Good-natured, well-behaved, polite kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this nature or nurture?

As a parent to 5 children, I can tell you it's 90% nature 10% nurture.

Having nearly a half kids really knocks you off your high horse.

I agree. My three children are all pretty different.

Also, anecdotal, my good friend has a son she adopted at birth. She and her husband are the nicest, gentlest people, and I see a lot of them. They are both well educated, pour tons of time, energy, and love into their son. She is a SAHM, no other children. They struggle so much with his behavior. Ive seen poor parenting and this is not it. He has tendency and behaviors that there is no way he learned at home. They are just innate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good-natured, well-behaved, polite kids...

...are kids who are paid attention to by their parents. So they are secure in knowing that they are important and loved.

+ 1

Parents also set limits and let them know when they are disappointed by their behavior to others. That's the key imho. Kids who feel well loved and securely attached will be internally ashamed if you let them know you have been disappointed in their behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good-natured, well-behaved, polite kids...

...are kids who are paid attention to by their parents. So they are secure in knowing that they are important and loved.

+ 1

Parents also set limits and let them know when they are disappointed by their behavior to others. That's the key imho. Kids who feel well loved and securely attached will be internally ashamed if you let them know you have been disappointed in their behavior.

I think you are way off the mark. I have never had to set many limits. My kids just behave. They just do. I have friends who are very good parents. Loving, attentive, set limits, etc, and their kids are wild. They struggle with behaviors. Parenting can influence children a little, but so much of our children come out the way they come out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good-natured, well-behaved, polite kids...

...are kids who are paid attention to by their parents. So they are secure in knowing that they are important and loved.

+ 1

Parents also set limits and let them know when they are disappointed by their behavior to others. That's the key imho. Kids who feel well loved and securely attached will be internally ashamed if you let them know you have been disappointed in their behavior.

Some kids just don't feel that internal shame. You can try to convince them, but it just doesn't register. Maybe they're on the spectrum somewhere or maybe it's something else, but this isn't a universal trait.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good-natured, well-behaved, polite kids...

...are kids who are paid attention to by their parents. So they are secure in knowing that they are important and loved.

As a clinical psychologist who spends 90% of my work day doing neuropsych evaluations on children from all types of families this is a constant education process i have to go through on a daily basis. Barring major dysfunction, personality traits are genetic. Your assessment is a common, but ignorant and very antiquated one.

The other side of the coin is that I sometimes see very compliant children who are pleasers because they are walking on eggshells around their parents. They actually don't feel valued and accepted. They come to me as "good" kids with some educational issues and once you peel the onion back it's the compliance that actually is the root of the problem.

The reality is, if you work with families, you often see a huge spectrum of children in the same family raised the exact same way, in loving supportive homes (every family who comes to me spending 3k in an evaluation have parents who pay attention to their kids and love them).

There is a lot of arrogance in many of these responses as if some of you deserve credit for having a compliant child, when in fact you are either lucky or have simply systematically torn your kid down.

I do find the anonymity of this forum quite relieving. I'd love to say this to your face, but cannot.

Another child psychologist here. Thank you for writing this. Some of these responses were so off!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good-natured, well-behaved, polite kids...

...are kids who are paid attention to by their parents. So they are secure in knowing that they are important and loved.

As a clinical psychologist who spends 90% of my work day doing neuropsych evaluations on children from all types of families this is a constant education process i have to go through on a daily basis. Barring major dysfunction, personality traits are genetic. Your assessment is a common, but ignorant and very antiquated one.

The other side of the coin is that I sometimes see very compliant children who are pleasers because they are walking on eggshells around their parents. They actually don't feel valued and accepted. They come to me as "good" kids with some educational issues and once you peel the onion back it's the compliance that actually is the root of the problem.

The reality is, if you work with families, you often see a huge spectrum of children in the same family raised the exact same way, in loving supportive homes (every family who comes to me spending 3k in an evaluation have parents who pay attention to their kids and love them).

There is a lot of arrogance in many of these responses as if some of you deserve credit for having a compliant child, when in fact you are either lucky or have simply systematically torn your kid down.

I do find the anonymity of this forum quite relieving. I'd love to say this to your face, but cannot.

Agree. Mom of three kids who has one child that totally humbled me!

Another child psychologist here. Thank you for writing this. Some of these responses were so off!

[Anonymous]

Our kid is awesome and we are 100% lucky. I mean sure, we'd love to take some credit, and I guess we can in some ways, but she's been a happy, easy going kid from birth. For sure more nature than nurture.

[Anonymous]

Good nature is, well, nature. Well-behaved and polite are a combination of nature and nurture. Some kids are wired to be more compliant, more sociable, more whatever mix of traits, but manners and behavioral guidelines are taught...and not just by parents. Teachers, extended family, and peers are all important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good-natured, well-behaved, polite kids...

...are kids who are paid attention to by their parents. So they are secure in knowing that they are important and loved.

As a clinical psychologist who spends 90% of my work day doing neuropsych evaluations on children from all types of families this is a constant education process i have to go through on a daily basis. Barring major dysfunction, personality traits are genetic. Your assessment is a common, but ignorant and very antiquated one.

The other side of the coin is that I sometimes see very compliant children who are pleasers because they are walking on eggshells around their parents. They actually don't feel valued and accepted. They come to me as "good" kids with some educational issues and once you peel the onion back it's the compliance that actually is the root of the problem.

