Parents who just won't leave their kid a bloody lone

[JackandDiane]

Please stop micro managing your teens life. Packing their bags. Interfering when they're with their pals. Fussing. Repeating yourself in boringly petty instructions.

breathe

bad I agree with you that people can respond to what a child needs and I think its rotten to pick up on it, but you do sound very controlling.

There's no way I'll let him make the "mistake" of buggering up his education, getting some poor girl pregnant, getting himself involved with drink or drugs or anything else illegal, etc. For the simple reason, I'll be the one picking up the pieces when it all goes wrong for him! I'm not going to stand by and watch him bugger up his life due to making mistakes in his formative years

You could end up picking up different pieces of a breakdown and low self esteem.

There is a huge difference between smothering with love and controlling and dictating.

You sound bloody horrid Badbadbunny. Revelling in another child's misfortune as some sort of validation of your superior parenting is both illogical and downright nasty.

I'll be the one picking up the pieces when it all goes wrong for him

Why? Why will YOU be picking up the pieces? Let him pick up his own pieces! My exH's parents still fix his mistakes, and pick up the pieces when his stupid decisions mean it all goes wrong for him. He's 49, it's fucking pathetic.

Thinking about the difference between babying and caring for a child or young adult with additional needs:

My 36 year old brother who still wears nappies and needs his food cutting up is a twin. When they were younger, 2 to 8 years old ish, my mother had to do EVERYTHING for one, who at that stage was still unable to sit up. However, it was FAR easier for her to do everything for both of them - quicker to dress two rather than dress one and teach one how to dress himself, quicker to cut up food for two rather than cut up food for one and help the other cut his own up. As a result (and completely understandably), my NT brother was very much babied growing up - he didn't have to do things for himself as it was done automatically for his non NT brother and for him too by extension.

He was babied, but my non NT brother wasn't babied in any way - he was simply receiving the care he needed, was entitled to receive and should expect.

It's a clear distinction imvho

I don't think Bad is completely wrong in her approach.
If her DC has been able to take the bus, find his way around the town and come wo any issue, then I suspect that she has done other things that have allowed her DC to grow into a self sufficient individual. It just wasn't letting him go to school and come back on their own.
On the other side, the kid who was eat upside late at night etc... Might well not have been given the rigt sort of support despite looking like he was very self sufficient.

I have to say, I do agree that 'leaving making their own mistakes' is an OK approach for some things but not all of them. Sometimes, the effect of 'making the mistkes' can only be felt years later (I'm thinking education for example). Leaving making a mistake and/or struggling works when the effect is immediate and wo life lasting consequences.

Some times, I feel that the 'letting them be independant' and 'not regulating every single second of their day' is also a way to give up from the parents pov.

The difference between smothering with love and dictating isn't an easy one to find though.
Is being involved in your DC choices at GCSE or Uni being involved or just dictating?
I suspect it depends if you go down to UNI with your DC to help them by maybe asking question they didn't think about, help them making the best of the day or pointing out stuff they hadn't seen or considered. If yoou go down to check on the courses and then tell your DC 'this is the course you will do' then it's very different.

If you leave your child with full access to the internet and electronic devices, maybe you are teaching independence. Or maybe you are giving up because fighting to teach them to control their usage (aka NOT spending all day everyday gaming at the detriment of school work and friendship and behaviour) is too hard even though your child isn't able to control said usage.

Someone mentioned schools before too. I've noticed that primary schools have the habit to expect parents to go through the school bag to check for any message etc... Not expecting the child to give said letter to the parents.
In my experience with my own dcs, that's something easy to do. DC forgets to give the letter, DC can't do xxx. It has never happened more than once!
But then secondary school asks parents to sign the agenda every week. I expect my DC to tell me so and to give me the agenda. He doesn't. I expect the school to tell him off, give him detention, whatever. Nope. Nothing like that happens. So the 'learning from their own mistakes' doesn't happen.....

As a young lecturer I see both sides of this. There has absolutely, for sure, been a culture change among undergrads since I was one ten years ago. Most are less mature and more dependent. Nothing wrong with parents coming to open days, we're happy for you to come (though not to answer questions on your kids behalf, my colleague recently spent half an hour in his office with a woman who was so keen to tell him about her son's interests and abilities we have no idea whether the poor kid actually wants to come here or not). Input and support into kids' college careers is good. But we are seeing a lot of insecure, over-parented, dependent 18 year olds who seem incapable of assuming responsibility for themselves and their own learning.

