why do parents make things forbidden fruit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To PP, nope, my kids never sneaked around. They actually *gasp* followed our rules, and we were generally flexible overall.

HAHAHA..your kids followed your rules because you were flexible about your "rules". Sadly, waiting to hear about whatever daycare center your DS will be spraying with AK-47 clips..."Aidan Bleefner was a quiet sort of kid-no one can remember him do anything other than lighting coffee can filled with gunpowder on fire in the woods behind his family's 8 bedroom house in the Utopia Park neighborhood. His parents were really flexible about rules and when any one tried to suggest there might a problem with their son's behavior, the parents would scream: Fuck You, We're Being Flexible."

Shorter PP: Having rules that adjust to real actual circumstances as needed causes boys to get guns and shoot lots of people.

[Anonymous]

Wow, people are a lot more conservative these days.

[Anonymous]

It depends on how the parents manage the forbidden fruit. For example we don't drink soda in our family. But, I make sure that if my kids want it they can occasionally have it at parties or if they have a craving. Soda isn't "bad" it's just something that we don't have in our house. I don't want soda -or anything else we "ban" - to turn into a forbidden fruit.

Make up isn't "bad" and there are appropriate types of make-up for different ages. An older teenager isn't going to wear bonnie bell lip gloss.

Same thing with boys & parties. If you are banning the party because there will be no adults, that is different because of "boys".

[Anonymous]

I see the "forbidden fruit" argument made to justify all kinds of bad parenting decisions - like I'd rather my kids drink at home than go out & drink, I don't want it to become taboo. The kids I know who were raised like this felt neglected, unloved, and resorted to destructive behaviors like excessive drinking, drugs, sex, and/or eating disorders. Allowing the fruit to be within reach did not do them any favors.

Some things are worth avoiding entirely - underage drinking, sex, drugs, lying - and some things are just what you happen to not have in your life, not because it's forbidden but because you just don't keep it around and for some families, that's processed foods, TV, cable, smart phones, or being willing to pick up your kid from some party in the middle of the night. The former is called parenting and later is called life style preferences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:seems like you are just picking a fight with your kids examples:

-not letting your 13 year old wear makeup
-not letting 15 year old go to a party where there will be boys

My SIL does stuff like this, and it seems like this makes things more "forbidden fruit". Why not just embrace things?

Because you are the parent and you get to decide what is age appropriate for your child at any given time as long as they are living under your roof.

[maril332]

Anonymous wrote:It depends on how the parents manage the forbidden fruit. For example we don't drink soda in our family. But, I make sure that if my kids want it they can occasionally have it at parties or if they have a craving. Soda isn't "bad" it's just something that we don't have in our house. I don't want soda -or anything else we "ban" - to turn into a forbidden fruit.

Make up isn't "bad" and there are appropriate types of make-up for different ages. An older teenager isn't going to wear bonnie bell lip gloss.

Same thing with boys & parties. If you are banning the party because there will be no adults, that is different because of "boys".

and this argument (soda) makes sense.

I remember growing up, my mom would not let us have sweets. Not in the house or out. So instead of us being kids who maybe had a piece of candy here and there, we became crazy when out of our parents view. Going to friends homes and pigging out on as much sugar as we could because we never had any at home. My kids are not raised like that. We have sweets at home to eat in moderation, so hopefully when I'm not around they aren't trying to shove as much in as fast as they can.

[Anonymous]

My parents had rules and I followed them. The rules made sense and didnt make me desire those things more. So, yeah, some kids abide by the rules, why is that so hard to understand?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents had rules and I followed them. The rules made sense and didnt make me desire those things more. So, yeah, some kids abide by the rules, why is that so hard to understand?

Your experience shows that kids (or, at least, one kid, namely you) abide by rules that make sense to them. Which should not surprise anybody. The question is, do kids abide by rules that don't make sense to them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents had rules and I followed them. The rules made sense and didnt make me desire those things more. So, yeah, some kids abide by the rules, why is that so hard to understand?

Your experience shows that kids (or, at least, one kid, namely you) abide by rules that make sense to them. Which should not surprise anybody. The question is, do kids abide by rules that don't make sense to them?

it probably depends. However, you need to understand that the kinds of rules that make sense to some children and parents are the very ones you consider arbitrary. I was not allowed to paint my nails, wear make up and have a boyfriend till 16-18. Alcohol, cigarettes and drugs were totally forbidden. Those rules made sense to me, and I never drank, smoke a cigarette and tried any drugs though I am 40 now. neither have my siblings, now in their fifties. Nor, it turns out, my husband, whose parents were similary strict. Btw, like PP, we were also atheists, so we didn't live in fear or god or something. As a family we criticized everyone and everything and are still very close and laugh together a lot. We all have PhDs as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate to break it to the smug set who says their kids are following the rules because they set them - they are most likely not and are hiding it from you.

Oh FFS...I was waiting for that response. Yeah, my kids are grown now, just as open with us as they always were, and I knew where they were & what they were doing during their teen years. They were extremely busy with school, sports, and extracurriculars, and then we had dinner as a family and the kids did HW until bedtime. On the weekends, they had some friends over, or we did things as a family. It's impossible for some people to believe that you can set boundaries and kids/teens will actually abide by them.

