I've one at 17 and one at 30. Very proud of both. But i have to say, i think teenagers who regularly hang out with parents is a bit weird. It may be great when they are young to do fun stuff with them but after a certain age its time they start to find their own way in life.
I’m on holiday with my two daughters and wife at the moment and it’s been fine.
Except the youngest is recovering from Covid and still has the cough so sleep is quite disrupted for all four of us in a tiny apartment.
I’m bored so it’s probably me being the pain at the moment! All inclusive beach holidays aren’t really my thing, but the kids and wife are enjoying so it’s fine.
Anyway, my unsolicited advice is: don’t worry about being “the best dad” or “a brilliant father”. Be “Average Dad”. Average is good enough.
Did you choose the genetics you or your kids came with?
I mean... you DO actually choose the genetics of your kids don't you? You chose to pass on your own genetics and you chose who you mate with. Procreating is an active choice 🙂
Some of my parents in laws mates have 5 kids.
In conversation they said that the first 4 (girls) were absolutely perfect in every way and number 5 ( boy) was an absolute nightmare. They said if number 1,2,3 or 4 had been like number 5 there would not have been another.
It's comforted me numerous times when my wee one had been less than perfect, that people who can successfully parent 4 kids in a row get number 5 so spectacularly different.
So it not just down to the parents. It's also down to the individual kids.
So when/ if my kids do any of the stuff that my grandparents, aunts uncles, me or my sister did it won't all be my fault.
I've been listening to some stuff about ancient greece. The poetry seems to be full of complaints about people being dicks to each other. The history is full of people being dicks to each other.
It's just people
i think teenagers who regularly hang out with parents is a bit weird. It may be great when they are young to do fun stuff with them but after a certain age its time they start to find their own way in life.
I was always quite happy NOT to find my own way in life when it involved an all expenses paid holiday to a Greek island, or the Alps, or the Caribbean...
I was a boundary pushing wind up merchant as a child and I took pride in it at the time. Everytime, my daughter stares me directly in the eyes and continues to do the thing I explicitly asked her not to, I have to respect her for it and accept that this is what I deserve.
For those with perfect kids. Yours will be the ones that are utter ****s to everyone else and despised by the other kids and parents at school. Nobody is perfect and everyone is a proper **** at times. To not be would not be normal. On my way home tonight a kid pushed another kid in front of me whilst riding my bike. I bet the parents think their kid is great and wouldn’t put a foot wrong, little angel etc.
As previous posts, my kids are well rounded and a delight to be around 90% of the time. I’m under no illusions that they can be right pricks at times though. To not accept this and to deride others for being open and honest about it is, quite frankly, a bit pathetic. Everyone accepts that other people’s kids are really annoying. Guess what, so are yours! Most folk are just blind to it or unable to accept it.
I already know I’m a shit parent. I’m trying very hard to fix that and, possibly more importantly, stop beating myself up for being a shit parent.
Yep feel this way all too often. Can feel like becoming a parent was a enormous mistake - a mistake to bring two more beings into the world who are just like me and will have the same difficulties I do, if not more so. Think the best advice was about letting go of how you expect children to behave properly and just let them enjoy life as much as possible without sweating the details, set sensible boundaries - sensible as defined by realistic expectations of children's behaviour! Letting them be who they are without shaming them for their differences as it's us they need to feel safe with.
Also what MoreCashThanDash said.
Our holiday improved after a couple of early nights for them. Had a great last couple of days (although not without blips), before driving home. Couldn't believe how well behaved they were in the car - unbelievable!
Totally normal, there isn't really a good age with kids, they can be arseholes at any age. Obviously they are also incredibly good fun when they're on form and are definitely worth weathering the storm for. Most rewarding thing I've ever done is have kids.
I've had my 14 year old daughter screaming at her 11 year old brother because he dared walk into the kitchen bare foot after football.
It'll all smiles and rainbows tomorrow, and today will be just a memory.
