Meme - Gay Army: "Leah McDermott, M.Ed I Your Natu... @therealleahmcd: "Your child doesn't owe you anything.
Not good grades.
Not good moods.
Not nights without waking up.
Not eating every bite.
Not loving every activity.
Not "yes."
Your child doesn't owe you anything just because you're an adult.
Sit with this for as long as you need."
Daniel Vincent: "Coming from the demographic that demands everyone accept them, when they can't accept themselves"
Seamus McGilleycutty: "This is the type of thinking you get from a generation raised on participation trophies and friends instead of parents. My children absolutely owe me all of that and more. I will not be raising anything but successful and independent adults. If there is an issue with that, there will be consequences. And after you are 18? You can do whatever you want, you aren't my problem anymore"
Eddie Callow: "No, they don't owe it to me. Correct. They owe it to themselves. And as a parent I'm going to make sure that happens."
Jessica Austin: "Teaching responsibilities, morals, and work ethic is definitely needed. Clearly your parents never taught you that."
Left wing parenting is a great recipe to raise successful and happy children!
Opinion | What’s Ripping American Families Apart? - The New York Times - "At least 27 percent of Americans are estranged from a member of their own family, and research suggests about 40 percent of Americans have experienced estrangement at some point. The most common form of estrangement is between adult children and one or both parents — a cut usually initiated by the child. A study published in 2010 found that parents in the U.S. are about twice as likely to be in a contentious relationship with their adult children as parents in Israel, Germany, England and Spain. The Cornell sociologist Karl Pillemer, author of “Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them,” writes that the children in these cases often cite harsh parenting, parental favoritism, divorce and poor and increasingly hostile communication often culminating in a volcanic event... The parents in these cases are often completely bewildered by the accusations. They often remember a totally different childhood home and accuse their children of rewriting what happened. As one cutoff couple told the psychologist Joshua Coleman: “Emotional abuse? We gave our child everything. We read every parenting book under the sun, took her on wonderful vacations, went to all of her sporting events.” Part of the misunderstanding derives from the truth that we all construct our own realities, but part of the problem, as Nick Haslam of the University of Melbourne has suggested, is there seems to be a generational shift in what constitutes abuse. Practices that seemed like normal parenting to one generation are conceptualized as abusive, overbearing and traumatizing to another... “My recent research — and my clinical work over the past four decades — has shown me that you can be a conscientious parent and your kid may still want nothing to do with you when they’re older.” Either way, there’s a lot of agony for all concerned. The children feel they have to live with the legacy of an abusive childhood. The parents feel rejected by the person they love most in the world, their own child, and they are powerless to do anything about it. There’s anger, grief and depression on all sides — painful holidays and birthdays — plus, the next generation often grows up without knowing their grandparents. No one even thought to measure family estrangement until relatively recently. Coleman, the author of “Rules of Estrangement,” argues that a more individualistic culture has meant that the function of family has changed. Once it was seen as a bond of mutual duty and obligation, and now it is often seen as a launchpad for personal fulfillment. There’s more permission to cut off people who seem toxic in your life... The meritocracy and high-pressure parenting are also implicated here. Parents, especially among the upper-educated set, are investing more time and effort in their kids. A 2012 survey from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture found that almost three-quarters of parents of school-age kids said they eventually want to become their children’s best friend. Some kids seem to think they need to cut off their parents just to have their own life. “My mom is really needy and I just don’t need that in my life,” one Ivy League grad told Coleman. In other cases, children may be blaming their parents for the fact that they are not succeeding as they had hoped — it’s Mom and Dad who screwed me up. I write about this phenomenon here because it feels like a piece of what seems to be the psychological unraveling of America, which has become an emerging theme of this column. Terrible trends are everywhere. Major depression rates among youths aged 12 to 17 rose by almost 63 percent between 2013 and 2016. American suicide rates increased by 33 percent between 1999 and 2019. The percentage of Americans who say they have no close friends has quadrupled since 1990, according to the Survey Center on American Life. Fifty-four percent of Americans report sometimes or always feeling that no one knows them well, according to a 2018 Ipsos survey. I confess, I don’t understand what’s causing this. But social pain and vulnerability are affecting everything: our families, schools, politics and even our sports. A friend notes that politics has begun to feel like an arena where many people can process and regulate their emotional turmoil indirectly. Anxiety, depression and anger are hard to deal with within the tangled intimacy of family life. But political tribalism becomes a mechanism with which people can shore themselves up, vanquish shame, fight for righteousness and find a sense of belonging. People who feel betrayed will lash out at someone if there is no one there to help them process their underlying hurt. As the Franciscan friar Richard Rohr wisely wrote, if we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it."
