When did parents stop being the boss

My 7 yr old has ADHD, he can get really dysregulated and it can look like begging for something but it's a coke bottle effect, the emotions have been rising up and the disappointment over a toy just tips him over the edge. The difference is I could then get him the toy but he'd still be melting down because his rational brain is scrambled at that point. So I'd still be there with the screaming 7 yr old who is massive and looks 11 which is worse but I'd be sat on the floor with him while he screams until he's calm enough to half carry to the car. He doesn't get the toy but then it's not about the toy. I often think people around me are thinking, it's a £3 hot wheels, just get him it but I can't, and it won't stop it

Its like childhood as been replaced with device's.
Parenting as been replaced with device's.
All bad behaviour is down to SEN of somesort.
But i dont believe all these kids have SEN it feels like its used as an excuse now.

Are these children polite, respectful, well mannered, kind, able to sit quietly for an hour or so, engage in a little conversation, play with their friends and know right from wrong?

There are some things that are just not worth battling over.

Yeah, imagine the impact on teachers in the classroom.

I once saw a man who looked solidly middle class, left leaning luvvie type, have a 'difficult' interaction with his daughter in a shop. She was about 7 or 8 and was having a massive tantrum because she'd seen something she wanted and he'd said no.

He looked really embarassed and uncomfortable, was trying to reason with her without raising his voice but she just got more and more into her tantrum. In the end he sighed and said 'Right. Okay. You win. Have it, but please just stop. There, are you happy now?'

And the little girl changed like someone had flipped a switch. Not even a sniffle came out of her like it would if someone had been genuinely crying and upset. Like an oscar winning actress would be after performing a scene of high emotion. She just stopped dead, composed herself, did a smug little smile and brushed her hair out of her face as she took her prize off the shelf triumphantly.

The look I gave that man probably stripped him of any remaining dignity he still had, which wasn't much as his daughter had just relieved him of most of it.

@Barnbrack
I am 61 and I never shouted at nor hit my sons, now 37 and nearly 40.
And my parents never shouted at or hit me.
There are alternatives, explaining the rights and wrongs and ultimately depriving child of park trip or swimming etc.....

I don't know them, but the Middleton family seem to have a good strong dynamic going on. I imagine they were great parents.

And that's the answer to the original question! From one extreme to the other and probably thinks she's a wonderful parent.

I think it’s definitely a balance but I think it has got worse even since I had my DC (youngest is 10).
I would say I’m fairly chilled as a parent and have picked my battles- never been too fussed about what they wear for example. But yeah definitely the important things like bedtime and screen time are not negotiable.

This

I have 3 young adult children. Their feedback is that DH and I did parenting well. Our DD tells us that she always felt listened to and heard.

I think we were fairly strict re: bedtimes, manners, and always eating meals as a family around a table. They had quite outdoorsy childhoods and we encouraged all their sporting, and arty hobbies. There was a lot more laughter than angst and their friends were always here.

We were not that bothered about school stuff, I think people get too hung up on assessments and grades etc. Mental wellbeing always came first, so we would occasionally let them have a duvet day if we thought they needed it. We even skipped off to the seaside for a week in term time now and again and they still managed to all get good degrees and professional jobs.

Did we smack them? Absolutely not.
Did we shout at them? Yes, and they weren't afraid to shout back! Teenagers test boundaries.

Sometimes having a row clears the air, it blows over and is quickly sorted. Being too polite to argue can lead to simmering resentment (as witnessed in DHs family). My background is Irish and I'd say the Irish have a tendency to express emotions quickly, openly and authentically.
Our DCs are best mates with each other and with us so I think we did ok.

You’re trying to raise healthy adults. That means people able to make wise choices, and recover from making mistakes.

You want your kids to flourish in all situations, and to be able to change their situation if they are somewhere they can’t flourish.

Showing them how to behave appropriately in a variety of situations.

What you aren’t doing, is teaching them a series of behaviours to perform under threat of sanction. Because they aren’t circus animals.

They also come complete with their own personality and you need to help them manage that as well. One of mine, if you showed him a boundary he felt obliged to trample all over it. For a period of time our house was a battle field because I was following all the authoritarian advice. I learned a totally different approach that showed him how to handle all the situations I didn’t want him in, gave him guidance to keep himself safe in all those behaviours. He did so well then- turned out to be a massively sensible risk averse child which you wouldn’t have guessed from his behaviour beforehand!

DC2 was hilarious. He reached his teens and wanted to have the occasional argument and fight, but all the rebellions were going to leave him with consequences he wouldn’t like, so he had to do without 🤣😅.

But my parenting challenges will have been different to other people’s. I loved watching the first time mums at BBgroup be all smug with docile DC 1, have a totally different experience with DC2 🤣

I sometimes think of it as the explanation is just why you’re saying so. It’s better (and easier!) if the child agrees with the why, or it helps them understand why you’re saying so, but ultimately the reason they should do is because you say so, not because they are fundamentally persuaded by the philosophical soundness of your explanation 😂

But I'll still expect it to be done anyway lol. I hate the 'because I said so' mentality.

