Interesting article - Accepting that good parents may plant bad seeds

[Tanya M]

It's always refreshing to come upon an article that validates that parents are not always to blame when a child grows up to be a difficult adult child.

The following points from the article really hit home with me. Below is the link to the article.

"the fact remains that perfectly decent parents can produce toxic children."

“The era of ‘there are no bad children, only bad parents’ is gone.”

"For better or worse, parents have limited power to influence their children. That is why they should not be so fast to take all the blame — or credit — for everything that their children become."

Accepting That Good Parents May Plant Bad Seeds

 

[BusynMember]

Oh, always felt this way. Heck, oldest has always been difficult. Except for contributing bad DNA, I fortunately never blamed my parenting. Nor do I feel that my other kids are terrific because of me. I think its largely DNA and maybe them having to work hard for what they have.

Im glad you posted this. Way too many parents take the blame for adult kids who dont turn out like the kids from The Brady Bunch. Its just not true. And, yes, the internet is another hige facter. Parents once had way more power than they do now.

The psychiatric community is quickly changing nature/nurture blaming as well. The mental health community when ai was 23, first getting services, then believed that autism was a severe form of schizophrenia caused by "refrigerator moms." Everything was moms fault. Thanks, Freud. But we know more thirty-five to forty years later and will know even more with time.

Babyboomers were sadly raised to believe children were molded only by their parenting skills. It is not true. Except for having my closest relatives full of mostly unacknowledged mental health prolems, and getting bad DNA, I dont blame my lousy upbringing as the cause of my now very controlled mood disorder. Depression is/was rampant in my closest relatives as well as eating disorders and anxiety. Thats why I got a mood disorder. It was not bad parenting, even though my the parenting was not good. I dont blame that at all.

 

[Tanya M]

Way too many parents take the blame for adukt kids who dont turn out like the kids from The Brady Bunch.

So true.
Knowing what I know now, I would be much more discerning in picking a family counselor. The first one we went to allowed our son to sit in a chair, bent over with his head in his lap. He would not participate and she didn't force the issue. My husband and I would sit and answer her questions. I remember her asking me why I worked. Well duh!!! we needed the money and couldn't make it on my husband's pay alone. She suggested that if I were a stay at home mom that we wouldn't have issues with our son's behavior. While my son may not have "participated" he was not deaf. I'm sure this was the beginning of him blaming me for his behavior problems. It also didn't help me in the "guilt" department either.
We didn't stick with her long and found a counselor that would hold our son accountable and did not lay the blame on me and my husband.

I agree with you 100% about DNA. I've said it before, my son is just like his bio-father who was out of the picture when my son was 4 and really had very little influence on him before that.

Good parenting or bad parenting, at some point we all become adults and get to choose how we will live our lives.

 

[BusynMember]

Tanya, i had to laugh at something, although it isnt funny. My daughter , while using, had a therapist. I didnt go in with her but she gave me all the info I needed when she said to me, "My therapist said you should trust me more!"

Really?? She lied all the time, took drugs, snuck out of the house and ditched school. I calmly (the calm was hard) said "Well, I disagree with her. Trust is earned." I wondered what she was hearing in there or saying to therapist. She quit going. I had seen no change in her so we tried other ones. Never a change.

Therapists are not all helpful. And the school of thought among many is that the parent is at fault. It is getting better since our older kids went. My daughter is going to be 34 so she went around the time as your son probably did.

I do t know Daughters DNA but her non drug self is a sweetie. My bio son is very much like my father, which is not a good thing. Son had therapy from early on and is very smart. Always was. He was smarter than his therapists and played them. I always got the feeling his therapists felt sorry for him for being shy and downplayed his bullying of others, early porn addiction and other things like trashing a movie theatre with a friend at around 10 and being forced to clean up the whole place. Knowing his friend, I am sure it was his idea.

I am grateful every day that somehow I knew it was genetic. None of my other kids, all adopted, ever did thigs like he did. He also yells and screams just like my father. None of my other kuds ever acted near to him, not even Princess in her drug days.Nature trumps nurture All.The.Time.