My 15-year-old daughter wants to have a sleepover with her boyfriend - "A British mother has sparked debate after revealing her concerns about her 15-year-old daughter wanting to sleep at her boyfriend's house... The mother then said that she said no to the sleep over, because she feels that 'they're still too young', leaving her daughter 'very annoyed.' However after she confessed she was wavering on the decision, other parents were quick to comment, with one suggesting the ban could 'drive a wedge' between them... One parent commented: 'You have to set boundaries for your 15-year-old daughter. Stand firm. 'I don't understand why you're wavering honestly. 'Your daughter is trying to manipulate you, which is normal, but you need to be the parent here, not her mate.'... A third said: 'If they are merely sleeping then why is there a need for her to stay over. It isn't too far to collect her so collect her after the party. 'No you can't stop teens having sex but you can stop facilitating it especially for one under the age of consent, no matter how mature they think they are.' One user warned: 'I had a sleepover at my boyfriend's (16) when I was 15. 'Separate rooms. He sneaked in when everyone was asleep and yes, we had sex. 'If you agree to this, know that your daughter will almost certainly be having sex.'"
Kids Are Master Manipulators. So Use Game Theory Against Them - "Force Cooperation. For siblings who refuse to work together, Zollman recommends a version of the prisoner’s dilemma...
Make Them Pay... have kids bid with chores or their allowance. If one of them wants to name the cat Macaroni & Cheese, he’ll have to pay for it.
Threaten Them—for Real. Screaming “Don’t make me turn this car around!” never works. That’s what Zollman calls a noncredible threat—kids see through it, because they know it means you’ll suffer too. So pick punishments that benefit you. Like: “Stop punching your sister or we’re going to Grandma’s instead of the movies.”
Make Them Lie. If you suspect your kids haven’t done their homework, nail them with specific questions: Which subject? What did you learn? How long did it take? Hardest part? Even if they manage convincing answers, the act of sustaining an elaborate lie exerts psychological discomfort. Eventually they’ll figure out that being honest is just easier.
Don’t Bail Them Out. To make all these lessons stick, you have to buckle down. If your kid’s in a bit of trouble and sobbing pitifully, resist the urge to swoop in and save her by remembering something economists call moral hazard. Corporate bailouts incentivize bad behavior—avoid this fate by establishing clear rules and meting out punishment when necessary."
Clearly if you do any of this, you're a toxic parent who deserves to be ignored by your kid and die in a nursing home
This Person Says if You're a Parent and Your Adult Children Don't Speak to You, It's YOUR Fault - "Dear Parents Whose Adult Children Don’t Talk To Them – It’s Always Your Fault. You were the adult when they were a child. If their first instinct, as soon as they get out from under your thumb, is to completely ignore you forever, you need to own the fact that you messed up as a parent at several, consistent, points along the road throughout your child’s upbringing. They hate you for a good reason, and they’re probably better off without you in their lives. There are a number of forms of abuse that range from over-parenting, to neglect, over-discipline to straight up negative enabling behavior. I have friends who don’t talk to their parents because the strictness was so suffocating, and friends who don’t talk to their parents because they were lazy bums who never took an interest in their child’s life. There are tons of other reasons kids abandon relationships with their folks, but the one thing that stays true through all of these experiences for me is that it’s always the parents fault. This is mostly about relationships that end as soon as the kid leaves the house, not necessarily relationships that break down during adulthood, although the same reasoning could be applied in a lot of these cases too."
