Aibu to think is just luck or your parenting that makes your child behave ?

[havinganothertry]

I spent a day last weekend at a picnic with a big group of NCT friends and their partners/ husbands. All our kids are 3 ish now and some have littler ones too. All the kids played nicely ( around 20 kids) apart from two. These two have perfectly lovely parents, who did try to correct their behaviour to no avail. Is it a consistency or wording thing, as in maybe they don't correct them at home? These two children were shouty, grabby, rough and one kept taking other kids food or toys by snatching it away from them aggressively.

Now my DS is a bit of a wall flower these days, he's pretty shy. However he has not been prefect as around 1 yrs he went through a hitting phase. I had to follow him around all the time to stop him before he lashed out and tell him no instead of getting to chat with the other mums

So aibu to think these parents weren't parenting enough or was it just luck for the rest of us ? My DS doesn't get threats like no more tv if you do x at the moment, so I see 3 is a tricky age. However most of the kids would be in some sort of preschool so surely used to being around other and this bad behaviour from a few isn't allowed there ?

Reading it again I'm quite surprised how many people on this thread think a recently turned 3 year old shouting, running around, having a tantrum, not sharing and even hitting is showing inherently "bad" behaviour, or a result of bad parenting.

At that age they simply don't have the impulse control to always stop themselves from doing these things, especially if they're tired, overwhelmed, very excited or in a new situation where they feel uncertain etc. No matter how many times they've been told/ shown not to and suffered the consequences.

Obviously I'm not saying the parents can't stop them, or deal with these behaviours appropriately. And they absolutely should, depending on the circumstances.

But to think a 3 year old who does these things is badly behaved or their parenting is bad seems to show a lack of understanding of child development.

Yes ginger, I would imagine so.

But then who are these extremes were talking about? 1%, 5% at each end? A minority presumably?

So doesn’t it make sense to talk generally about the day to day, the people we all know, most of us?

@Bunnylady53 - he left so that was fine and have changed since. It was indeed the word used. Ranks up with the midwife who told me I had obviously never held a baby 12 hours into my first. Built confidence no rnd

It’s the nature nurture question isn’t it?

It’s a bit of both.

Some people are shitty parents. Some kids have shitty behaviour and difficult personalities!

@Skinnychip, the only I disagree with you is bedwetting. You can’t control hormones with parenting.
Sorry i agree thats pure luck (neither of mine were dry until 7).... but it doesn't stop other parents awarding themself a gold sticker because by chance their child was dry at 2!!

The hard inescapable truth, it is ALL down to parenting. We are the problem. Kids desperately need boundaries. The cognitive science is conclusive on this. They need our undivided attention, affection and eye contact. The era of smartphones is a bloody time bomb. All those kids desperately competing to get their parent's/carer's attention away from a bloody rectangular device.

This thread is bonkers. Anyone who thinks bad behaviour is solely down to parenting is raising a robot.

Both.

Some children are easier to parent.

Some children react to their parents styles better. My DC need different treatment (one needs more boundaries). I’m not great at getting this right.

The worst behaved child I know has parents that don’t believe in any form of discipline. I don’t think that’s a co-incidence.

Anyone who thinks bad behaviour is solely down to parenting is raising a robot.

Not bad behaviour, all behaviour. And why would my kids be robots? Are you assuming they’re well behaved? (They’re not)

It is not all down to parenting so many people have multiple children who are all different as they have their own personalities. It is a mix!

Parents do not create personalities from a blank canvas, they influence them

Interesting thread. I have skimmed some and not read every post but seems quite split.

Parenting all the way at that age.

I found this fascinating because my experience would be opposite - the longer you parent the more you can be consistent and your DC get to know the boundaries their family sets (or school, or whatever) and they mature and are more influenced by consistency. But at 3, they’re so governed by their impulses and natural tendencies that it’s personality all the way.

Wondering if OP has only 1 DC at the moment and the parents of the other 3-yr-olds have 2? This can be a big moment in parenting not just furvthe way the DC1’s behaviour can be influenced but ansi gif your parenting as you suddenly need to split your focus and get presented with challenges you just can’t replicate as a parent of only 1 DC, for better or worse.

Personality will have a huge impact. But so will how parenting responds to that personality.

Some children may be naturally "rougher" or "pushier", but will either be allowed to behave like that, be managed appropriately or over-corrected. All of which will influence the child's future behaviour.

Both.

Superficially my DSs are similar. But emotionally they are quite opposite. They have their own quirks and respond to different "consequences".

DS2 is probably the "naughtier" child in a conventional way. He's cheeky and likes to test his luck, but does respond to firm boundaries in the end and dislikes being disaproved of and can back down and appologise fairly easily. At 3, he was the speedy bolter. At 6, he's very fit and sporty.

DS1 is black and white about right and wrong. Fantastic at school. Crumbles under stress and will revert back to toddler mode. Unfortunately he wasn't born with any handy labels or manuals, and my default style which works well for DS2 is the wrong style for when DS1 is struggling and not in his rational state of mind.

At 3, he was a terrible tantrummer, like he had been from 10m... like he still is at 8. SNs are becoming apparent, two have been identified so far, but he clearly has sensory issues and that could be part of a high functioning ASD picture. I'm still learning and adapting to him. We had a horrid phase this time last year which was when I began to seriously consider a greater range of SNs. I began to adjust some of my expectations and that has eased life slightly. His worst behaviour tends to be in the street on the way home when all the frustration brewed up over the last 6.5 hours explodes out of him; he shouts and physically pushes around. My priority is to get him home to a safe, quiet space ASAP. He might need a very tight squeezy hug for sensory input. He might need the emergency can of coke for a hit of sugar and liquid. It might not look like good parenting to an outsider, it's doing the best I can at that moment for that child until I can get him to a safe space. I talk with DS2 about why I treat them differently and how that's the fair approach for them.

