Marguerite
Active Member
Often we have told newbies that just by coming to this site, they are good parents. And I do think this is true, in enough cases to justify the statement.
I see people who come here to this site, in different groups. Some are here because they find the communication with other parents dealing with similar problems, to be affirming and encouraging.
Some come here because the site gives them backbone. (I consider myself to be in both of these groups).
Some come here because they're not sure if they're doing the right thing, and wt to run things past other parents.
There are different degrees of desperation - some are utterly lost and at their wits' end, others are on a fact-finding mission.
And some come here (not often) who I feel haven't got a clue about what parenting is supposed to be about and don't want to be told.
With the various reasons for being here - we work it out fairly quickly. I've learned to not post if it's totally out of my experience and understanding, or if I feel there is nothing I can say that hasn't already been said, or that I feel is not going to be heard. I especially avoid posting if I feel it's not going to be heard, or if I am concerned that the situation being described is just too far out of my ability to help.
A hypothetical example: "I don't know what to do with my kid. He just sits and stares at me, or cringes when I walk past - I find his behaviour insulting. It's not as if I hit him that often; I only had to take my shoe off to him twice yesterday. Don't you get sick of goody two shoes who insist that belting a kid who really needs it, is really child abuse? I mean, c'mon..."
As I said, hypothetical. But very difficult to say to them, "You're a really good parent"...
The thing is, the responses on tis site are not just to the individual messages. We respond to each other and people lurk far more than they post. If we don't say it to them in response to their post, then we are saying it in response to other posts and THAT is what sends strong messages about what works and what doesn't.
Back to Sara's original point - I am probably going to upset a few people before they read between my lines. But yes, I do believe that the way we parent and discipline our kids has, in a lot of cases, aggravated the problems we are dealing with. BUT THIS IS NOT BECAUSE WE DID THE WRONG THING. It was not bad parenting. It was merely that we used parenting techniques which were wrong, for that child, due to a pre-existing underlying condition.
Sometimes that pre-existing condition can be a previous carer's abuse or poor handling of that child.
I look at how husband & I parent the kids now, and how we used to. I cringe at how we tried to bully difficult child 1 out of making his noises, or tried to shout some common sense into him. WE GOT IT WRONG. But we are both doing things that worked for our parents, with us and our siblings.
These things did not work with our difficult children because there were other factors that we were unaware of. We misread our own children, we made assumptions (again, based on the way we were parented) and got it wrong.
We could have lucked out and got it right. But if we had, we never would have come looking for a website like this one.
So yes, I do think we need to SEE that often, we have made things worse because even good, effective discipline methods in all the good parenting books just happened to be wrong, for our child.
That doesn't mean that the problem is due to bad parenting. If anything, you could argue that the problem was due to good, consistent parenting but using methods which are contraindicated for that particular underlying condition.
I've used the hypothetical example before, of the blind child in the classroom being punished for failing to copy accurately from the blackboard.
Closer to reality perhaps, is the deaf child being punished for inattention in the classroom. This is unfortunately a common occurrence when the teacher (and the parents) do not know that the child is deaf. Why doesn't the child let someone know? Because to a child who has ALWAYS been deaf, nothing has changed. Surely it's like this for everyone? But if the teacher doesn't know, and can only see a child who seems to ignore what he's told and to do what he wants, it seems like disobedience. And teachers punish insolence and disobedience.
To punish where it is inappropriate, can aggravate bad behaviour. It also sends a message to the child that no matter how hard they try, they can never get it right. So after a while they stop trying and accept the belief that they get punished because they are innately bad. It is their lot in life, to be the bad one.
Imagine what this does to a child's self-esteem!
We share information on this site, ideas that help us see our children in a different light. Once we get a better perspective - "change our mindset" as I told one parent, who promptly misunderstood me and got very huffy - we stand a better chance of giving our children the more appropriate and relevant discipline methods which take their unique problems into account.