Kids.
Did you get to choose your own early life experiences and the behaviour of your own parents that you somehow subconsciously absorbed and repeat even though you hate it and yourself because of it? Did you get to choose the life events you had no control over that forced you into making some very difficult decisions that are still impacting your family?
Your life and your kids are great. Awesome. Very happy for you.
This is obviously a place to vent for people who have just been through incredibly stressful experiences and are possibly dealing with larger problems that you can’t even comprehend with your perfect little life with your son who seems quite happy to let you live vicariously through him
I didn't know we were not allowed to disagree, sorry.
However, I'm not sure it's really necessary to start having a pop just because my life differs to yours.
You know very little about my life circumstances and how I ended up where I am and who I am today. I'm a better person for them and for getting past them and trying my best.
I'll stay out of threads like this and go back to just cycling ones, this one leaves a very bitter aftertaste.
To be fair @weeksy this comment "For all the people who’s kids are arseholes, who brought them up and gave them values?" Is a bit pissy is it not? So might want climb down off your moral high horse there?
I'm the OP, I have added some context, but at their ages it is hard to separate what could be normal for age or related to diagnosis/ condition, which was also part of my reason for posting along with needing a vent in a supposed safe and supportive forum.
Sorry if you feel you need avoid this thread, it has been equally helpful for me (and others hopefully) and somewhat saddening to have people point out its clearly my parenting fails that are the cause of my current situation, without context, like you bemoan above.
Yeah there's a few responses on this thread which try to frame all this as if the only feeling some members have toward their children is that they're arseholes.
I'm pretty sure I don't speak only for myself when I say that is not the case, and there's numerous responses to back this up.
Daltrey said it best, "the kids are alright"
We're the dicks, messed up by our own parents.
I'm just trying to make sure, the inevitable mistakes I make with my kids are different than the ones my parents made with me.
Has this thread turned into a 'nature vs nurture' debate?
Anyhoo, IME, kids are just small people who haven't learnt to control and suppress their raw emotions, wants and needs. Yeah, this can be annoying at times, but in the most part, it's great. It makes us boring adults feel young again and makes us smile more.
And yet you chose to criticise other while knowing nothing about them.
Welcome back... i've missed you.
I’ll stay out of threads like this
That went well then.
When my kidsl bicker and both come to me to sort it out, rather than listen to both cases and then passing judgement. I'd tell them that they needed to negotiate with other to come to a resolution by themselves. Seems to work, and also allows them to learn how to negotiate as well as understand that is life, there won't always be a authoritive figure. who will sort things out for them. If one of them has done something genuinely wrong, then this would need to dealt with as a seperate issue.
.
Well this thread was always going to take unkindly with anyone who has had a different experience with kids. Popping ones head above the parapet and posting about this will always appear sanctimonious. However it still needs said IMO.
However it still needs said IMO.
What needs to be said? That if your kids are arseholes it's because you made them arseholes?
I'm not sure if that needed saying, tbh. I don't even think the OP really meant, 'My kids are arseholes' but rather, 'My kids are currently behaving like arseholes and it's driving me crazy.'
When your kids have you at the end of your tether it can genuinely feel like you are the only person in the world that has ever felt this way. No one else experiences this and there must be something fundamentally wrong with you to have created such monsters.
The reactions on the first couple of pages show that this feeling of being the only bad parent in the world is actually incredibly common.
Sure, there are a few parents who have magically managed to produce offspring who never drive them mental but I suspect they are in the minority. Personally, if those parents want to pop up and say, 'My kids are fine' then OK. I might be very jealous but everyone is free to voice their experiences.
If, however, these people feel the need to pop up and say, 'My kids are fine, you must be bad parents' then they can get in the sea.
By the way, do anyone else's kids do this?
Sometimes my 8 and 11 year old are fine playing together. Other times they are a bit fed up with each other so go to different places and do their own thing. Other times (and this seems to be their default behaviour during the holidays) they can't stand the sight of each other but they also can't stand to be separated by more than a metre.
