To ask what thing your parents did, that you will/have actively tried NOT to do when raising your own DC?

[ollieplimsoles]

I'll start,

I love my Mum to bits and we have a wonderful relationship, but I had a very serious phobia of needles growing up and I was a very anxious child. She wouldn't tell me I had to have an injection til the very last minute (she would just show up at school or we'd walk into the doctors) and I would have a panic attack. I wish she would have told me a few days before that I was going to have one and why, then I would have been able to make peace with it. It just meant that I couldn't relax when she took us out or at school, it made my phobia worse that she felt she needed to keep me in the dark about it too, like it was something she was also afraid of.

With DD I'm going to avoid doing that and try to be upfront with her from the start.

Pretty much all emotion related things I learned from my mum, I'll do the opposite. There was a lot of guilt inducing, angst rife parenting going on.

Be uptight about sex when they are older. I was a very responsible teenager who had straight As, Nice friends, Saturday job etc. Had a boyfriend when I was 18 and I wanted to stay at his house and was honest about it and my mum refused to allow me. Told me she couldn't condone me having sex etc. It was so weird as she is quite liberal. She was fine about my brother when he was 18 though

Sex ed- I'll actually teach my children about relationships, sex and conception rather than my mums approach of pointing in my face and snarling 'you can not have sex until you're 16 because it is ILLIGAL'

Body image- my mum is thin as a rake and I was a chubby teenager, she would constantly tell me about how fat she was whilst telling me I'm very slim and encouraging me to eat crap and discouraging me from exercise. It was a very unhealthy approach to a child's body image. I'll be teaching my children about healthy choices, encourage them to be active, look after themselves and also confidence.

That's just a few anyway

I'm going to push my children to try new experiences and try and instill more confidence than i had growing up.

Hitting / aggression. Stopping them doing anything 'unladylike'. Not act like being shy or introverted is the worst thing ever - not try and change their personality type. Respect their privacy and boundaries. Encourage independence rather than dependence. Not do everything for them so they think they are useless.

• smacking my children in the face
• telling one child they were an accident, and the other that they were planned
• getting drunk and rowing with my Partner every weekend
• threatening violence in front of the dc
• taking a third of low pay off a 16y/o, for board
• smoking when pregnant and in the house and car (don't smoke at all actually)
• leaving guns and ammo lying around the house

Sounds awful, but they did a lot of good stuff too. Always had nice holidays. Always had lots of presents at Christmas. And lots and lots of good times too. It was all just a bit too passionate/dramatic for my liking. They are lovely now and way more mellow. They had us very young.

My mum was very overprotective when we were young. I try so so hard not to be with our dd, but I fail miserably.

Scream and swear at the top of my foghorn voice all the time, slap my kids across the face, kick them, punch them, tell them I wouldn't care if they were dead, threaten to murder them, call them everything from a piece of shit to a fucking cunt, have a favourite, destroy their possessions, and then blame them for it all and tell them what a great parent I am if only they were smart enough to see it and start crying about how emotional it was for me when they were born.

Or enable, normalise and trivialise such behaviour.

Making my children sit at the table for hours until they eat everything on their plate.

My mum was also veeeery tight with money, even though we could afford a treat.

We always took our own lunches to places and everything is meticulously planned around a budget for the day out, ill try and be more spontaneous!

Huskylover,don't downplay your parents' abuse of you. No abuser is terrible all the time. That's why they think they're not abusive and kids are scared to say anything. Abuse is complicated and multi dimensional but it's still abuse. Being young parents is no excuse.

Apart from being pissed half the time, I would have to say rationing food to a bizarre extent. My mother used to order takeaway as a treat, decide that she and I would 'share', put two spoonfuls on a side plate for me, then keep the rest for herself. I would be counting grains of rice and she would leave a third because it was 'too much'. That still gives me the rage 25+ years on.

Stay together for the kids - my whole childhood I remember wishing that my parents could be happy when in the same room as each other, they didn't split until my younger dsis left for uni. It's only since then that I feel I've really gotten to know both my dm and my df. It makes me so sad to think they spent their best years being unhappy for our sake.

Also camping. That was shit.

Involve my child in any argument me and dh have
My parents thrived on arguments and would involve me as a go between and I was made to say/ask some pretty awful things as a young child... I will not subject my child to that

If we are talking about my dad its a whole different ball game...

*think of the kids first
*take responsibility when I make a mistake
*don't assume children want to fit into your schedule.. the list goes on and on

Divorce.

Smoke.

Rely on children for mental health support.

Rely on children for mental health support

Thats a big deal for me too.

Wow reading some of these replies make my op look like nothing..

fairly trivial once for me:

not turning up at the airport on the wrong day or without passports
not turning up at parties and events on the wrong day
not moving house and country half way through the first term year 8 (still bitter)

basically being much, much more organised, which I am

Have an affair and walk out in the middle of my child''s Higher exams. Move in with an abusive alcoholic and allow him to treat my teenagers like shit under his shoe. Be needy and dependent on a man and prioritise him above my children every time. Yes mum, I love you and you taught me a hard lesson in independence a self respect by being the opposite.

Turn my children against my husband and their father, emotionally abuse entire family and not allow any privacy to anyone.

Shout and argue pretty much every night with husband.....there is a lot I won't do to my family that was done to me. I'm still expected to have an amiable relationship with this person

Smacking
Argue
Food - had to be eaten and adults had different
Board money
Privacy
Freedom
Chores

We will never charge the children for living in their own home or use them as cleaners, they can eat what they like, have the freedom to chose activities, down time etc and have the privacy of their own room which they can retreat too without question.

Smacking is something I won't tolerate, it's abuse in an adult smacks another adult so why on earth would anybody do it to a defenceless child.

Buying food that is just for the adults. Like blackcurrant squash and chocolate biscuits. Things kids would really like and aren't remotely sophisticated or expensive. Then keeping them in the kitchen cupboards in full view of the children, whilst telling them they aren't allowed those things because it's just for grown ups.
Not horribly abusive like some of the above, just irritating and baffling. Why not just hide it if you're not going to share it?

Never talk about periods

Never talk about sex

In fact, there isn't one single subject I wouldn't talk to my kids about, if it was important to them.

I will keep the house respectable, not pristine by any means, but I am determined my children won't be ashamed to bring friends back because of mess like I was - and still am (my mum is now a borderline hoarder).

I will make sure they see a good example of a relationship, and that my daughter has higher standards than I used to do (DP is amazing, and couldn't believe I was impressed by him making a cup of tea!). I love knowing that she is going to grow up seeing a man do half the housework and respecting and treating her mother nicely.