I aim for discussion and negotiation but really sometimes the answer is “because I said so”. I don’t need to explain and agree every single thing I ask them to do, sometimes it’s not practical or I just don’t have time for negotiation - in those moments it’s “because I said so”. Parents need to be an authority figure in their children’s lives and sometimes things just need done. You’re setting kids up for failure if they think they can negotiate or have an explanation for everything that happens in life.

humans seem to be auto programmed for different behaviours and its trying to guide them thats the tricky part.

I think some of it is that a lot of adults can’t cope with being bored. And it’s boring to remind your child every single time to say please/thank you, eat with your mouth shut, apologise if they’re cheeky to an adult (especially if the adult says “oh it doesn’t matter”). It’s boring to enforce and oversee a laborious 15 minutes of tidy up time rather than doing it yourself in 2 minutes once they’re in bed.

And some children are harder to parent “gently”. If I give my son a reason/explanation when I tell him to do something, he sees it as an opening negotiation. I don’t back down, he has always had to do the thing, I often say “it’s not a debate I was explaining why I think this is important” and yet he still tries to negotiate. He’s just a born “yes, but…” rules lawyer type. I still try to keep the balance between explaining so he understands and not forcing him to do it because he’s scared of me.

Yeah I know what you mean. I certainly would never have attempted to negotiate with my parents, I even find that hard as an adult. I was terrified to be even a minute past curfew and the threat of "we'll discuss this with your father when he gets home" struck fear into me. So yes, I guess that in that respect I was immaculately behaved, but I have no desire or need for that kind of control over my kids.

That's not quite what we're talking about though. The poster I quoted mentions her neighbour pleading with her child to come in for bed. There is no world in which that would have happened with me and my parents. That's the sort of boundaries and parenting I mean.

Laziness

Never stopped in our house, it is North Korea, because it was liberal California x 10 in my parents house and North Korea in my grand-parents house. Never stopped in like-minded friends' homes.

My grandparents taught me that civilisation and culture mean prohibition (as in you are forbidden to upset people, you are forbidden to drink drive, to commit crimes) and then civilisation and culture evolve into suppression (I suppress in myself the desire to smash windows, be nasty, kick people) or failing that, repression (my dgm beat out of my db any desire to kick me) or the society does it (prisons) when families failed to help their children evolve along the 'prohibition-suppresson' line.

It is easy to enforce if you start early. 'Enforce' is key here.

This, absolutely. I used to have a friend with dcs the same age as mine, who’d impose some sanction for poor behaviour, but her child would then scream and roar for 20 minutes - friend would then give that helpless ‘what can you do?’ look - and give in.
Cue instant silence and triumphant beam from the child - ‘I’ve won again!’
It was very frustrating to witness!

I used to see the same when I worked in a library - mother of twin girls of maybe 7 would repeatedly tell them that if they didn’t stop running around shouting, there would be no DVD to take home. (Obv. years ago!).
So they’d both start very loud wailing when they were about to leave with no DVD - whereupon she would absolutely inevitably give in.
Children will run rings around weak parents.

Yes, but you weren't being parented while you were left to your own devices who knows where for hours on end. That would be described as neglect nowadays, and the easier option than actively trying to keep your kids around and entertain them.

Neglect isn't the same as boundaries. I was once of those kids out from dawn till dusk with my friends, but we came home at dusk because we knew there'd be hell to pay if we didn't. Because my parents parented.

My parents set tons of boundaries for us. All of the ones you describe and when discussing my own teens with mum the other day she told me how vile we all were as teens - could be related to the rules or just the fact we were teenagers. I definitely pushed back and broke at lot of rules, when I learnt to drive that was the start of a new leash of life for me. By the time I was 18yrs I was dying to get out of the house. No one can say my parents didn't try. I was also smacked as a smaller child.
I don't want either of my teens to do this so do encourage open talk and discussion as well as picking my battles and using reasoning, the idea of my 17yr old following in my footsteps makes me feel sick. Thankfully she's not turning in to me and has her head screwed on. Even so though I have my bumpy days with her where she feels constantly in a grump and as happy as anything around her friends - thats pretty normal though I think.
I do have a friend who talks alot about how her boys are so polite etc... and that they would never break the rules because there scared of her. Is that better?

Oh, I shout! But it doesn't have much impact. And I don't really want him to be scared of me. He's definitely more scared of his dad and I don't think it improves behaviour, just makes him more devious and inclined to try to cover stuff up. He's not a really bad kid, but he's someone who responds much better to carrot than stick and who is very rigid in his thinking. But you can't always have a treat or reward for doing something and you're not always right. We absolutely enforce that things have to happen and do not let poor behaviour stand, he's just far far far less responsive to most of the methods mentioned on this chat than his brother and I really try to focus on the important things - if he's wriggling on the bus is it really that important he sits totally still, for example? But some people would say it is.