Cue literally constant arguments, punches, kicks, scratching, shouting, screaming, etc that no amount of mediation or forced separation can fix.
They hate each other but also can't be apart from each other. In retrospect it's probably some kind of reaction to the stress of new surroundings and new routines and honestly, it's kind of endearing. Endearing but only in retrospect.
At the time the only thing that keeps me sane is fantasising about jumping off a fourth floor balcony and finally putting an end to the torture. That and booze.
My dad's cure when my elder brothers and myself decided to misbehave, fight ,bicker or be disrespectful was to clump us equally around the back of the earhole. And , I can assure you, I didn't love him any the less for it .
My kids (12.5yo boy and 7yo girl) have been pretty darn good on all of our recent holidays even including an 03:00 start an 02:00 return on the recent trip and 17h of travelling and an 11h flight on the previous trip. They were quiet, well behaved, read and watched ipads and played quiet games.
They do occasionally fight and bicker, but the kids know not to infringe upon Wheaton's Law (Rule 1 - Don't be a dick) and can recite it. Whichever one does, they're reprimanded and usually don't do it again as they know there's a rising scale of punishment.
They were MUCH better behaved than all of the other kids around them on the return flight home.
Almost all of the bad behavior we saw both on holiday and on the flight was caused by badly prepared or distracted parents (I'm not saying that's you BruceWee). Ipads out of power, 1 toy to share with multiple kids, noisy toys or games, not booking seats together on the plane - who does this?
I'd also agree that most French kids were better behaved than the UK/German/Indian tourists we saw. Not all but a lot.
I also agree with not overworking them. We do 1 day adventures and 1 day at home (pool, snacks, games, reading, etc) on a rolling schedule and every second adventure day is decided on by the kids. This gives them things to look forwards to and have a stake/say in what's going on.
My dad’s cure when my elder brothers and myself decided to misbehave, fight ,bicker or be disrespectful was to clump us equally around the back of the earhole. And , I can assure you, I didn’t love him any the less for it .
Oh, believe me. It's tempting.
My parents used hitting (substitute with your favourite euphemism, smacking, clipping, clumping, etc but remember they all mean hitting) as their preferred form of discipline.
Prior to having my own kids I used to think it was understandable and that I deserved it. After having my own kids I realised that hitting kids isn't anything to do with discipline. It's frustration, pure and simple.
Someone is annoying you so you hit them. I'm sure they'd do the same to adults they found annoying if they thought they could get away with it.
Kind of crazy that England still allows people to hit their kids in this day and age. Too many people who got hit as kids and have internally normalised it, I guess.
Kind of crazy that England still allows people to hit their kids in this day and age. Too many people who got hit as kids and have internally normalised it, I guess.
Reading this thread with interest, even though my kids are now well and truly grown up (mid 30s) so selective memory has filtered out a lot of the challenging parts of parenting. I think you've made a few pertinent points Brucewee, most of which I agree with, but I do wonder why yet again, you feel the need to attribute negative connotations to England in a thread where it's not really relevant. I know the law on physically disciplining kids is different in Scotland (correctly so imo), but do you really think that's because more English people were hit and have "internally normalised" it than in Scotland or elsewhere?
Actually with my father it was not frustration, it was to do with respect. You were expected to behave and be respectful to others, particularly adults. Verbal warnings were usually given unless your transgression was , in his opinion, beyond that stage . I will also add that my father was brought up in a working class household in Middlesbrough and was probably influenced by his own upbringing.
The highs and lows of being a parent are like no other.
Its hard, its joyful, its painful.
All i can say is i had engrained in me many of my fathers parenting traits (which i now realise were pretty shite), after reading this...
it has changed my life, the way i parent and my outlook on it all. Its available as an audio book too, should you not have time to read. I cannot recommend it enough.