"Minorities"aren't the only ones with no agency - adult children are innocent and helpless too. No wonder the birth rate is falling
Meme - Gay Army: "Your child doesn't owe you anything. Not good grades. Not good moods. Not nights without waking up. Not eating every bite. Not loving every activity. Not "yes." Your child doesn't owe you anything just because you're an adult. Sit with this for as long as you need."
Daniel Vincent: "Coming from the demographic that demands everyone accept them, when they can't accept themselves"
Seamus McGilleycutty: "This is the type of thinking you get from a generation raised on participation trophies and friends instead of parents. My children absolutely owe me all of that and more. I will not be raising anything but successful and independent adults. If there is an issue with that, there will be consequences. And after you are 18? You can do whatever you want, you aren't my problem anymore"
Eddie Callow: "No, they don't owe it to me. Correct. They owe it to themselves. And as a parent I'm going to make sure that happens."
Jessica Austin: "Teaching responsibilities, morals, and work ethic is definitely needed. Clearly your parents never taught you that."
Am I a Bad Parent? - The Atlantic - "My 32-year-old daughter has developed the idea that I am responsible for all her failures—not having the job she wanted, not being a sociable person, not being capable to love and to be loved. She also feels that I should not have continued a relationship with her father, even after a divorce. She believes that he is the one who turned our lives into a mess and that I agreed to it—being too weak to fight this. Her father died a few years ago, but she still hates him and me for all her troubles."
Parents are responsible for everything bad that happens in children's lives, and those who disagree are bad, toxic parents who deserve to die alone
Any humanity left in this city? Elderly man dead on sidewalk and people just walking past. : askTO - "True story, my father in law was attacked while babysitting my kid. My kid threw a temper tantrum when told they had to leave and denied knowing FIL. Some guy took a swing at FIL with a bat. (Kiddo listened to many a lecture about how bad the situation was, and how they made the park less safe for kids who were actually in trouble. Along with about two months of lectures prompted by "Well I would take you to the park. But last time you lied to some strangers and almost got grandpa hurt so I don't feel like taking you is safe for either of us.")"
Believe children. If you don't, you're a gaslighter and an abuser
A Conduct Disorder Support Group for Parents - The Atlantic - "Parenting a child with conduct disorder is the loneliest thing I know. Conduct disorder (CD) is a diagnosis given to children who have an ongoing pattern of troubling antisocial behavior. The definitions are all very wordy—but the simple version is that a child who gets this diagnosis might grow up to be a psychopath. When my son got his diagnosis, I wasn’t surprised. He started physically hurting me when his age was measured in months, rather than years. Consequences did not deter him. For years I told friends, doctors, teachers, my own parents that I thought there was something wrong with him. No one listened. Parents at the park started avoiding us. My son was never invited to parties or included in fun activities. Not that I blame them—he was constantly harming other children. But American culture rarely blames the child who is acting out; it blames the child’s parents. Too often, I heard, “If it was my child I would never let them get away with this.” Eventually I stopped trying to connect with other parents. They say it takes a village to raise a child, but what do you do when the village shuns you?... In order to form a support group, someone would have to put their name on it. And no one wants to come forward as the parent of a psychopath... A lot of research is being done on CD, but there is little in the way of actual help. So, for the time being, we are sisters and brothers in an impossibly miserable parenting situation. Our children are often violent toward us or to their siblings. Most of them lack any meaningful amount of empathy, and regularly try to manipulate us. Pretty much every parenting strategy we try with our children fails. Often, the most we can do is offer each other virtual hugs and an “I’ve been there.” But that’s not nothing. Because the biggest thing we have in common is how alone we were before we found each other."
Damn toxic parent!
