Introvert Parents – A little help please

A work colleague inherited a teenage stepdaughter, and became fed up with the constant bedroom door slamming. He solved the issue by removing the door from its hinges…

Learning to be bored/wait is a skill. From it comes creativity and imagination and patience. If you fill a child’s day with constant activity, they expect to be entertained all the time, and never have any space in their brain to develop creativity through themselves.

Definately true.

Constantly running after them entertaining is a real chore and doesn’t do the kids any good either.
First few days of the easter hols my wife was working and I had a shed to build. The kids get telly if they want until 10am or so and then it’s outside.
I left an old pallet on the deck and gave them some saws and a hammer and nails then left them to it. They engaged (doesn’t always happen) and believe it or not this kept them engrossed for two full days. They made letters and things then painted them.
I am lucky though to live on a culdesac with loads of nice kids to entertain each other.
Only two are mine!
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That’s so funny, nickc! 😀 Just out of curiosity how old are you kids? And how did you deal with the following phases that I’ve either experience or talked to fellow parents about?

Ignoring a polite request and doing the opposite.
Black is white.
NO. **** off.
I will sabotage your lives
I will sabotage your couple
I will sabotage my school results
I will be foul with you even if it sabotages my own life
I will self destruct
I’m going to kill myself (one of juniors mates did)
Dope is harmless (more than one now has issues and the above mentioned is dead)
Anarchy rules!
I will will drink till I drop
I will lie about everything (or be honest about everything in an attempt to shock you or perhaps even as a cry for help)
I’ll try whatever’s being sold
Your threats are idle (except that I did confront your druggy mates/dealers and turn one of your guitars to firewood)
I feel miserable and I’m going to make everyone around me miserable and then I can be even more miserable

Just now and then you meet a parent that claims never to have had a moments trouble. Some people are tyrants or born liars.

There’s only one thing I haven’t done, hit him. I reckon he’ll forgive me the rest, and even if he doesn’t I have the satisfaction of knowing it got him where he is now. And it ain’t over yet, kids are for life. One guy told me his son’s divorce was one of his hardest parenting tasks, and I know another mate’s daughter dying of cancer whilst in the throes of his own divorce was harrowing.

Who’d have ’em eh? Me, they’re worth it. He’s great!

They’re all different, they live in their world which very quickly is not yours. You need to adapt the means used to the child. Be positive about all the positive stuff they do and negative about the negative – really properly negative if necessary. A quiet, calm reasoned argument isn’t the answer to every situation.

“We may go to London to the science museum, if the weather is bad, if it is arranged in good time, if we can afford it” they hear “We’re going to the Science Museum, the grownups are dealing with the details”

Truth, for sure.

Which reminds me of:

Sounds like heaven to me, i have just spent the day clearing up my 83 year old fathers shit (literally) and pulling up said carpets whilst trying to get my 17 year old to actually do some work towards her A levels whilst sorting student finance for her and her sister while my 23 year son wants me to go and look at property he is interested in buying and how long will it take me to fit a new kitchen and bathroom (also can i have a £25k deposit cheque please) and the wife hates my guts.. because? she hates my guts and in the mean time i try and run my business and stop myself drinking my way to an early grave due to High Blood Pressure Angina Heart disease –

Solution to your problem – get called in to work? ride your bike go to the pub or just ignore the little git….

Jeez. As a dad to a pair of (so far rather stress free, apparently) four and five year old boys, this thread is both terrifying and enlightening. Mostly terrifying though 😯

son is 18, daughter is 15. I’ve not spoken to either of them about any of your list, sorry. I lost it with my lad when he was 10 because he was being a bit of tit about the fact that we’d just got his sister a hamster for her birthday, and he wanted one, and was stropping.

we had a “conversation” about porn sites when he was about 14, he’s probably still looking at them, but at least he’s discreet. at 18, he can watch what wants after all.

I’ve never raised my voice to my daughter.

er, that’s it.

Am I correct in thinking you live closer to the top of a mountain than the center of Brixton, Nick?

Porn was too minor a subject to go on the list, not even discouraged, though I sometimes tease him about the day he rang me for my credit card number when he downloaded the “gendarmerie nationale” virus.

no, we’re a broken family and they live in the centre of Newcastle.

