Do some parents get lucky with easy kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are born with a defined personality!
Great parents can have tough kids for sure.

Yes. I have one of each. People treat me so much worse when they know me as the parent of that difficult child. When they meet me through my easy child, they’re incredibly warm. It’s stark.

I’ve also experienced this. I feel for my kid because he notices the difference and it hurts him.

[Anonymous]

Kids are born with an innate personality but the environment they live in has an incredible impact on behaviour and on brain development after birth. It is always a combination of nature and nurture. Every child interacts with their enviornment differently and therefore parenting two kids the same way could be a positive nurture factor for one and a negative nurture factor for another.

[Anonymous]

Yes, easy first child, slept well at six weeks. Would eat everything. Smiled early. Easy breezy. He is in medical school like his father.
With my second son I had terrible morning sickness. I lost weight. I was so sick. Awful.

They thought he had down syndrome. Had to have to have an amino. Something was always wrong with him. NICU stay for 10 days. Multiple scares with so many problems. I was lucky my husband was a doctor as we could somewhat understand but we were young. Lukekemia was a thought. Brain cancer at one point.

He is my miracle son. He is 21 and a junior in college and doing great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes but most parents of easy children think it’s just due to lax parenting.

Not really. I have an easy child, she was born like that but I also believe she is well behaved because we are very firm with her.

So then you don’t think she was born that way.

She is easy but she is still a child.

[Anonymous]

A friend, who is a very laid back pediatric nurse, had two less easy kids and her neighbor had two easy kids. Then the neighbor had #3. The neighbor actually told my friend that, before she had her third, she thought she was just the better parent. People can be so arrogant and judgy, thinking they are better when it’s just luck.

[Anonymous]

Yes and I think it’s genetic to some extent. My husband is incredibly calm, patient, and has good control of his emotions but was apparently a very active and challenging toddler. Our 3 year old son seems to be exactly like him.

Our younger child is only an infant but already seems completely different. We have to do waaaaaaay less with her than we did with our older kid when he was a baby. She basically just chills and often entertains herself. We are constantly amazed by it, and sometimes even feel a bit guilty that she’s naturally going to get less attention.

[Anonymous]

My kids are 9 and 11 now -- relatively challenging when they were younger. Both have ADHD but seem to really be blossoming as individuals as they get older. Most of the challenges these days have to do with navigating sibling conflict. Just something for parents of only children to remember when assessing family dynamics. My kids (boy and girl) can get pretty feral with each other and I think it surprises people. It often surprises me. But most people also never see the tender moments when they are fiercly loyal to each other.

Something that really helped when my kids were little and completely exhausting was when my mom told me that kids are like flowers--they all develop and bloom at different times and rates. It sounds cheesy but it's really true. And I think it's important to remember because in my opinion the most challenging part of being a parent is balancing the role we play in socialization (conformity) and honoring their individual souls.

[Anonymous]

I had one of each. As others have noted, the difference in the way people treat you depending on if they know you as the parent of a "good" kid or a "bad" kid is stark.

I agree to some extent that difficult kids can be that way in part because they have traits that are generally not welcome in children but can be desirable in adults--strong-willed, independent-minded, etc. This was true of my difficult kid. He was also impervious to peer pressure in a way that my easier kid was not.

I do believe it is largely nature. My difficult kid was much worse than I was as a kid, but we are very similar in some ways. (He's like me turned to 11 if you will.) I think we were good parents to him, but it was really hard for both DH and me much of the time. The teen years were actually the easiest with him.

My easy kid was a peach from the day he was born. He's more like my husband in personality. I'm glad they had a pretty big age gap, so they weren't aware of being the "good" one and the "bad" one.

Both kids are adults now and have turned out great, although my difficult one has struggled with anxiety and depression at times. (Like me.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes but most parents of easy children think it’s just due to lax parenting.

I have easy kids and I think people with more difficult kids often do get laxer than I do, because it's hard to be constantly enforcing things. If you have to intervene a couple times a day you're a lot more likely to do it than if you have to do it every five minutes (and probably do it repeatedly because you're not being obeyed). People pick their battles.

+100

Especially when we’ve been socialized to parent in such a child led way. I can’t imagine hitting my kids but I imagine them being smacked often in a different era!

My four year old got off his bike to argue with me about being far enough away from the car that passed him after I told him to move to the side. He marked the spot on the road with his hands to explain it to me. Then he argued the semantics of how often he had to listen to me. I said always; he countered with being too tired to listen.

It’s like that all day every day. His older brother was exactly the same. But he’s grown into a reasonable teen! Hope!

I’ve got a daughter in the middle who garners rave reviews in school and any organized activity. Always behaving! She can get riled up at home but only resulting from sibling fights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had one of each. As others have noted, the difference in the way people treat you depending on if they know you as the parent of a "good" kid or a "bad" kid is stark.

I agree to some extent that difficult kids can be that way in part because they have traits that are generally not welcome in children but can be desirable in adults--strong-willed, independent-minded, etc. This was true of my difficult kid. He was also impervious to peer pressure in a way that my easier kid was not.

I do believe it is largely nature. My difficult kid was much worse than I was as a kid, but we are very similar in some ways. (He's like me turned to 11 if you will.) I think we were good parents to him, but it was really hard for both DH and me much of the time. The teen years were actually the easiest with him.

My easy kid was a peach from the day he was born. He's more like my husband in personality. I'm glad they had a pretty big age gap, so they weren't aware of being the "good" one and the "bad" one.

Both kids are adults now and have turned out great, although my difficult one has struggled with anxiety and depression at times. (Like me.)

I should say: they weren't quite as aware of being the good kid and the bad kid. My difficult kid was older and so able to observe how things were different for his brother, especially once DS2 started school. And DS2 also saw/experiencedhow difficult DS1 could be. But because they were 5.5 years apart, I don’t think they experienced the feeling of cconstantly being compared, especially by outsiders.

[Anonymous]

Yes 100%. My first was extremely hard in every way. #2 and 3 were so easy. I did absolutely nothing different.

[Anonymous]

I agree. While my kids were not super easy as babies (one was lactose intolerant and we did not realize that until she was 6 months), they are pretty easy kids. Older two are great students. Youngest is a boy and not nearly as good of a student. He is still very young (K) so hopefully that will change. Even though my youngest is also relatively easy, I did not realize how easy my older two were until their brother started school and all of a sudden he was not the best student. I am so glad 2 out of the five me very little work so I can focus a lot of my attention on our youngest.

[Anonymous]

Both my kids were hard babies and difficult as kids. They have been easy teens. My dh and I put a LOT of time and effort into helping them regulate emotions. We were low on screens and high on consistent expectations.

I think our efforts paid off, but I also know that a lot is luck of who they ended up being friends with and that they’re smart enough to do well in school and don’t have learning disabilities. We are also lucky we could afford therapy when needed.

I think nature is a big part, no doubt, but nurture is more than people think.

[Anonymous]

"Easy" is the wrong word. "Compatible" is the right word. Your kid might not be a fit for your lifestyle choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes but most parents of easy children think it’s just due to lax parenting.

I don't. I know very well how lucky I am. They were easy first and then came lax parenting or zero parenting.
I'll give you two examples:
My kid wakes up in the morning and 5 minutes after, we are out the door. He just woke up to pee, brushing his teeth now, and clothes take about 2 minutes. No, we don't eat in the morning. We would if they didn't snack so often at school. See, he all happy and singing right now.
When I'm talking to a grown up, my kids sit quietly next to me until I'm done talking and notice them. They don't interrupt. Absolutely nothing I did. My friends' kids scream for them while I'm talking to them.