Reply to Completely Lost It on my Teen DD

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]For those of us who don't subscribe to an authoritarian parenting style, it really is hard to understand the need to demand "respect." As adults, don't we have enough self-respect that we don't need tribute from our children for our self-esteem?

Of course teens can be grating and that can make parents sad. They're supposed to be pushing off to find their own way. It is not as if there isn't plenty of research on child/teen development and the dynamics behind how the parent-child relationship changes. In exchange for suffering the teenage years, we get to have an interesting adult relationship with them.

My goal is for DC to become a happy, well-adjusted adult with good moral judgment. Simply demanding compliance to parental demands doesn't do much to build ethical thinking, since you can't rely on someone else to tell you what to do as an adult.

And to further the parenting culture wars, I doubt a passive or compliant child is going to have the ambition or wherewithal to become a real high achiever. It's how you produce binge-drinking frat boys/sorority girls at third tier colleges and future sales reps.[/quote]

[quote]we don't need tribute from our children for our self-esteem?[/quote]

I don't.  My child needs to recognize that he is still my child.

[quote]My goal is for DC to become a happy, well-adjusted adult with good moral judgment. Simply demanding compliance to parental demands doesn't do much to build ethical thinking, since you can't rely on someone else to tell you what to do as an adult.[/quote]

Same goal here.  Parenting is more than simply demanding compliance.  Are your parents ethical thinkers?  How about your grandparents, aunts, uncles.. etc?  Was compliance and respect optional in their homes, or was it expected?

[quote]I doubt a passive or compliant child is going to have the ambition....[/quote]

You can doubt all you want.. it happens.  There's a whole middle ground there you've missed.  Kids don't have to be disrespectful, combative and rude to grow up to be independent, ambitious adults.  Looking at my own family and friends, it's the combative ones who are the less ambitious.  It's the one who didn't learn any respect for anyone who lost his business because he couldn't keep employees.  He treated them with the same lack of respect he treated everyone else.  Nobody would stay working with him, and it reached the point that nobody would hire his company either.  He couldn't keep his "ambitious" opinions to himself.

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