To find this slightly disturbing?

[PrettyCandles]

When talking about foods to a group of Year 1 children, I mentioned horseradish and one of the children said "I know what horseradish is! My mum gives it me when I'm naughty."

drink or drugs - yes very bad and not necessarily an issue that a parent is always immediately aware of and may have been instigated by bad friends - but still one would have to question why a child from a stable home would become a substance abuser ? even if they did, i am certain that those with caring families would find it easier to find a way out.

but we were talkig about "devil" children not addicted children which i assumed people were meaning to refer to behaviour and attitude. i would be amazed if someone said these were not almost entirely shaped by what happens in the family.

Well, then be amazed because that's what I'm saying

i find that very disturbing, it is basically saying that parents have absolutely no or very little control over how a "devil" child behaves

hmm, this thread proves to me how society (us being just a drop in the ocean) have such differing views of right and wrong. We must of formed our opinions by how we have been treated or brought up.

How else do we come to such conclusions, Media Hype maybe!

I have extreme views of what I believe to be psychological abuse.

Leaving your children with a Nanny to persue careers when you dont really need them.

I perch my round spectacles on the end of my nose and ask the question.

Do you need to work or do you want to work?

Well yes Yellowrose that's what I'm saying. I daresay the parents of the Us gunman recently in the news (who apperently has a well-balacned sister) would agree with me.

Maybe he had horseradish stuffed down his throat when he was young.

I blame the parents.

Tena, I had a nanny as a child because my mum wanted to work. I had a very happy childhood and grew up with a healthy awareness that as a woman I did not have to choose between having children and feeling fulfilled in my career. I thank her for that!

If you are really woried, why not ask the childs mum? You may be surprised and find there is a simply misunderstanding on the childs part. If the mum turns out to be using it as a punishment, maybe you could let her know what you think of it.

zookeeper - you are mixing up issues.

i don't know enough about the upbringing of the Korean gunman who massacred 32 innocent people, he seems on the basis of the video tapes to have been a very disturbed, mentally ill young man. it seems that even when it was picked up by others that he needed psychiatric help, nothing was done about it. why did his family not pick up on his mental state ? can you be THAT disturbed and yet not even your own family pick up on it ? was he not in touch with them ? i would like to know what happened in his childhood before i can make any judgements about why he was so disturbed.

his sister is stable ? how do we know ? is she stable because she doesn't buy guns to kill ? were they brought up by the same parents ? what is her psychological state really ? do we know any facts ?

i look at my own brother and sister. it is quite amazing that some of the negative issues re. our personalities are almost identical. all 3 of us also share some extremely positive things. of course we are very different adults with quite different personalities, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that most of our shared characteristics are from our childhood together, being raised by the same parents.

I think you are wrong yellow - I think in the main a good parent aims to teach a child right from wrong and to try to nurture it to to become a responsible adults. If once it has grown that child make bad choices then it's not down to the parents is it?

I am one of four siblings - we are all completely different but had the
same treatment from our parents. There must be countless like me. We make out own choices in life.

Of course some parents are horrors and no doubt their ways damage the child. But It certainly doesn't follow that every child from a "good" home becomes a responsible member of society and that if he doesn't it's down to the parents, because if you say that then you must accept that all abused children go on to be abusers, which is not the case . What a simplistic and heartless way of looking at things.

YR...I am with zookeeper, here...obviously the way we bring our children up is important, however, they are definately born with a certain character, otherwise, siblings would be all the same within one family, if brought up the exact same way by the exact same people (well, as much as that is possible...which isn't quite possible, because all Kids are such individuals with individual needs)...
I also know that my sister and I (o.k. halfsister) are so different...despite growing up together all our lifes, being raised by the same person, etc...

Usually I do not post on controversial threads but I am so so mad, I just had to in this instance. I do not want to get into a slagging match with anyone BUT Yellowrose, your posts this morning have been so hurtful to anyone bringing up a ?devil? child (I would prefer difficult) or who have had relatives/children with drug/drink problems. Although I do imagine that the reason for your uneducated views are that you have been lucky enough not to have been in this situation.

