Parenting
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@booboo I think that's right mate. Instill good values and trust that those will shape their decisions as they grow
And understand you can inform them of your experience with making stupid decisions, but that they'll learn for themselves through making stupid decisions.
The facts I've gleaned about women are important to pass on. Both of them.
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My kids are pretty good - not without their issues and I have to fire up at them quite often to keep them in line. But they reward me for it every single day.
Mr 8 loves mountain biking with me and I can tell he has that fizz in his stomach when we do it and it just warms my heart. Ms 6 is much more trouble but most evenings she leans on me on the couch and asks me to carry her to bed - it’s daily heart melting stuff.
I hate saying no to them and never will on a fair request. This does have its own issues when I do say no as the shit can hit the fan. Have never hit them but I charged my son ( didn’t touch him, stopped a foot away)once in anger - he was petrified and pissed himself a bit. You don’t know what feeling bad is til you’ve done that.
These days when they get shitty I threaten to put them into state school. They pipe down fast as. There’s movements against people like me I think ....
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@mariner4life said in Parenting:
And guys i know we all go through much the same thing, and in all reality it's easy to think your kids are just the worst, when in all reality they are the same as anyone's, but it's so easy to slip in to a mindset that you are the only one dealing with this shit, and you are the only one who doesn't have their shit together.
We're all just making this up as we go along.
Agree with @Kirwan don’t be too hard on yourself bro. It’s the toughest gig in the world because of the emotional roller coaster that is parenting. As demonstrated on this very thread!!
We have five ACT Jnr’s between the ages of 17yo-6yo. Do I have regrets, sure, but I’ve since learned (and it’s cliche) to take each day as it comes. There’s plenty of stuff they do that I could blow up about, go hard on them for etc, but when I reflect on my own upbringing and all my friends and cousins thought my parents were the strictest, but any time I got disciplined and the odd wooden spoon, they would always take time afterwards when the emotion was gone to talk to me and give me a hug.
There are only certain things - safety, talking back to their mother, that I get upset at. It’s damn hard, but I think back to me being an imperfect kid and how I used to test my parents.
In my view kids need to be challenged. They need opportunities to build resilience. They need hard lessons. But they also need to learn love and trust. More often than not it’s the little things done consistently that make the biggest difference. What those little things are different for each kid. One likes me sitting watching a show with them. One likes going to the shops with me. One likes it when we shoot hoops together in the backyard.
We all have demands on our time and we get tired from work and other stuff we have going on (Fern time) and it’s sometimes hard to give our best selves to our kids. It’s not easy, but the quality of that time is where I’ve tried to focus on. Some days it‘s great and some days it’s painful! But nonetheless I just keep trying and live in hope they remember it!
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I have a 7 year old and a 9 month old I really forgot how hard the sleepless nights are, also the 7 year now has a habit of talking back all the time but he really shoots him self in the foot as we take away technology which usually sorts him out
Tech access is definitely the currency at this age. The threat is often enough but sometime the ipad has to be impounded for a week or so to straighten CF jnr out. The sentence can be reduced with good behaviour especially good homework habits
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Family at my kids' school has 7. First one just finishing High School from the mother's first marriage. She's pakeha as fuck, husband is a Philippino and they just seem to dig it.
And, being the Catholic Education system, the 4th kid onward is free, so...
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Awesome thread guys, love the honest discussion about the problems parents face. It's why I love this place so much more than any social media platform where people try to paint the rosiest picture possible of their lives, which is just so toxic as it makes everyone think they're doing a terrible job which is not the case.
I've spoken about my family a bit on here - have a 7 year old and a (nearly) 2 year old now. And they couldn't be more different. Also have a third on the way due December.
With the 7 year old, my biggest battle isn't bad behaviour, he's a really sensible kid. It's that he's just wayyyy too fucking over cautious. About everything, to the point that it has stopped him from doing fun things - he's still not that confident on his bike and doesn't really enjoy it because "what if I fall off Dad???". And I feel like my wife and I have to cop some of the blame for that - it's so easy to wrap your first born in cotton wool and forbid them from doing anything remotely dangerous. It's been the biggest point of disagreement between us; she gets stressed out whenever he does something dangerous, and when he hurts himself her first instinct is to tell him off for doing said thing. I've been really trying to encourage him to take more risks, and I think we're making some progress now (I got him to go on a Flying Fox the other day which is a pretty big deal for him), but I do worry that we've sheltered him too much in his early years.
And then there's the (nearly) 2 year old, who is an absolute bloody psychopath to the point that the wife has given up trying to stop him being reckless. Nothing seems to phase him at all - running head first into a wall, face planting, he just brushes it off and goes again. He's also really strong and extremely well coordinated (he took his first steps just before 9 months so is sprinting around the place now, even has a good step on him when trying to get past me). Not to get excited, but given the above I can see him really excelling at rugby.