You shouldn't punish what a child can't help. And there's no point punishing when the child already knows the lesson. Parents of PCs may never know the problems that can develop when we do things exactly the way they do, but with a difficult child instead of a easy child.
So to answer Sara's question in a nutshell - consider two families, side by side. One family is exclusively easy child. The other family has difficult children. Both families use exactly the same discipline methods for the same infractions. The easy child family kids improve their behaviour; the difficult child family kids rapidly get worse.
Is it bad parenting? No.
Did the parenting method contribute to the problem? Yes.
Is it the parents' fault? Yes, and no. Again, we're talking about blame, for something that simply couldn't be helped.
If we aim to not punish a child for something they simply didn't understand, or couldn't help - then we should extend the same understanding to the parents whose discipline techniques (which would have been perfect for a good, malleable, capable easy child child) were simply the wrong fit for the difficult child they didn't fully understand at that time.
But as parents, we have a responsibility to learn, and to apply that learning so we can ensure that what we do with our children is as good a 'fit' as we can get.
We want our kids to improve. Therefore WE must also improve - as parents and as human beings. We need to forgive ourselves, and each other, because we have a lot of unlearning to do.
And we need to treat our kids as we would want to be treated ourselves.
On this site we get a broad spectrum of parents dealing with a broad spectrum of problems. Some of us learn; some of us don't.
For a doctor to tell us that we're bad parents, and tat our child's disability has been caused by bad parenting - it doesn't sit well. And frankly, I think it's putting the cart before the horse. It's the other way around - the disability in the child has led to the parents' methods, which would normally be valid, being a bad fit FOT THAT CHILD.
So yes, parenting methods need to be changed, for so many of us. But not because WE got it wrong, but because OUR CHILD is the wrong fit for that method.
A doctor prescribes antibiotics, but the patient develops an allergic reaction. Is it the doctor's fault? Well, not really (although it depends on how you view it). But the doctor has a responsibility to his patient to change the antibiotic to one which is appropriate to the need (so the drug will do what the particular disease requires to be done in order to cure it) and also to choose one which the patient is likely to better tolerate.
Marg
I see people who come here to this site, in different groups. Some are here because they find the communication with other parents dealing with similar problems, to be affirming and encouraging.
Some come here because the site gives them backbone. (I consider myself to be in both of these groups).
Some come here because they're not sure if they're doing the right thing, and wt to run things past other parents.
There are different degrees of desperation - some are utterly lost and at their wits' end, others are on a fact-finding mission.
And some come here (not often) who I feel haven't got a clue about what parenting is supposed to be about and don't want to be told.
With the various reasons for being here - we work it out fairly quickly. I've learned to not post if it's totally out of my experience and understanding, or if I feel there is nothing I can say that hasn't already been said, or that I feel is not going to be heard. I especially avoid posting if I feel it's not going to be heard, or if I am concerned that the situation being described is just too far out of my ability to help.
A hypothetical example: "I don't know what to do with my kid. He just sits and stares at me, or cringes when I walk past - I find his behaviour insulting. It's not as if I hit him that often; I only had to take my shoe off to him twice yesterday. Don't you get sick of goody two shoes who insist that belting a kid who really needs it, is really child abuse? I mean, c'mon..."
As I said, hypothetical. But very difficult to say to them, "You're a really good parent"...
The thing is, the responses on tis site are not just to the individual messages. We respond to each other and people lurk far more than they post. If we don't say it to them in response to their post, then we are saying it in response to other posts and THAT is what sends strong messages about what works and what doesn't.
Back to Sara's original point - I am probably going to upset a few people before they read between my lines. But yes, I do believe that the way we parent and discipline our kids has, in a lot of cases, aggravated the problems we are dealing with. BUT THIS IS NOT BECAUSE WE DID THE WRONG THING. It was not bad parenting. It was merely that we used parenting techniques which were wrong, for that child, due to a pre-existing underlying condition.
Sometimes that pre-existing condition can be a previous carer's abuse or poor handling of that child.
