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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

In terms of who is impacting the boy, na, likely the mom is not having the big negative impact you think she is. He was fired and experienced natural consequence and her hissy fit with the resturant owener is not taking that away.  I know you don't approve of her parenting.  And it doesn't sound ideal or healthy.  But outcomes are not as directly related to connected to parenting styles as you think.  The doing harm here is likely the parent who is chonically withholding approval and using money as power. It's imteresting that you have more crictism for the overinvolved mom than the truely toxic dad. . .[/quote]

OP here. I think his dad is a total POS. Excuse my language. I think both of them are toxic.  I don't know why but I blame her for not protecting the kid - not telling her husband to shut up and not leaving him. Maybe she thinks she can counter that damage dad was causing with her overbearing love.

Yes, outcomes vary. But one thing I know for sure - if you don't let your kid fail and experience the consequences of failing, if you keep removing consequences for them and fixing everything for them, it's a recipe for disaster.[/quote]

But in this case he expereinced the consequence of failure.  I think you have a case about the mom not protecting the boy from the POS dad, but that's not what gets you so worked up.  You reserve that for her helicoptering.  But the truth is that there is not a direct single outcome of being ovreinvestested in the minutea of your kids' lives.  Some kids thrive in that, some kids are hostile but no real world negative consequences beyond a bad relationship with mom, and some kids rebell or fail.  In this case, the kid is not doing well in AP and stole money from where he worked.  The first is a non issue and the second is bad but not NEARLY as bad as what other (non-helicoperting parents) on this board are facing with kids who get into drugs or fall in to severe depression. No one is going to get worked up about a kid who stole money one time.  Not good, but not DISASTER. This may be a blip and he goes on to do just fine, or this may be a sign that he needs help and he gets it, or this may be the beginning of a muddling though period lasting a decade or so (he holds down jobs periodically, goes to a decent but not steller college, makes small mistakes with the law, gradutes in 5-6  years, and pulls it together in his late twenties - this is LITERALLY the narrative of most people I know), or it may be the beginning of a bad slide into drugs and ultimaetly jail and lawlessness.  I would say that 1, 2, and 3 are most likely.  And no one considers 1 or 2 or 3 disasters (except perhaps you).[/quote]

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