We clearly have different styles in parenting, shall we leave it there?

nickc well f*****g delivered…. Brixton couldn’t stop laughing need to drag there arse to Heaton

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Wow, I didn’t expect such a large and varied response!

For clarity, it’s me that’s the introvert… Although her mum is too and she also shows strong tendencies!
We also don’t yet live together.

As I mentioned usually she is pretty good and our relationship has grown from ‘I don’t care who you are, I don’t want my mum to have a boyfriend’ through the biological father fuelled ‘you’re not my dad, I don’t need to do anything you say’ to cuddles on the sofa discussing the days activities.

Her mum and dad split quite acrimoniously six years ago, and MrsLerk has more or less been responsible for her care as a lone parent – she will gladly admit that she has at times given in to behaviour for an easy life and also cut a lot of slack due to the emotional trauma of the split.
We have been aware of certain comments/ideas which have been planted by him during time spent at his house and she is suffering from a bit of internal turmoil, not wanting to upset him.
I have spoken to her to confirm that I won’t replace him and point out how much happier her mum is now.

I have been encouraging her to use her bike more (bought her a new one of better quality for her birthday last year) but it has taken a long time to get her comfortable with the idea of doing something without her mum, who is unwilling/able to ride one.

Sounds like I’ll have a few years of bike rides and tinkering in the workshop to come!

Time is a wonderful thing when it comes to relationships as she grows older she will realise you are not an alien provided you are straightforward and trustworthy. Not deep meaningful advice just based upon 53 years of life.

Apologies to Edukator but it always makes me laugh when South London is raised as some sort of Ghetto (I know South London very well even as a northerner) and it simply can not be compared to the “crappy” parts of the North of England. Not an opinion an observation.

Jeez. As a dad to a pair of (so far rather stress free, apparently) four and five year old boys, this thread is both terrifying and enlightening. Mostly terrifying though

Might be early days, and there’s still time for it to go horribly wrong, but my 16 and 12 year old daughters are fine. Study, do their homework, the occasional strop but nothing too serious. Most of their friends seem fine, too. At least one or two in my eldest daughter’s class smoke, some of them drink (or at least have got drunk), but again nothing I wouldn’t expect, and nothing I didn’t do when I was their age.

Edukator’s son is an outlier, not the norm – no consolation for him, and he has my sympathies – but I wouldn’t worry that much. Just a bit 🙂

I just picked places poles apart, Oldman. I should have quoted Beaumont Lees in Leicester as it’s the most depressing place in the UK I have spent any time in.

Kids are a function of their total environment of which parenting is a part but not the only part. Their peer group has increasing influence as they grow up and when the peer group is dodgy you just hope that the values you’ve transmitted hold up to the assault.

I’m not going to link the threads because it’s better to let them fade but there are some examples of this forum where good parents doing their best (with other good kids to prove it) have had one go off the rails.

One for Lerk with a smiley, 8)

Edit: junior is great, he just lives things very intensly, is fiercly independent (in thought and action) and lives life a 200km/h with half a dozen balls in the air at the same time. 18 now and things are looking good, but the last 4 years have been very rock and roll (perhaps because he plays in three bands).

Edukator i agree environment is a big part of the challenge including peer groups, not saying any of this is easy

If all else fails…

There’s the ‘**** it’ option – some of my Son’s mates are very “lucky” if you listen to my Son – they get given nice TV’s and consoles, mobile phones or whatever else and are allowed, nay encouraged to hang out in their bedrooms, they can watch thier nonsense all day long if they like as long as you can’t hear it downstairs, eat in their rooms and go to sleep when they like. It’s piss easy parenting, but if I was being mercenary I’d think it really just sets you up for a hellish time in their teens and frankly it’s the lazy option, but if all else fails.

PJ – those are battery children. From my perspective, I’d hesitate to call that approach actual parenting. Those kids are going to have a real tough time learning about life as adults.

v8ninety – Member
Jeez. As a dad to a pair of (so far rather stress free, apparently) four and five year old boys, this thread is both terrifying and enlightening. Mostly terrifying though

True – we only have one (19 months). Looks like the future is going to be interesting!