Sorry Oomis this time we don’t agree. When WE were kids teachers were more qualified in our school system. They didn’t hire the cheapest and youngest they could find who came in with all their problems weighing down on their shoulders, not to mention being behind in pay and taking it out on the kids. When WE were kids our teachers HAD to please the parents and the administration at that time were also busy pleasing the parents and keeping their paying customers happy, not like today.
So when there was a problem, the parents naturally sided with the teacher since they trusted the teachers more back then and probably had more reason to. Today there is a lot more reason to trust kids and really listen to their side of the story and not just do what our parents did and agree with the teacher. Schools don’t normally have teacher conferences which they did in my day, where the principal and administration sat with the teachers to review issues and to give direction. Teachers understood what the school wanted of them and how they were expected to hold up their end of the agreement. That doesn’t hold true for these days and times.
And what is wrong if kids are happy? A yid darf zein b’simcha, that is what we are trying to teach them. We are not saying or teaching them that they will never face adversity, but we are trying to teach them that they must learn to adjust to ALL situations and be happy. They must guard their self-esteem and self-confidence and not let anyone trash it or destroy it. We are teaching them to come to us with their issues so we can guide them and help them learn how or figure out how to deal with them.
It is when these messages are not conveyed or are not getting through to our children that they fall prey to OTD. We are not teaching our kids “do whatever you want to be happy”. We are teaching that Yiddishkeit is based on being happy by doing mitzvos and living by the laws of the Torah. And those include bein adom l’makom and adom l’chaveiro.