Using fear as a parenting tool is not healthy. Your kids should want to 'be good' due to learning, respect and love, not because they think they will get a beating from their parents.
and was probably influenced by his own upbringing.
I think we all are. My Dad 'smacked' us a fair bit. I think he thought it was the right thing to do, as his dad had done with him. Growing up in the 1930s and 40s it was pretty much the norm, so I certainly don't 'blame' him. I don't think it taught me respect or any of the other guff attributed to it. I respected my Dad because he was honest, hardworking, loved my Mum and took an interest in us kids. I respected him despite the occasional backhand. If there had been much more of it, it would have seriously eroded that respect.
I think I lightly smacked ours once or twice, instantly regretted (and still feel guilty about) it and vowed to stop, which I did. I don't think elements of bad parenting, like 'smacking' are an unbreakable cycle, but I do think there is a subconscious tendency to revert to what you know, especially as new parents. It takes some emotional effort to question what you were told was right as a child and to reject it.
I'll just say that you were expected to be respectful in our house when I was growing up and that's what I was. I didn't smack my own kids when they were growing up but I didn't need ( or want to) but they are certainly two of the nicest and respectful adults I know.
Prior to having my own kids I used to think it was understandable and that I deserved it. After having my own kids I realised that hitting kids isn’t anything to do with discipline. It’s frustration, pure and simple.
That resonates. "It never did me any harm" was my attitude. Never did it with the eldest. One awful day with the youngest I was at the end of my tether, think was refusing to stay still for a nappy change, and I slapped her fairly gently on the leg.
We were both shocked. For a brief moment I saw hurt, confusion and then stubbornness cross her face. I just felt ashamed that I'd done it out of my own tiredness and frustration.
Never did it again. Was firm when necessary but never resorted to violence again. Still feel awful for doing it now, 15-16 years later.
but I do wonder why yet again, you feel the need to attribute negative connotations to England in a thread where it’s not really relevant.
I didn't mean to have a pop at England. Given Scotland and Wales changed the law about 5 minutes ago I don't think that's much to boast about in terms of normalisation.
It was more just because England is in increasingly isolated company when it comes to hitting your kids. I do wonder if most people in England are generally aware of how few countries still allow it in Europe.
I guess I should mention it's still legal in NI but who knows what they do there.
Actually with my father it was not frustration, it was to do with respect.
I'm pretty sure my parents would have given me a similar explanation. Same with my friends whose parents hit them.
Talking to my friends though, one peculiar thing pops out in almost all cases. Whatever behaviour was causing the hitting didn't really stop. The hitting stopped though. In all cases it was either because we got bigger or because the parents came close to being on the wrong end of the 'child' suddenly deciding they could throw their hands too.
It's fine having lofty ideals that justify why you hit your kids. The real test is if you are going to stick to your ideals once you realise your kids are going to kick the shit out of you if you try hitting them again.
Kinda get what you're saying there but.....by the time I was bigger I had realised that it was my behaviour that had created situations where a wallop was administered and I didn't behave like that any more.
( My dad was also built like a brick privy )
My son is in elementary school. I know a lot of people with a lot of children. although the catchment area is wide, most of its intake of the school is from one pretty homogenized and small neighbourhood. It’s a “nice” area.
however, there seems to be no rhyme nor reason to the way an individual child will behave. To assume that a child’s behaviour is entirely down to how they have been raised or that their behaviour in public is the same as at home is just wrong.
not sure what I’m trying to say, but some kids are not too bright, but very polite. Others are bright as buttons, but really struggle with going to school. Some can’t help but destroy things, while their siblings are gentle and kind.
if you have good or easy children you are lucky. If you have a child with big issues, you are unlucky. If you aren’t a natural parent (something you’ll probably discover too late!) you are unlucky. If you’re a great parent but your partner isnt, you are also unlucky.
i have a good child. He’s not easy and is Incredibly strong willed. I struggle at times. What I found most disheartening was that when I was initially struggling the information that I got from parenting books was exactly what I was doing, but it wasn’t working for us. However at school he is engaged in the lessons, popular with his classmates and well behaved.
