<p>In the past year, I’ve seen many parents write about problems that their kids get into. These seem to be caring, involved parents. Yet the kids make stupid choices. Here’a an article about this dilemma.</p>
<p>I’m interested in hearing what you think. Is a problem child somehow the result of bad parenting, or is that child destined to having problems because of his/her genetic make-up?
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<p>This article resonated with me. I don’t want to go into specifics but I do have one son who has never wanted to follow the family’s rules for behavior. Sadly, he’s an addict now but his defiance and refusal to get along with the rest of us was a problem long before the addiction began. He has an underlying chromosomal disorder which wasn’t diagnosed for many years but he has also made self destructive choices along the way.</p>
<p>You can be caring and involved until the cows come home, but unless you have given your kids the opportunity to make meaningful choices and live with the consequences as soon as developmentally appropriate ( which is much earlier than you would think- meaning as babies), they are not going to magically develop the capacity to behave responsibly with their own internal guidelines when they reach 18 or 21.</p>
<p>It is pretty darn hard I admit, because it means they/you may be inconvienced or even uncomfortable by their decisions at times, & certainly your inlaws will think you are whacked because you " don’t just make the kids mind", but allow them to make decisions that affect their own life, but baby steps is how we learn to walk & it also takes baby steps to become a compassionate adult.</p>
<p>( I certainly do not place all blame on parents- personality is apparent before they are even born sometimes- ask me how I know!)</p>
<p>Some kids don’t generalize very well. They don’t necessarily learn from their mistakes unless the situation is exactly the one that they suffered the bad consequences from. So a parent can let them suffer the consequences, but it doesn’t make the kids “get it” for the next time.
I don’t think these kids are necessarily “bad seeds.” But they are the ones who seem to have to learn everything the hard way.</p>
<p>I’ll say this and then resist the urge to get drawn back into this debate…</p>
<p>You can do all the right things with a child, but there is no guarantee they are going to ‘turn out right’…even remotely right. Society will blame the parents. Too indulgent, did not use tough love, too much ‘this’ and not enough ‘that’. The blame is relentless.
The incidence where two children raised in the same home with the same values where one follows rules for the most part, while the other bucks the system until they leave home living a transient life, going from one crisis to another. The family hears second hand over the years due to ties broken long ago. </p>
<p>Society judges. If I told their story here, many of you would judge. I have seen it. Until you have walked a mile in their shoes, I suggest blaming the parents is heartless to say the least.</p>
<p>I think it’s pretty clear where I stand. May parents who walk this road find support and peace. It is something society rarely offers.</p>
<p>I grew up in a household where the parents were inattentive; they were caught up in their own personal demons and drama and I pretty much had to fend for myself.</p>
<p>I had a roof over my head and food on the table most of the time (me getting the frozen pizza out of the fridge), but I could run wild and not give a crap about school, for all they would have cared.</p>
<p>But from the earliest age I was very self driven and had a strong internalized sense of right from wrong. I always tried to do my best in school, be the good child, and tried to do the right thing. </p>
<p>I had a cousin who grew up in a very different household, he was the favored oldest child, the son. He was handsome, athletic, and charismatic. And he went bad in a spectacular fashion, drug dealing and stealing from elderly relatives, among other things.</p>
<p>So, good parents turn out ‘bad’ kids - or rather, kids who get into trouble or underachieve; and terrible parents turn out caring successful kids. That leads me to believe it is quite often something inherent in the children’s makeup - how they are wired, so to speak. In other cases, it may be more the upbringing - poverty, abuse neglect, that in most cases a child does not have the internal fortitude to overcome.</p>
<p>I believe kids are about 75% nature and 25% nurture. You get what you get, but you do have the ability to help/hinder a child’s basic personality/disposition.</p>
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<p>IMO, it varies from person to person. </p>
<p>Also, the parenting that is fine for Kid A might be the same one that sends Kid B down a bad path, and vice versa. But some kids are going to turn out bad (or good) no matter what–that’s just the way they are.</p>
<p>I will say I think a lot of problems come from parenting behavior that isn’t objectively “wrong” (as opposed to, for example, beating your child, which is objectively wrong), but that is a horrible “fit” for that particular child. Nurture clashing with nature.</p>
<p>My younger brother is adopted, but I am not. </p>
<p>I was an easy child - good student, never got into serious trouble.</p>
<p>My brother was anything but easy. Was diagnosed as “borderline hyperactive” as a child, got involved with drugs in high school, barely graduated hs, failed out of a community college and a tech school. Lied to our parents over and over. He was in his 30’s before he finally “grew up” and became a responsible adult. He’s now married, a good stepfather, and hard worker. </p>
<p>A few years ago he finally contacted his birth mother. Without going into details, she apparently has made an ongoing series of bad decisions in her life, and her family is truly dysfunctional. My brother realized how lucky he was that she gave him up for adoption, once he heard how her other children were in and out of foster care.</p>
<p>Was my brother’s rebellion and poor decision making genetic? Was it a result of him being in at least 3 foster homes before being placed with our family when he was a year old? Was it because he felt it was impossible to live up to his “perfect” older sister? Who knows?</p>
