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Wow. Quarantine made me realize I don’t like my kid
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Anonymous
| ADHD? |
Anonymous
+100 Terrible parenting is clearly to be blamed. Their parents should have tried harder now we have to deal with their parents inability to create perfectly lovely likable adults. |
Anonymous
Actually, these hours are in the normal range for ages. Even teens can need 9hrs of sleep. He was probably just more sensitive to not getting what he needed. |
Anonymous
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Newsflash: this too shall pass
I cannot stand my 14 year old DD either (not since 7th grade). Entitled, believes the world revolves around her, is horrible to her parents and little brother, etc. etc. And, she'll get past this phase and be back to my lovely daughter one of these days. Until then, I pick my battles, and steer clear when she's on the warpath! |
Anonymous
^^ exhibit A of poor parenting |
Anonymous
It seem counter intuitive but spend more one on one time with him each day. Don't ask him just initiate yourself. It will take a week or two but I bet you will start to see results, |
Anonymous
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The kid is 8....
they have not even begun their personality development yet. It is great you noticed, now do something about it! You can tell them stories about virtuous people who exhibit the qualities you want the child to exhibit. You can put a rule in the house that the undesirable behavior they're expressing is not acceptable. You can dole out consequences for not abiding by your rules. You control their access to everything: food, internet, electricity, water.... You're the parent, why would you come to this forum to complain about your own kid that you have 100% control over??? |
Anonymous
I see the unhelpful are here again. Its ok to not like your kid, but you have to find a way to deal with them for your sake and the sake of your family. I've got a teenager and an 8 yr old. The 8 yr old is most happy when he gets his way and argues every. Single. Point. I try throw in a compromise every so often, but its mostly "do what you are told without arguing". Why? Because I'm the parent. There are times when I will hear him out. If we are all tired, that's not one of those times. There has to be somewhat of a balance between free time and work and I remind him of this constantly. Like your child, DS is not a good student. Now is not the time to address this. You and your child don't need additional stress at this time. Acknowledge your child's academic short-comings and move on at their pace. |
Anonymous
You don't know what the child is thinking and you aren't given a clear picture of how the parent is parenting. There are plenty of kids out there that are just jerks. Plenty of kids who don't respond to consequences or lean-in parenting or 1-2-3 Magic or any of other latest and greatest techniques. No amount of parenting, short of beating them is going to make them change. So, don't judge. |
Anonymous
We can all be that way at some point in time. We can't all be perfect all the time. Like you, right now. Not being thoughtful towards Op. |
Anonymous
lol!!! Do you even have kids? 
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Anonymous
Finally some real advice. Thank you, PP, I'm going to try this on my problem child. (Not OP) |
Anonymous
You clearly don't have a difficult child. They do not respond to things like this. Correcting behavior, doling out consequences and taking away privileges all day long gets so, so, so tiring and does nothing to change the child. It just makes it the parents' responsibility to control their behavior instead of their own. So tedious..... |
Anonymous
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I have 8 yo twins and had a problem for a while with one, but not the other. Just so you know, it can be a long and involved process to fix, but your son is young enough that you fix this if you put the time in. I had a little more time with only 2 kids and you'll have less time with 4 kids, but it is possible.
First, we sat down and had a private (from the siblings) conversation about why he complained a lot and made things difficult. The explicit reasons were not unexpected. We were often critical of things he did (he's a little lazy and uninspired). He wanted some 1:1 time because he always felt in the shadow of his brother. And he transitions poorly. He can't just stop and drop what he is doing to do something else. If we ask him to do things "right now" he has a hard time changing gears, accepting that he can't finish what he was working on/doing and pick up what we want him to do. Now the unwritten things he wanted was that he didn't feel that he had enough positive feedback and he didn't feel like he got enough attention. We rarely did things with them individually. Especially as twins, being a unique individual that is part of being identified as a couple by most of the world, was important. He loved being a twin and loved his brother, but he needed some individuality and recognition as an individual. I expect that middle children often feel the same, needing more attention and needing some 1:1 time with parents and some recognition that he is special and loved outside of being "the kids". First and last are often singled out more and identified more. Middle kids often get a little bit of neglect situationally. So, it took about 2 years to turn him around (from about 5-7 yo). It took a lot of deliberate work to make sure that criticism was calm and patient and seemingly constructive rather than negative. We had to make sure to give positive feedback, even for things that seemed run of the mill. In your case, make sure that you aren't evaluating him based on his older siblings. Sometimes middle kids do what their older siblings do. It may seem normal for the older kids, but you have to remember that especially if the middle kid hasn't done it as much, is not as experienced, or may not have as good manual dexterity, that something that is average for the older sibling may be worth acknowledging with positive feedback for a younger sibling. We had to make sure that we set aside time to split our kids up and do things 1:1 with each kid. It's hard because we both work full-time and if we are both occupied by childcare then we can't get much of anything else done, so we often divide and conquer, one doing childcare and the other doing housework, chores, errands, etc. But we tried to make sure to separate them. We had to make sure that even when they were doing the same thing or together, that we had to separate out what each was doing to give some more individual attention to each even when they were together. That was a challenge and we all learned through the process. And for transitioning, we had to start thinking early what we needed him to do. Giving him warnings 10 minutes and 5 minutes and 2 minutes before we needed him to transition helped a lot. He knew that he needed to start to wrap up what he was doing and start transitioning to new things early, so they didn't feel so abrupt and he felt he got to finish what he was doing. The first few months, it didn't feel like it was working and it was discouraging. As parents, we want to see more evidence of progress and it didn't seem like it. But we kept with it and after a few months, there was noticeable behavioral change. He started being less cross with the world, and less of a pain. We discovered that he had a good sense of humor and was able to laugh at himself (something he couldn't do before as he felt the world did not like him before) and laugh with people instead of lashing out at people who he thought were laughing at him. He was able to distinguish between people laughing at him and people laughing with him. I know that all children are individual and unique. What worked for us may or may not work for you, but I hope that what I've said may help you try to find your son. I know that some kids won't react to this type of change, but we were fortunate our little PITA did. And he's so different now. Good luck. |
Anonymous
| People who think kids’ personalities are 100% the result of parenting must have max 1 kid. It’s ridiculous. We have 3 kids. None are “problem” kids. But 2 of them have literally the opposite personality. Could not be more different. The idea that their personalities are totally due to our parenting is laughable. |