My recent struggle is getting him to brush his teeth in the morning. I could say to myself, they are his teeth. If he doesn’t brush them, ultimately it’s not my problem. Unfortunately, that doesn’t sit well with me, so I persist with the struggle. It’s bloody frustrating.
still don’t know what I’m trying to say, but it’s difficult, with all the information that we have easy access to these days it can quickly become perplexing. There is more that one parenting technique and not all parenting techniques work with all children. A neighbour has great success with punishment and reward (naughty step/gold stars kind of thing) while another using the same approach just gets entrenched in battles. Some children don’t want to be controlled in that fashion or end up getting confused by being rewarded for doing the things that they really should just be doing as part of a family (getting a treat for tidying up their toys for example).
Anyway, family holidays are more like business trips than they are like the holidays you enjoyed before you had children. They can still be enjoyable, but they won’t be the same.
TLDR, parenting is difficult and people are better at it than others. All children are different, don’t respond to the same parenting techniques and are pretty much born with their personalities.
If my kids refused to do something that is obviously a good thing for them like: brush their teeth or go to bed. I'd have the usual discussion with them and show them pictures online of people's rotten teeth etc. if they persisted, I'd start to remove everything they enjoy, one thing at a time. Sounds harsh but I'm afraid if they are going to live under my roof, they're going to do what I say, especially when it's something that will genuinely be beneficial for them.
Best thing is to just speak with them, and explain things logically, I hated being told to do something as a kid without any proper reasoning behind it.
I’d start to remove everything they enjoy, one thing at a time. Sounds harsh but I’m afraid if they are going to live under my roof, they’re going to do what I say, especially when it’s something that will genuinely be beneficial for them.
yes, you’d think that this would work, wouldn’t you?
pictures of rotten teeth are a good idea, but I’d probably have to clean up the vomit afterwards!
I'm at my Mum's at the moment, my sister and her two girls (8 & 10) arrived yesterday.
The girls are of the age where they can be smart, funny, intelligent and genuinely kind.
But they're also in constant competition with each other, any perceived unfairness results in an argument and they're incapable of walking through the house without one of them tapping, tickling or pulling the hair of the other.
A: OWW, you pulled my hair!!
B: did NOT (blatant lie)
A: /punches B in retaliation
B: OWWW, that REALLY hurt! /sobs. I only pulled your hair a bit and you really thumped me!!
Repeat 10 minutes later.
but I do wonder why yet again, you feel the need to attribute negative connotations to England in a thread where it’s not really relevant.
Such a weird comment. Especially as you answer your own question right afterwards.( That the law is different.)
Kids are tough. My boys squabble then play nicely then squabble. I remember doing the same with my sister.
Hitting kids doesn't work. I was hit as a child an it never stopped me doing things. Hitting a child is a parents frustration and to my mind demonstrates the parent can't control their emotions. If a manager hit an employee they'd be out on their ear. Hitting a child is the same abuse of power. Don't get me wrong I've shouted and lost my temper but it's never resorted to violence. I can't tell my kids not to hit then hit them.... Talk about mixed messages.
Anyway my kids are hard work and frustrate me from time to time but they're also great and bring me great joy.
Such a weird comment. Especially as you answer your own question right afterwards.( That the law is different.)
@thegeneralist No, read it again. I didn't answer my own question. I acknowledged that the law was different, but I felt that the person I was quoting was implying the law hadn't been changed in England, because English people had 'internally normalised' hitting kids in a way people in the other parts of the UK hadn't. He clarified that he didn't mean that and all was good. Is that OK with you?
Phillipa Perry’s book is really good! It’s not the answer to everything (and it’s not always easy to do as she advises) but she explains parenting far better than I could.
Isn't this exactly what kennels were invented for..?