<p>What I do know is that I’m the type of person who, if you tell me “That stove is hot, don’t touch it,” I’ll stay away from the stove. My brother would have to touch it and see for himself.</p>
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Thank you blueiguana. I have suffered greatly, as has my younger kids, because of the oldest. He has Asperger’s, so totally in his own world, so fearful of others yet he comes across as unkind, heartless, and selfish. He has also made some serious mistakes in his life, that continue and will forever haunt him. I know he’s a lost soul, and his kindness is just begging to show. He’d never hurt another person, ever, but others just don’t understand. The world has also been oh-so-unkind to him.</p>
<p>There have been so many hurtful people I have encountered. Another mother, who is even a school nurse(!), would not let my middle son associate with her son when they were in middle school. My son came home one day and asked me if his brother was mentally ■■■■■■■■ because that’s what this mother said. How hurtful was that? I still remember the experience seven years later.</p>
<p>As redeeming as it was to read the article today, I also never want to give up believing.</p>
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<p>I also thank you, blueiguana. </p>
<p>As I go through life I find that I am less and less judgmental of others.</p>
<p>“As I go through life I find I am less and less judgmental of others.”</p>
<p>I’m the same way Fallgirl. I remembering seeing screaming kids at stores before I had children and wondering what was wrong with the parents. Then I had my own children and experienced a fall to the ground with pounding fists and kicking feet tantrum in the middle of a mall and decided I shouldn’t be judging others. </p>
<p>I have two children who are both wonderful and very different from each other. We live far away from relatives, so they do not have influence on our day to day life, yet I can look at relatives in our extended family and see many aspects of my kids’ personalities.</p>
<p>As parents we guide our children, share our morals and try to influence who they’ll become, but there is still part of “who they will become” that is out of our control.</p>
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Me too. There comes a point in your life when you become humbled by the gratitude for having healthy and safe children and can say with a sincere heart “there but for the grace of God go I.” I’m not religious, but I do believe that sometimes fate intervenes despite our best intentions and that every day that my children are healthy and safe is a blessing beyond measure.</p>
<p>My husband has an evil twin - literally. Not evil as in being a murderer…just 100% motivated by money in every aspect of his life; not above lying and cheating - even family members - to make money. There are four kids in the family and he is the only one like that. You’d think that being a fraternal twin, the “nuture” part would be identical to my husband’s.</p>
<p>missypie, I think if they were identical twins, the correlation in personality might be stronger (good that they’re fraternal!)</p>
<p>And like BUBC’s observations, I see aspects of other relatives in my children. My S shares my ex’s poor social IQ - he is very bad at reading people.</p>
<p>My older D has my late MIL’s nervous, high strung personality. Also her tendency for magical thinking, compulsive eating, and a liking for gambling type activities.</p>
<p>And my younger D has many of my H’s mannerisms - facial expressions, and the habit of clasping her hands behind her back when she is standing & watching something (she even did this as a toddler), so I think even some of that is an inherited trait.</p>
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<p>But a kid’s environment isn’t based wholly on his parents’ actions. No two individuals will grow up with the exact same experiences, even if they’re identical twins. A friend at school, a TV show, a book, one observation of an accident, or even seeing an argument on the street . . . They all have influence in little ways, and some in big ways. I’ve forgotten so much from my childhood, but there are some little events I remember clearly that–for whatever reason–struck me at the time. They stayed in my head and once in a while I would pull them out of my memory, turn them over in my mind, and reflect on them.</p>
<p>I agree with you, blueiguana. I think brain chemistry can override parenting effects. But it’s complicated.</p>
<p>NPR has an article about a neuroscientist who strives to understand murderers. Turns out that the brain structures he sees in murderers, he himself has in his own brain.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127888976[/url]”>A Neuroscientist Uncovers A Dark Secret : NPR;
<p>He says he had a idyllic childhood that might have prevented triggering his inborn tendencies.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I doubt that I will ever forget the emotion I heard during a talk at the Pfieffer Treatment Center, where the man talked about ‘bad seeds’ who had good parents and good siblings. (They treat brain chemical imbalances to improve outcomes).</p>
<p>@ Naturally - ITA about “fit.” I’m adopted and I couldn’t be any less like my adoptive mother. I had no interest whatsoever in the things she wanted for me or wanted me to be, and she was clueless about what I wanted to do and be. (She honestly thought being a cheerleader was about liking a sport and wanting to cheer for the team, God bless her!) She’s a good person and a wonderful grandmother and we love and respect each other, but we have absolutely nothing in common and growing up, it was very hard.</p>
<p>Yes, I have seen many of my DH’s traits in all my kids, especially my oldest (the bad seed). There lots of differences between the two also. My DH was never a very social guy, but he’s not antisocial like my oldest.</p>
<p>When parents/kids don’t “fit” – that’s kind of what I meant on the first page when I said parents have “the ability to help/hinder a child’s basic personality/disposition.” If you’re outgoing and your child isn’t, but your hellbent on making him more in your mold, then that’s going to cause problems and hinder his ability to fulfill his natural potential.</p>