I agree ilove
I'm still to see that in Y7 (dc1 is nearly 13yo now), it's still the parents who organise the 'playdates' for their dcs.
As in nothing can be done if I haven't contacted the other parent to ask them if their DC would be happy to come over after school on xx day.
Really? At that age, can they not organise who they are going to see when? Of course by any means, ask me (the parent) if it's Ok, to check there is nothing planned that day. For the other the child to check with their parents if it's OK but after that???

Ilove

Good post.
I wonder if what you described is a "what was first, the chicken or the egg" type thing.
I guess if a pattern of giving extra help to a less mature child forms at a a younger age (when it's justified) as the child grows perhaps the parents forget to step back and it's just all too comfortable to change for either or both parties (which is unjustified)?

we are seeing a lot of insecure, over-parented, dependent 18 year olds who seem incapable of assuming responsibility for themselves and their own learning.

as a lecturer surely your involvement is with their learning, and any incapability in managing that themselves rest with their school, not their parents.

helenluvsrob *I taught 18yr old students 20yrs ago and getting to a location- 4 stops on a suburban rail line from university and up one road- 3mins walk , wiped them out the first day and they didn't learn a thing! We wont even talk about the terror " when the train doors didn't open and we were carriedonto the next station". .................

My kids could deal with that " transport emergency" at 11 ! (get off at the next station cross the bridge and get the next train back again!)*

We live 25 miles from the nearest train station.My 3 younger children 18,14 and 11 have never even been on a train, so I think you are being rather unfair to compare your wonderful children with students who may never have been on a train before!

I always suspect the parents who like to baby, (control, whatever you want to call it) their offspring into adulthood have little else to think about. Bring them up and give them wings to fly away. By themselves.

I work at a university.

I don't mind parents attending at all. I get it. 27k is a lot of money and so many courses on offer aren't worth 27p.

Leaving that sort of decision solely to a 16 year old seems a bit daft.

Actually summer we live in the countryside. I have taken it as my role as a parent to take my dcs to busy towns as much as I can so they have the opportunity to experience that too (think underground, buses, just sheer business etc... That they don't get to experience where we are)
I would have taken my dcs to take a train too by the time they were teenagers!

But more to the point, even if they had never taken a train, they should have had to take a bus on their own, made their own way to xx wo you by the time they are 18yo. the skills needed for the train situation are the same than for a bus or whatever. I certainly would have made sure my dcs knew how to go round places wo me by the time they are ready to go to UNI.

Getahaircut

Leaving that sort of decision solely to a 16 year old seems a bit daft.

In the light of now having to pay to attend Uni leaving about 80% with unnecessary degrees that is a very valid point.

summersky

I agree!
I hate that sort of comparison!
I knew that "emergency routine" for a bus or tram (Budapest) when I was 7 probably. But that was because we went on public transport everywhere during the week, because mum can't drive and dad had the car for work.
But I drive kids to school and everywhere we go for practical reasons and there aren't any trams here
I personally hate trains anyway and we seldom in need of using them.
Oldest 2 go to school on public bus. If they wanted to go anywhere with friends on their own we'd let them. But they don't. Not interested

SofiaAmes you are legally responsible for ensuring your child attends school. One of reasons schools send calls/texts to parents of absent children is safeguarding. If your child had set out to school and hadn't arrived, you'd want to know.

There is a point though Zing about
How do you think your DC will cope once in a new town on their own, having to use buses or trams or underground, when they've had to make their way somewhere on their own?

As I said, the issue isn't about whether it's train or buses or whatever. It's about the act they need to learn to look after themselves and that includes being able to go from A to B wo getting lost (TBH, with the smart phones, they have NO REASON to get lost anymore)

YANBU
"Please stop micro managing your teens life"

I would extend this statement to all school age children. Let them figure some many things out themselves, doing everything for them (I can be guilty of this) makes dc not pay attention, leading them to burn the energy off in more annoying ways, such a being hyperactive, they won't learn to do things themselves, and become pampered, mollycoddled and don't develop self reliance.