You said ?drink or drugs - yes very bad and not necessarily an issue that a parent is always immediately aware of and may have been instigated by bad friends - but still one would have to question why a child from a stable home would become a substance abuser ? even if they did, i am certain that those with caring families would find it easier to find a way out.?

Um, no ? caring familes are not the cure or cause of drink / drug problems. Often people with severe d/d problems also have mental health issues. Often d/d cause mental health problems. Drink/drugs destroy families and extended families, they cannot be solved by caring families.

You said ?but we were talkig about "devil" children not addicted children which i assumed people were meaning to refer to behaviour and attitude. i would be amazed if someone said these were not almost entirely shaped by what happens in the family.?

Some children ARE born ?difficult?. I would argue that most are born with undiagnosed needs, such as ADHD, Aspergers, etc. Yes the treatment by the family can make matters worse, but when you have lived with a child or adult with these difficulties you will soon realise that it is not the parents? or anyone elses fault.

You said ?i look at my own brother and sister. it is quite amazing that some of the negative issues re. our personalities are almost identical. all 3 of us also share some extremely positive things. of course we are very different adults with quite different personalities, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that most of our shared characteristics are from our childhood together, being raised by the same parents.?

My brother had enormous difficulties and was labelled a naughty child (or devil if you prefer). He probably was undiagnosed ADHD. My parents did everything in their power to help him / get him help and THEY WERE VERY VERY CARING. Because of his difficulties his mental health suffered, he turned to drink/drugs, his mental health deteriorated further, mixed with people with similar problems and ended up stabbed to death, murdered at 33.

He had a very very caring, normal, middleclass, educated family. These problems do not just happen in unstable, uneducated, abusive homes. My sister and I are both fully functioning ?normal? members of society ? so how come we didn?t go down the same road as our brother?

Please do not judge other people/families by your own experiences. Just be thankful that you have not had to go through what other people have.

"Some children ARE born ?difficult?. I would argue that most are born with undiagnosed needs, such as ADHD, Aspergers, etc."

no rebi, those were NOT the sorts of children/adults i was talking about. if a child has difficulties due to something that is undiagnosed by health profs. (who should know better), that is NOT the fault of the parents. did i at any point talk about children like this ?

i am talking about physically and mentality healthy and fully capable children, with no diagnosed or undiagnosed issues here who have behavioural problems and who are anti social.

can you see the difference before jumping the gun and calling someone you don't know "uneducated" ?

"If once it has grown that child makes bad choices then it's not down to the parents is it?"

You are stating the obvious zookeeper. I am talking about children who live with their parents, NOT grown adults.

I was saying that your VIEWS IN THIS AREA were uneducated - with regard to obviously having never experienced these unhappy situations (and lucky you). I did not mean that you are uneducated in other areas, just in this one (ie 'devil' children, drink/drug problems). Ok maybe wrong word - I do not wish to get into a confrontation with you, as you can imagine this is a subject that is very very close to my heart.

With regard to my comment re undiagnosed problems. To clarify, in my experience there are many people - adults and children - who are considered 'devil' children who go through life never being diagnosed with anything. They are just seen as 'devil' children - sometimes because their parents are in denial/ are uneducated and do not realise they have some underlying 'need' that if addressed could change the child's behaviour(sorry that word again - do not mean uneducated in all areas, just in special needs). My point was that sometimes people with behavioural problems are not displaying bad behaviour because they are being brought up by uncaring parents, but that they were born that way.

just to clarify, i did not make up the phrase "devil child", another poster used it and i re-used it to illustrate my points.

i actually think it is an awful phrase to use about a child, no matter what that child is like. there is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy, so if you call a child that all the time, don't be surprised if they start living up to their label.

just to reiterate again, i am not talking about special needs children, never have. i don't know enough about it, so i wouldn't dare comment.

i do have relatives who have severe drink problems as well as relatives who have children who do not have an underlying physical/mental problem, but who are simply "difficult".

my best friend was abused as a small child, hit black and blue by her father when she was only a toddler. she does point to this abuse as the MAIN factor for her difficulties in life. she is a great mum, would never dare hit her own son. unfortunatley, if you look at the facts, many abused children DO become abusers. Not all, but many.

so i am not as oblivios to this sort of thing as you suggest.