Here are 13 Other Explanations For The Adolescent Mental Health Crisis. None of Them Work. - "Alternative #1: “People are now more willing to seek help, so there’s not really an increase in depression”
Alternative #2: “More teens are OK with saying they are not OK”
Alternative #3: “It’s because of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns”
Alternative #4: “It’s the economy, stupid”
Alternative #5: “Social media’s impact is too small to have caused the rise in depression”
Alternative #6: “It’s because children and teens have less independence”
Alternative #7: “It’s because of school shootings”
Alternative #8: “It’s because of climate change” (and its twin “It’s because we live in a postmodern hellscape”)
Alternative #9: “It’s due to increased academic pressure and too much homework”... By U.S. teens’ own reports, they actually spend less time on homework now than teens did in the 1990s
Alternative #10: “Suicide rates were higher in the 1990s when there was no social media, so this is just part of a cycle”
Alternative #11: “It’s because teens don’t have places to hang out anymore”
Alternative #12: “It’s because of the opioid epidemic”
Alternative #13: “Parents are more depressed and troubled”"
Why parents aren't to blame for the rise in teen depression
Jonathan Haidt on X - "Here is a 14th explanation for the teen mental health crisis which does not work: parents are increasingly abusive since 2010 (they are not). Nobody has yet proposed an explanation for the crisis that works--especially internationally-- other than the rapid teen transition from flip phones to smart phones around 2012. This also explains why academic achievement stopped rising around 2012 and started declining, as shown in both NAEP and PISA scores. Students with smartphones pay less attention to teachers, and to fellow students... Note that teen "satisfaction with life" used to track satisfaction with relationship with parents. Until they moved onto smart phones. Can't we at least get phones out of the school day?"
Musa al-Gharbi on X - "I'll say, this chart also seems to remind me of your argument in Coddling though. As young people seek independence, make their own mistakes, etc. I think there should be natural tensions with parents. That there seems to be so little tension today in polling may not be positive"
If your parents regulate your phone use they are toxic and abusive and you need to disown them
Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits - "The goal of this research was to explore the relationships between four parenting dimensions (academic involvement, structure, cultural stimulation, and goals) and child personality development. Many theories, such as social learning, attachment theory, and the psychological resources principle assume that parenting practices influence child personality development. Most of past research on the associations between parenting and child Big Five traits specifically has used cross-sectional data. The few longitudinal studies that examined these associations found small relations between parenting and child personality. We extended this research by examining the long-term relations between four underexplored parenting dimensions and child Big Five personality traits using bivariate latent growth models in a large longitudinal dataset (N = 3,880). Results from growth models revealed a preponderance of null relations between these parenting measures and child personality, especially between changes in parenting and changes in child personality. In general, the observed associations between parenting and child Big Five personality were comparable in magnitude to the association between factors such as SES and birth order, and child personality—that is, small. The small associations between environmental factors and personality suggest that personality development in childhood and adolescence may be driven by multiple factors, each of which makes a small contribution."