I think the attitude quoted above is why some parents throw up their hands and figure, "Why bother?" My three siblings and I all followed our household rules, too (and we were raised atheist, as my own kids were, so there was no higher power threat or anything like that). I respected my parents then and now and didn't believe it was kind or just to push the envelope. I'm sure there are some personalities who wouldn't do well in that setting, but there are people like myself, my sibs, and our respective kids who love structure and a rules-driven framework. For the most part, we call ourselves geeks.

If you had read my entire post you would have seen that I recommended setting limits for kids. I never said not to have rules and I never indicated that I had thrown my hands up (in fact, I indicated that my DD talks to me and - even if I didn't indicate it in my post - she not only follows our rules, but also appreciates them) . What I did say was that the parents who believe their kids are following their rules because their kids are perfect human beings and wouldn't dare to break a rule that was set are fooling themselves. Rules should be set that are appropriate for each family, their values and their culture; however, if you set rules and don't bother to discuss them with the kids (i.e. "My house, my rules") then you are creating "forbidden fruit". It's really not rocket science.

Oh and stop patting yourself on the back because your family ate dinner together, kids did sports and you had family activities on the weekends. Plenty of families do the same thing - you don't deserve the parent of the year award for creating a normal family environment. Guess what...plenty of the families I referred to whose kids regularly break the rules are known to eat together, play sports together, go on wonderful vacations and play board games on the weekends. The way I see it those are the parents who have thrown in the towel - they are either clueless or in denial.

[Anonymous]

To PP--but what you did say is ridiculous--"the parents who believe their kids are following their rules because their kids are perfect human beings and wouldn't dare to break a rule that was set are fooling themselves."

Parents like me who believe our kids are following our rules do not believe our kids are perfect human beings (???). And we're not fooling ourselves that they're following our rules--we know that they're abiding by them. So your statement is just wrong.

[Anonymous]

I don't know a single family with arbitrary rules. Not a single one. I know plenty of families with rules that are different from my own, or that would be very ill-matched with my children's personalities and our family culture.

Which seems more likwly, OP:
1) there are a limited subset of rules that families can reasonably enforce, beyond which all offspring will end up tearing their life to shreds by breaking every possible rule, or
2) There are as many approaches to parenting as there are children, each with benefits, drawbacks and outcomes that can be difficult to comprehend or those who do not intimately know the children and parents involved.

The dearth of serial killers would suggest that there are more ways to raise a child than you're allowing.

[Anonymous]

*for those

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because some parents have actual limits.

Bingo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To PP--but what you did say is ridiculous--"the parents who believe their kids are following their rules because their kids are perfect human beings and wouldn't dare to break a rule that was set are fooling themselves."

Parents like me who believe our kids are following our rules do not believe our kids are perfect human beings (???). And we're not fooling ourselves that they're following our rules--we know that they're abiding by them. So your statement is just wrong.

My statement was actually my opinion so, by definition, it cannot be "wrong" as you claim....also, you do know that when I said perfect human beings I was being facetious. I know you understand what I was trying to say and you're simply cherry picking for fake emphasis. Oh and adding the excessive exclamation points was a nice little touch.

But more to the point - I think it's great if your kids are following the rules - great job and great for your kids. My kids also follow our rules, but I never set a rule in the house without having a reasonable discussion as to the reasons the rules are set (i.e. the reasons that drinking at a young age is not good from a health perspective and not simply because it is illegal). I'm not perfect and my kids aren't perfect so I would never presume to believe they are. However, you and I both know that there are plenty of parents out there who do believe their kids are perfect. I don't know how old your kids are, but I don't believe for a minute that you haven't run into a parent who believes "Little Johnny" or "Little Susie" is perfect and would never break a rule. I can tell you the example of a party thrown by a friend for her son's birthday (10th grade) a few years ago. She did everything she should to avoid any kids bringing alcohol - taking backpacks, having adults at the party, etc. One young girl decided to bring a bottle of hard alcohol, tried to refuse putting the backpack where she was asked and my friend heard the clink of a glass bottle. When the mother was called and told the woman said she doesn't believe her DD would do such a thing because they had expressly forbidden her from drinking - she was quite insistent that it could never have happened and it must have been someone else...Turns out this girl was one of the biggest partiers of the grade. She did a masterful job of hiding it from her parents and admitted it was because her parents were very strict and would never understand. My friend's son told us this because he thought she was heading in a bad direction. I can also tell you about the girl in my DD's grade who insists to her mother that she needs to be in her room alone because she has so much work and all she does at school is study, study, study. The mother insists that her DD cannot be part of problem group at lunch because she only works at school - that's the rules in their house. Yep - you guessed it - my DD tells me she is the center of problems and admits that she lies to her mother. She doesn't want to deal with telling her mother the truth. Her mom actually brags about her DD's incredible work ethic and pats herself on the back that it because she has set limits and expectations for her kids.

So, my point is that rules without discussion may be useless. Rules without reasoning lead kids to want that forbidden fruit rather than understanding that they should wait until they are older or when they can appreciate it better. Kids are smart and deserve better with regard to rules and expectations. Basically I'm telling people to stop with the "My house, my rules" mentality and move toward the "We need to discuss the reasons why you can't do xyz" - the results will be much better.