Reply to Do some parents just have bad luck in the kid department?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]both. But I have noticed it usually takes until 3 kids+ for parents to realize "for real" it's not them. Parents of 2 or 1 kid have an outblown sense of their impact esp. if they don't have a harder to parent kid. [/quote]

This.  Parenting does play a role, but some kids are just difficult and problematic.  Mothers with 3+ kids all know this.  If you have at least 3 kids, chances are high at least one of them is more difficult than the others.  While they may not be a total train wreck, it definitely enforces that how you kids behave and turn out isn’t all because of your parenting and influence.  [/quote]

You have this backwards. Parenting plays the biggest role in the kids who are "difficult and problematic." That's the difference between very good parents and mediocre or bad parents.

Most parents can raise an easy kid with few challenges. The key there is just not to screw it up (which even some parents can't manage). But you don't have to *work* that hard at it if the kid is just kind of naturally flexible and easy going with no special needs or learning challenges.

But some kids have real challenges and then parents have to work at it, and it's hard. And if you do it well, the kids with challenges can be great. If you do it poorly, it can in fact be a total train wreck. The job is harder and not everyone is up to the task. And this is what people are talking about when they say they thought they understood what it meant to be a good parent, and then had an additional kid who had more challenges. That's when you *really* find out what it is to be a good parent, when you realize the level of patience, emotional maturity, creativity, dedication, and faith it takes to to raise some kids to adulthood.

When I encounter a parent who says "oh parenting can only do so much, so kids are just problematic," that's when I know I've encountered a parent who just isn't up to the task.[/quote]

Some kids are difficult and problematic no matter how good the parenting is.  What you end up seeing is “the best” that kid can be.  It may seem pretty bad to you as an outsider, but it could be so much worse with poor parents.

One of my good friends has a very difficult kid.  They work so hard for him: therapy, parenting support, psychological treatment, on top of his school work.  He still gets in a lot of trouble and isn’t passing all his classes.  I have no doubt without such dedicated parents he would be a drug addict and in juvy or jail right now. [/quote]

DP but it always makes me wonder if some kids just need harsher treatment than others. If he were to run 5 miles before school to get the bad energy out and was punished for every bad grade (in addition to all the therapy), would he stop getting in trouble?

There was a poster upthread who said she was well behaved because terrified of her mother. While this is unhealthy, a healthy dose of being scared might actually be good? Maybe? [/quote]

Oh my word. No, that wouldn't help.

Trying to make her exercise made her more aggressive, due to the adrenaline flowing, if I managed to somehow get her to exercise... and short of abuse, there's no way to force a teen to do anything they don't want to do.

When I started with her, I decided that I wasn't going to say anything that I couldn't enforce.  Trying to ground her would have meant trying to stay awake 24/7 and running back and forth between 3 doors to keep her in.  Forbidding her from going with friends would have meant staying awake to keep her in *and* avoiding vehicles on three sides of the house.  Taking away her phone wouldn't have been acceptable to her lawyer or extended family.  Any "punishment" caused her to lash out at me (verbally, physically, destructive) and I had no way to defend myself without having her arrested.

For us?  What worked was a combination of short and long term incentives tied to behavior and academics.  She had to have external motivation since she had no internal motivation (destroyed by parents over a lifetime of abuse, if she had any initially). I called the police to document severe emotional disturbance, substance abuse beyond the norm, assault, specific and graphic threats of harm/death, and destruction of property in order to get her help, not as punishment.

We decided (together) on a list of privileges.  Every single item was negotiated, and we made a list of how every single one would be earned.  As her behavior improved, we moved the goalposts incrementally, but again, that was negotiated from the start.

As of her 18th birthday, she has graduated high school, has followed through on the plan to learn to drive and get her license, and understands that people will react to things she says just as much as things that she does.

FWIW?  Many, many kids/teens aren't scared of anything that a reasonable, rational adult would threaten.  They either have been through enough to no longer be scared of less extreme danger, have no sense of self-preservation left at all, or know the adult is blowing how air.[/quote]

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