Clearly, parenting is very important and we can blame parents for screwing up their children through bad upbringing
Parents: Don't focus on happiness, help build resilience instead - "“My kids should be happier than they are,” a mother tells me. “They have everything they could ever need and still, all this small stuff bothers them.” “My daughter worries so much about such big things — homelessness, death, inequity around her . . . and she’s only seven!” a father says in my office. “I always tell her, ‘Stop worrying! Let’s think about all the good things in your life!’ but still, she’s up at night, unable to fall asleep.” “I was a pretty lonely, depressed child,” a mother admits to me. “I want to be a different parent to my kids than my parents were for me. My partner gets annoyed with me, because he says I’m always rescuing our kids and making their lives too easy. Is that so bad? Don’t you want your kids to be happy, Dr. Becky?”... What actually leads to happiness? Does eradicating our kids’ worry and loneliness and ensuring they feel good at all times enable them to cultivate happiness on their own? What do we really mean when we say, “I just want my kids to be happy”? What are we talking about when we say, “Cheer up!” or “You have so much to be happy about!” or “Why can’t you just be happy?” I, for one, don’t think we’re talking about cultivating happiness as much as we’re talking about avoiding fear and distress. Because when we focus on happiness, we ignore all the other emotions that will inevitably come up throughout our kids’ lives, which means we aren’t teaching them how to cope with those emotions. And, again, how we teach our kids—through our interactions with them — to relate to pain or hardship will impact how they think about themselves and their troubles for decades to come. I don’t know a single parent who doesn’t want the best for their kids. Count me in: I want the best for my kids! And yet, I’m not sure that “the best” for them is to “just be happy.” For me, happiness is much less compelling than resilience. After all, cultivating happiness is dependent on regulating distress. We have to feel safe before we can feel happy. Why do we have to learn to regulate the tough stuff first? Why can’t happiness just “win” and “beat” all other emotions? That certainly would be easier! Unfortunately, in parenting, just like in life, the things that matter most take hard work and time; helping your child build resilience certainly isn’t easy, but I promise it’s worth it. Picture your body as a large jar. Floating around are all the different emotions you could possibly feel. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say there are two major categories of emotions: ones that feel upsetting and ones that feel “happier.” In our emotion jar, we have every single feeling under the sun. The size of each emotion — and therefore the space it takes up in the jar at any given moment — is constantly changing. Now, remember: our bodies have an innate alarm system and are constantly scanning for danger before anything else. When we aren’t able to cope with emotions like disappointment, frustration, envy, and sadness — when they take up all the space in the emotion jar — our bodies initiate a stress response. And it’s not just the difficult feelings themselves that prompt our bodies to feel unsafe. We also feel distress over having distress, or experience fear of fear. In other words (assuming there’s no actual physical threat, but simply the “threat” of uncomfortable, overwhelming emotions), as we start thinking, “Ah! I need to make this feeling go away right now,” the distress grows and grows, not as a reaction to the original experience, but because we believe these negative emotions are wrong, bad, scary, or too much. Ultimately, this is how anxiety takes hold within a person. Anxiety is the intolerance of discomfort. It’s the experience of not wanting to be in your body, the idea that you should be feeling differently in that specific moment. And this isn’t a product of “being a downer” or “seeing the glass as half-empty”; it’s a product of evolution. Our bodies will not allow us to “relax” if we believe the feelings inside us are overpowering and frightening. So, where’s the happiness here? Well, it’s crowded out. It cannot surface. Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. The wider the range of feelings we can regulate—if we can manage the frustration, disappointment, envy, and sadness — the more space we have to cultivate happiness. Regulating our emotions essentially develops a cushion around those feelings, softening them and preventing them from consuming the entire jar. Regulation first, happiness second. And this translates into our parenting: the wider the range of feelings we can name and tolerate in our kids (again, this doesn’t mean behaviors), the wider the range of feelings they will be able to manage safely, affording them an increased ability to feel at home with themselves. Do I want my kids to experience happiness? Without a doubt, yes. I want them to feel happiness as kids and as adults; this is why I’m so focused on building resilience. Resilience, in many ways, is our ability to experience a wide range of emotions and still feel like ourselves. Resilience helps us bounce back from the stress, failure, mistakes, and adversity in our lives. Resilience allows for the emergence of happiness. Developing resilience doesn’t mean we become immune to stress or struggle — these are, of course, unavoidable facts of life — but our resilience determines how we relate to those difficult moments as well as how we experience them. People who are resilient are better able to cope when stressful moments arise. Here’s a helpful (though slightly oversimplified) equation: stress + coping = internal experience. The good news? Resilience is not a static character trait that children possess or lack; it’s a skill that can be cultivated, and one that, hopefully, parents help instill in their kids from a young age. Because we can’t always change the stressors around us, but we can always work on our ability to access resilience. Tags books emotional intelligence mindfulness psychology... For me, happiness is much less compelling than resilience. After all, cultivating happiness is dependent on regulating distress. We have to feel safe before we can feel happy... we believe these negative emotions are wrong, bad, scary, or too much. Ultimately, this is how anxiety takes hold within a person. Anxiety is the intolerance of discomfort"