Children have particular temperaments, and so indeed do parents. And the interaction between the two is important. A child with a particular temperament may be a bad fit for a particular parent. This isn't a value judgement on the parent at all, but an example of why siblings will often have different experiences.

A knee-jerk 'blame it on the parents' response is far too simplistic.

it is the parents' reponsibility to find the right "fit".

how is a small child to know what fits him ? that is why we are adults with bigger brains and they are small children. a baby/child can't TELL you what fits him, you have to find out through trial and error if needs be.

why is this SO controversial, i would have thought it was commonsense ?

I think we are talking at cross purposes! My original posting was with regard to your previous comments, which I found very provocative and I reacted to those. Those comments gave the impression that you had no experience.

I was trying to point out that there are children who behave badly that have an underlying difficulty/need. Sometimes perfectly 'normal' children have problems which they are born with that noone recognises. Therefore they do not have 'special needs' (ie they are undiagnosed). This can sometimes be the case and not be the fault of the parents.

To give you another personal viewpoint - I run a Scout group for 4-5 year olds. We always have a child who is challenging in his behaviour. Having experience of children with behavioural difficulties in many forms, I would definitely say that their behaviour was down to a 'special need' (for want of a better word). Their parents for whatever reason, do not tell us in advance that there is a problem, do not seem aware that there is one?? These children go through life being considered badly behaved, but there may be an underlying cause that they are born with.

Don't know if that makes it any clearer.

Yellowrose, I think, what Becky meant was, that no matter how much a parent might love each of their children, a parent/child combination does a bit depend on how the personalities suit...not sure if I said that well!
But just an example....my ys is a very sensitive child and does require plenty of patience, which I often can't muster...no matter how much I love him, I do get frustrated with him for that reason, and he does get frustrated with me, I suppose, because I don't always pick up on what he is trying to tell me, with my ms, despite him being such a active lil lifewire, well, we just jelled....this doesn't mean that I love one child more then another, just that I find one child easier to deal with then the other....

rebi - a 4- 5 year old who has what you call "challenging" behaviour, may not be born with anything that has a psychological/physical cause - no medical condition whatsoever. there may be a 101 reasons why a 4 - 5 year old may be challenging, nothing to do with the characteristics they were born with. genetics will only be PART of the explaination, you have to look to the child's environment for the other causes.

i don't really understand what you are trying to say. if a child that age (school age) has a serious behavioural problem(i.e. behaviour that is NOT within the normal range of behaviour for their age group) do you honestly believe that there is absolutely nothing that the parents could/can do about it ?

my husband has a friend who has a very very challenging 6 year old. he was exactly the same when he was 4 and 5 which was the first time i had met him. i am sad to say the child is almost totally ignored, sits in front of the tv or computer most of the day, has almost zero interaction with either parent (the father is based abroad most of the time) who simply indulge him with snacks, toys and cd's. it is quite obvious to me what has happened with this child. he is most certainly not abused, they love him, but he is ignored and that shows up in almost everything he does. he "misbehaves" to get attention.

Of course it isn't as simple as modifying your behaviour to suit your child. There is a wealth of research that points to a complex interactive relationship that shapes the child, the parent and the relationship between them. Blaming a parent and their bigger brains is simplistic and unhelpful.

becky - yes there is interaction between a child and parent. but the parent has the upper hand and can mould that relationship.

any way, i will get off this thread. it is leading no where as usual.

Only up to a point yellowrose. I don't think we're as autonomous as you suppose.