I look at how husband & I parent the kids now, and how we used to. I cringe at how we tried to bully difficult child 1 out of making his noises, or tried to shout some common sense into him. WE GOT IT WRONG. But we are both doing things that worked for our parents, with us and our siblings.
These things did not work with our difficult children because there were other factors that we were unaware of. We misread our own children, we made assumptions (again, based on the way we were parented) and got it wrong.
We could have lucked out and got it right. But if we had, we never would have come looking for a website like this one.
So yes, I do think we need to SEE that often, we have made things worse because even good, effective discipline methods in all the good parenting books just happened to be wrong, for our child.
That doesn't mean that the problem is due to bad parenting. If anything, you could argue that the problem was due to good, consistent parenting but using methods which are contraindicated for that particular underlying condition.
I've used the hypothetical example before, of the blind child in the classroom being punished for failing to copy accurately from the blackboard.
Closer to reality perhaps, is the deaf child being punished for inattention in the classroom. This is unfortunately a common occurrence when the teacher (and the parents) do not know that the child is deaf. Why doesn't the child let someone know? Because to a child who has ALWAYS been deaf, nothing has changed. Surely it's like this for everyone? But if the teacher doesn't know, and can only see a child who seems to ignore what he's told and to do what he wants, it seems like disobedience. And teachers punish insolence and disobedience.
To punish where it is inappropriate, can aggravate bad behaviour. It also sends a message to the child that no matter how hard they try, they can never get it right. So after a while they stop trying and accept the belief that they get punished because they are innately bad. It is their lot in life, to be the bad one.
Imagine what this does to a child's self-esteem!
We share information on this site, ideas that help us see our children in a different light. Once we get a better perspective - "change our mindset" as I told one parent, who promptly misunderstood me and got very huffy - we stand a better chance of giving our children the more appropriate and relevant discipline methods which take their unique problems into account.
You shouldn't punish what a child can't help. And there's no point punishing when the child already knows the lesson. Parents of PCs may never know the problems that can develop when we do things exactly the way they do, but with a difficult child instead of a easy child.
So to answer Sara's question in a nutshell - consider two families, side by side. One family is exclusively easy child. The other family has difficult children. Both families use exactly the same discipline methods for the same infractions. The easy child family kids improve their behaviour; the difficult child family kids rapidly get worse.
Is it bad parenting? No.
Did the parenting method contribute to the problem? Yes.
Is it the parents' fault? Yes, and no. Again, we're talking about blame, for something that simply couldn't be helped.
If we aim to not punish a child for something they simply didn't understand, or couldn't help - then we should extend the same understanding to the parents whose discipline techniques (which would have been perfect for a good, malleable, capable easy child child) were simply the wrong fit for the difficult child they didn't fully understand at that time.
But as parents, we have a responsibility to learn, and to apply that learning so we can ensure that what we do with our children is as good a 'fit' as we can get.
We want our kids to improve. Therefore WE must also improve - as parents and as human beings. We need to forgive ourselves, and each other, because we have a lot of unlearning to do.
And we need to treat our kids as we would want to be treated ourselves.
On this site we get a broad spectrum of parents dealing with a broad spectrum of problems. Some of us learn; some of us don't.
For a doctor to tell us that we're bad parents, and tat our child's disability has been caused by bad parenting - it doesn't sit well. And frankly, I think it's putting the cart before the horse. It's the other way around - the disability in the child has led to the parents' methods, which would normally be valid, being a bad fit FOT THAT CHILD.
So yes, parenting methods need to be changed, for so many of us. But not because WE got it wrong, but because OUR CHILD is the wrong fit for that method.
A doctor prescribes antibiotics, but the patient develops an allergic reaction. Is it the doctor's fault? Well, not really (although it depends on how you view it). But the doctor has a responsibility to his patient to change the antibiotic to one which is appropriate to the need (so the drug will do what the particular disease requires to be done in order to cure it) and also to choose one which the patient is likely to better tolerate.
Marg
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