The reality is, if you work with families, you often see a huge spectrum of children in the same family raised the exact same way, in loving supportive homes (every family who comes to me spending 3k in an evaluation have parents who pay attention to their kids and love them).

There is a lot of arrogance in many of these responses as if some of you deserve credit for having a compliant child, when in fact you are either lucky or have simply systematically torn your kid down.

I do find the anonymity of this forum quite relieving. I'd love to say this to your face, but cannot.

Another child psychologist here. Thank you for writing this. Some of these responses were so off!

Yes, but aren't you seeing a select portion of the population? Any parent who is taking their kid to a neuropsych evaluation for behavior problems is the kind of parent who wants to have well-behaved polite kids and has probably tried a lot of things and failed. I know a lot of parents who have pretty neurotypical kids who simply let them run wild. I do think if their parents exercised some discipline over them, they would be far better behaved but they do not. One parent explained to me that they did not want to "break his spirit". I failed to see why imposing some sort of consequence for running through someone else's house and screaming at the top of his lungs would do that. She is the kind of parent who just watches while her kid misbehaves and always has an excuse for it.

So I think it's possible that you can do a lot right as a parent and end up with a badly behaved child because of nature, but you could also have a child that is that way because you don't do any parenting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good nature is, well, nature. Well-behaved and polite are a combination of nature and nurture. Some kids are wired to be more compliant, more sociable, more whatever mix of traits, but manners and behavioral guidelines are taught...and not just by parents. Teachers, extended family, and peers are all important.

Absolutely agree with this. You have to drill and reinforce manners and behavioral guidelines in ALL kids. But you can reinforce until you're blue in the face and a kid wired to be challenging will have a lot harder time getting it. Versus I see the way my "good natured" kid WANTS to be polite and well behaved and it's a more about reminding her to do the right thing, not convincing her why she should do the right thing. If you think it's just about nurture and parenting, you're a combination of lucky and just unaware.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good-natured, well-behaved, polite kids...

...are kids who are paid attention to by their parents. So they are secure in knowing that they are important and loved.

As a clinical psychologist who spends 90% of my work day doing neuropsych evaluations on children from all types of families this is a constant education process i have to go through on a daily basis. Barring major dysfunction, personality traits are genetic. Your assessment is a common, but ignorant and very antiquated one.

The other side of the coin is that I sometimes see very compliant children who are pleasers because they are walking on eggshells around their parents. They actually don't feel valued and accepted. They come to me as "good" kids with some educational issues and once you peel the onion back it's the compliance that actually is the root of the problem.

The reality is, if you work with families, you often see a huge spectrum of children in the same family raised the exact same way, in loving supportive homes (every family who comes to me spending 3k in an evaluation have parents who pay attention to their kids and love them).

There is a lot of arrogance in many of these responses as if some of you deserve credit for having a compliant child, when in fact you are either lucky or have simply systematically torn your kid down.

I do find the anonymity of this forum quite relieving. I'd love to say this to your face, but cannot.

Thank you. The smugness was overwhelming.

[Anonymous]

Nature in our house. We are not very good parents (yell when frustrated, pushovers, too indulgent, etc.) and our kids are awesome. I really do not think it is anything we did.

[Anonymous]

I come from a large family. There are 5 of us children. 2 of which were adopted at birth (myself and my twin brother). I can tell you FIRST HAND that nature dictates so much of who we are. There were two troublemakers in my family who drove my parents to the edge of their sanity. This is my bio brother and my non bio sister. Same parents, same treatment. A very healthy home. My sister even struggles with addiction. My brother and her were like two pease ina rotten pod. Always sneaking out and terribly defiant. My sister unfortunately never grew out of it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good-natured, well-behaved, polite kids...

...are kids who are paid attention to by their parents. So they are secure in knowing that they are important and loved.

+ 1

Parents also set limits and let them know when they are disappointed by their behavior to others. That's the key imho. Kids who feel well loved and securely attached will be internally ashamed if you let them know you have been disappointed in their behavior.

I think you are way off the mark. I have never had to set many limits. My kids just behave. They just do. I have friends who are very good parents. Loving, attentive, set limits, etc, and their kids are wild. They struggle with behaviors. Parenting can influence children a little, but so much of our children come out the way they come out.

I’m “way off the mark” for setting limits? So when my son who is a little impulsive says something mean to his little sister that hurts her feelings I should just ignore it instead of letting him know that that was an unkind, hurtful thing to say and how would he like it if someone he looked up to said that mean thing to him? Yeah ok, gtfo.

I abhor parents who just let their kids do and say whatever with no boundaries, limits, or discussions about how their actions have consequences and behavior affects other people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nature in our house. We are not very good parents (yell when frustrated, pushovers, too indulgent, etc.) and our kids are awesome. I really do not think it is anything we did.

+1. I consider us maybe C+ parents. We're overly permissive and lazy, though very warm and loving (maybe excessively so). And our kid is kind, considerate, easy-going, good-natured, and respects authority. Absolutely not down to us.

I think it's a bell curve, honestly. On the left tail are kids who by nature have strong negative traits that no amount of good parenting can overcome. On the right tail are the kids who are so naturally good that even crappy parenting doesn't harm them. All the other kids are in the middle with some combination of innate goodness and susceptibility to parenting quality.