and dads who, probably didn’t understand them, anyway, as well as those who were spending six or seven hours a day with them. Among the controversial subjects, which shocked parents, who came to learn that their kids had been exposed to them, were: CRT (Critical Race Theory) – the notion that minorities are victims while whites are the oppressors; gender-affirming support, allowing for students to express their doubts concerning their gender; being able to use another name and identity in school (without parental consent), and even stocking school libraries with pornographic books which openly and bluntly expressed alternative lifestyles and tips on embracing them.
As a result of this hostile takeover of parental rights, by educators, increased numbers of mass exodus, from public schools, have been seen as an ever-growing trend, with estimates in the hundreds of thousands.
Needless to say, parents are being made to feel as if they no longer are the true guardians of their children, and the most outrageous example of that is the shocking “trans refuge” law which has been enacted in both California and Minnesota, making it legal for children to override their parents’ decisions against undergoing whatever treatment is required to transition to a different gender.
According to the Heritage Foundation, “Last year, in Ohio, a judge removed a biological girl from her parent’s custody after they declined to help her ‘transition’ to male with testosterone supplements. When her parents wanted to treat her with counseling, instead, the county prosecutor charged them with abuse and neglect.” In that case, it happened without federal legislation. “Transgender activists and pro-trans physicians often seek to exclude parents from the process of medical decision-making.
There is definitely a trend to keep parents in the dark, uninformed and out of the loop when it comes to decisions that affect their children. This includes the exposure to radical ideas which would not be acceptable to parents if they were to first be consulted, which they aren’t.
That is why this seemingly innocuous school program, to enhance the health benefits, of kindergartners is so disturbing – because a group of people thought that the parents of these very young children should not have any say in this, hear about it, or even be part of a discussion. Again, it’s not that the program, in and of itself was a bad thing. It’s the trend that is a deliberate and calculated choice to override parents in major life decisions which affect their children.
In the end, those influencing voices of educators will not be the ones to reap any serious consequences of what happens to children who are indoctrinated and directed to take certain paths which will harm them. Only the parents will suffer from the unhappiness which is more than likely to ensue from confused, conflicted and troubled children who listened to those who thought they had their best interests at heart.
It is, therefore, the role of each parent, now more than ever, to take the reins of educating their own children on the principles and values which they hold as moral life anchors, because if they don’t, an educator, politician, activist or influencer will be right there, waiting in the wings, to sway your children in the direction they choose for them, all without your knowledge or consent.
Parents are admonished to, “Train up a child in the way they should go,” (Proverbs 22:6) and no one else should get in the way of that!
A former Jerusalem elementary and middle-school principal who made Aliyah in 1993 and became a member of Kibbutz Reim but now lives in the center of the country with her husband. She is the author of Mistake-Proof Parenting, based on the principles from the book of Proverbs - available on Amazon.