I was astonished to see that in the European country we visited over the holidays, children as young as 5 or 6 cross busy streets with their friends to buy sweets from the nearby kiosk, play out with their friends, and at age 6 they take the city bus to school with their friends. Due to the set up, I was sort of peer pressured to let my dc (7) play out without my supervision and as much as I wanted this for them, I nearly had a panic attack as dc has never been unsupervised by either me, nursery staff or teachers. Dc did play out and it was wonderful apart from nearly getting run over by an inconsiderate arse-- car driver).

I sometimes feel we teary our kids like pets here in England. They need to learn to live and look after themselves. But it's hard if everyone around you micromanages their dc.

If i let my dc walk to school alone here no streets to cross, I'd have SS all over me.

I have/had close relationships with children/ teens who have been treat like this and it's no benefit to them.One was ex bf I had and the other a good friend ,still is.She is now 25 however and won't go to the loo alone or sleep in her own home alone.Ex bf had parents (dad in particularly ) who was overly involved in his relationships,friends,jobs .My parents are the polar opposites however .Also not great .

Know your own kids and know yourself.

Each to his own: I see a lot of over-indulged kids who might take decades to emerge from their entitled upbringing.

But i also see a lot of lost kids whose parents don't have a clue about brain development, hormones, the pressures of 21C life. They honestly believe kids are just shorter versions of adults and don't need any help at all. Lots of depression, self harming, drug taking, personality disorder.

So, both.

Just a word of warning about uni open days: DD went to her first alone, but was repeatedly pushed aside by sharp-elbowed parents. After that I did go with them. I mostly hung back, but yes, there were times where I kind of guided a kid through hordes of pushy parents to the front...

The issue with letting them go alone, it's no longer the norm, they won't be finding their way among other teens, they're competing with crowds of adults.

Flying

Yep, that is a question!
But I don't worry about it, I think they will either figure it out or ask for help.
Like lots of us did.
It's impossible to train them for every situation that might occur, as long as they have basic skills (able to buy bus ticket on their own) and realise they are transferable (buy train ticket) they will be fine.

I think the trick is to be there and teach them when a new situation occur (first time they walk home from school by themselves) then let them get on with it.
And for them to know that asking (us/teachers/even strangers if needed) for help if they don't know what to do is sensible.
I don't worry about my children in this regard. If not prepared, they will learn on the go.

I don't have a teen yet but I don't plan on going to any uni open days.
On A Level results day I answer calls to the Clearing hotline. Do get a fair few parents ringing in on behalf of their children who haven't met their expected grades and therefore at without a place at university. Then you have to wait while the "child" and parent argue "what grade did you get for x, Matthew? I SAID what grade did you get?!" And on the one hand it makes me wonder whether the child is being forced by their child and on the other hand I wonder if said young person is adequately equipped to undertake a nursing/radiography course if they need mummy to ring up on their behalf.

I wonder if for some the "babying" is due to the parent not trusting the child will do what s/he is supposed to do.

We have this with DS2. I trust DS1 (14) to walk to his piano lesson and back. I trust DS3 & DS4 (11 & 9) to walk from school to PILs - I pick them up from there after getting DS5.
I find it hard to trust DS2 (12) to walk to his choir practice (slightly longer walk than the other 2 things) and be safe, because we can't trust him with so many other things, like getting ready on time, doing homework at all on time, not winding siblings up etc etc.
I do not want to baby him, but he seems unable to be responsible for himself. It does my head in. I never feel that I can trust him, like I do with the others. It's unnerving.
Regardless, we need to give him opportunities to prove himself. He needs to learn to be responsible

I work with a class of 7 year olds

Everyday they vi for attention

Can't find a pencil
Can't find their coat
P e kit not there

First question - have you looked? NO

One child's mother comes in every day to hang DC coat up for them

Two have breakfast in bed

One gets carried downstairs

Many can't tie laces - or zip up coats

The main issue is parents not allowing their children to think for themselves - OK what are you going to do? Is often met with "I don't know!"

They don't do well because they lack any thought process unless spoon fed -

you would find it hard to fathom if the wanted you there

And i don't plan to go to the open days

And i don't have a teen yet

There I think you have it.

See you might have been the most confident mature teenager in the world but that ain't counting for shit when you realise that your kid may be nothing like you were.

You parent the kids you have to the best way you can not some ideal of what you thought they should be.