With regards to day care and school, we were worried about what other kids would do to our first son given the above and that he's a skinny little man. He's doing well though, and he seems really popular with the other kids; often we'll walk by one and they'll call out his name and say a big HI!!, and when I ask who that was he doesn't even know their name.
With our second, he's still at home now but we are actually genuinely concerned about what he will do to the other kids given how insanely physical he is. We'll start him at Kindy when he is 2 (we get 20 ECE hours free per week there), but we are expecting many calls/discussions about him knocking the other kids around and making them cry.
With regards to discipline, this is fucking magnificent advice:
@raznomore said in Parenting:
In my experience, though it's never too late to discipline your children. You just have to find your own thing that fucks up their lives just enough to make them think about consequences. But not so much that it sends them to therapy or to a clock tower dressed like Neo from the Matrix.
For the 7 year old, it's taking away the TV and YouTube/PS4 that fucks up his life the most and that gets him in line pretty quickly.
With the young one, we're going to need to find what that is and quick. We're at the point now where if we say "NO!" when he's doing something insane, his response is to do that thing as quickly as possible before we physically stop him. He's a bloody handful to say the least.
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@No-Quarter Yeah, the battle is finding the pressure point and following through. I remember when CF Jnr was a few years old I was not adverse to putting him outside in the yard and closing the door. Only needed him to be out there for a minute or so to realise daddy was dead serious and that he needed to pull his head in, for an hour or so at least. For 7 year old Ms CF it's the threat of denying her access to her dolls. She is far more obedient at the moment, I am sure she will pay me back in full in her teenage years
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@No-Quarter said in Parenting:
With the young one, we're going to need to find what that is and quick. We're at the point now where if we say "NO!" when he's doing something insane, his response is to do that thing as quickly as possible before we physically stop him. He's a bloody handful to say the least.
Sorry to laugh, but that painted a great mental picture. Also;@antipodean said in Modern Day Parenting:
<p>I'm a very permissive parent. I often say not to do something only to get stared at and then the behaviour continues right in front of me. But I console myself with the fact I'm raising a cat.</p>
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@antipodean said in Parenting:
I console myself with the fact I'm raising a cat.
I have raised the perfect little bitch. Very obedient, loves me to bits, never any problem.
Here she is bullying another kid at school:
Like Hooroo, I went to the Family Guy school of parenting (for the dog) and I wish you all luck. You're going to need it.
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@No-Quarter said in Parenting:
It's that he's just wayyyy too fucking over cautious. About everything, to the point that it has stopped him from doing fun things - he's still not that confident on his bike and doesn't really enjoy it because "what if I fall off Dad???".
that's my youngest. He's very anxious. It's why he is very slow to start new things. All he can think about is what can go wrong. He absolutely gets that from his mother. I just can't understand it, it's not how i am wired, and my eldest doesn't get it either. And i am sure i react incorrectly.
For instance, up at the lake on the weekend. Kids doing biscuit rides behind the boat. Eldest jumps in, and he's actively trying to throw himself around, despite never having done it before. The youngest? got in, but instantly said he didn't want to do it. I pretty much didn't give him a choice, and he fucking hated it, got off after one lap, and didn't get back in. Apparently just seeing it's safe wasn't enough
Then he told his mother that "dad made me do something i didn't want to do!" oops
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@ACT-Crusader said in Parenting:
In my view kids need to be challenged. They need opportunities to build resilience. They need hard lessons. But they also need to learn love and trust. More often than not it’s the little things done consistently that make the biggest difference. What those little things are different for each kid.
Upvote this! But also in a slightly different context.
Little things done consistently will create a framework of boundaries. Letting them know when they have overstepped those boundaries or are close to it and providing consequences when they have busted the boundary is a key. Also be prepared to adjust those boundaries out when trust is gained. Kind of like a dog
I'll refrain from the 'in my day' comments as I feel you guys seem to be dealing with a slightly different world that your kids are growing up in. I'm amazed at how young all of your kids are when you aren't that much younger than me!
We were quite lucky in that our son spent his younger years with his grandparents during the day and on the farm. You don't have much option but to just get on with things and listen to what you are being told in those circumstances.
Certainly can't say he was perfect. As they all do there were phases where you wonder what you have done to create a surly, lazy shit that has to be asked multiple times to do things but looking back it is just a growing up/hormonal thing.All I know is that we ended up with a kid that we couldn't be prouder of. Has his head screwed on (more than us) and has a great partner.
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@raznomore said in Parenting:
@canefan lol I have a neighbour who does this. The issue here is that their young son wails for as long as it takes for them to open the door and let him back in. So their problem has now become every other households problem.
It takes a village.....
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@ACT-Crusader That is a top post.