DS2 got sharing easily. DS1's instinct is to hoard.
DS2 gets appologising and can normally give a reasonable appology. DS1 can barely get the words out. Sometimes it"s because he's anxious and feels too difficult to verbalise that he did wrong. Sometimes he genuinely doesn't see that he did wrong for example that calling X fat was just a factual statement. He has stamina and he can stand his ground for many hours until you can barely remember what the primary issue actually was. He is very, very much a pick your battles child or everyone will go mad.

I'd like to think I'm a good parent who is adapting to the varying needs of both DCs. It's taken years to understand DS1 and it's still ongoing. DS2 is easy in comparison, although a weak, permissive parent would find that he exploits the loopholes. They both have enormous strengths too and make me very proud in their own ways.

Children aren't created from a standard blank canvas. Some are more tolerant/ resistant to weaknesses in parenting than others. Most parents to aim to do their best. Alas, non-default settings of child don't come with handy manuals and it can take a lot of trial and error along the way, and exhausted parents are liable to make errors. Children can behave very differently in different settings and all have some degree of their own quirks.

Those who think it is all parenting have easy children even if they think they don't.

The hard inescapable truth, it is ALL down to parenting. We are the problem. Kids desperately need boundaries. The cognitive science is conclusive on this. They need our undivided attention, affection and eye contact. The era of smartphones is a bloody time bomb. All those kids desperately competing to get their parent's/carer's attention away from a bloody rectangular device.

I agree with a lot of what you say about phones, but think helicopter parent style attention and micromanaging their lives and freedoms can be extremely damaging. But certainly fostering connection with children leads to better behaviour.

3 year old children still hit, push and shout 40 years ago when phones didn't exist (and parents were presumably setting boundaries).

It's tempting of course to believe there exists some nature v nurture debate as it excuses poor parenting. But there is no such debate, bit of we are considering empirical evidence. It was dispelled decades ago. With exception to incredibly rare mutations causing a chemical imbalance/neurological impediment, It is all nurture, all of it. That is the terrifying realty of being responsible for raising children. We need to face that truth and find better ways of supporting each other because it's bloody hard when you do it properly.

@NoSquirrels

Interestingly, the research suggests the opposite is true and that genetic influences get stronger as you get older.

I too wondered about other siblings. Having two is harder than the sum of its parts!

Neurological differences are not incredibly rare

SudowoodoVoodoo

You make a good point: good parenting doesn't necessarily mean quiet, compliant, typically "well behaved" children.

It might be giving your child the space to air their ugly feelings and still show you love them unconditionally.

It might be understanding that they're having a tantrum or acting out for unrelated reasons to sharing a toy or whatever the trigger may be and showing them empathy and coping mechanisms rather than shutting them down.

It might be setting a new boundary they don't like so they cry and whine and shout.

Well I have one dc that behaves (generally) and one that doesn’t. No diagnosis and a high achiever, but I do wonder whether he’s on the fringe of hyperactive. He was my PFB and I did try to get him to be reasonable and not grab, ignore and run around when inappropriate. I failed. It got better as he got older as I slowly learned how to manage him and he realised it was simply easier to conform on occasion. But I felt inadequate and judged for many years. DC 2 behaved without much effort from me, or perhaps it was just in comparison. My PFB has improved enormously since puberty and is starting to socialise with people his own age for the first time ever, I did try to do play dates when he was little but it didn’t work and he was never invited to parties etc. With a lot of hindsight I don’t think i’m Useless at parenting but I did have a child who misbehaved in public for more than 10 years and found it very difficult, in fact I gave up going out much or to family events at all for many years. So it was lonely, DS was not lonely, he much preferred rampaging around the house on his own, but I was.

Parenting. Absolutely parenting. All the way through. Parents are responsible for their children’s actions until they reach 18. A half decent, whilst ot technically responsible after their eighteenth birthday would still guide and advise and still feel huge responsibility if they did something shabby.

I suppose genetic influences get stronger but also - hopefully - your parenting of that particular child evolves and adapts, so you can do better with more tools in your arsenal?

For me, I see how I can better influence my individual DC as they’ve grown and the way their personalities are has a see-saw back-and-forth effect on how I parent. When they were toddlers or preschoolers it was harder to understand that.

But of course we can’t be sure of anything - the sibling order affects things, parenting style affects things, parents’ personalities affect things, all sorts of stuff which we confidently say is just because our DC are who they are innately isn’t true because we can’t see the wood for the trees.

I do think 2x DC makes a big difference to behaviour of both parents and children at the under 5s age, though! It’s so exhausting.

This is all fuelled by irresponsible/inaccurate reporting of science to fuel a narrative of a nature argument. The more that we learn about genetics only serves to support how environment shapes and triggers changes. You may be genetically predisposed to many traits, but these are only activated by your environment. Hence, it is not a genetic influence that is getting stronger, it is an environmental influence affecting a genetic trait. Siblings are very different because they are born in to very different environments - as in there's one more child to deal with; their parents are a bit older/more experienced than than they were with their older sibling, their parents are more knackered, there might be a gender bias to negotiate etc etc. No two siblings are born in to the same environment....apart from identical twins perhaps??

Parenting is always important and will always impact on a child’s behaviour whether that is good or bad parenting but if your child is naturally compliant, shy and a people pleaser that child is going to be easier to manage. A strong willed stubborn child will be harder to manage. Flipping that on the head, bad parenting will worsen a strong willed child’s behaviour, but a less strong willed child might not rebel against bad parenting or act out as much. I have 2 children, my DS was a “yes” child who would comply very easily, my dd was a “no” child who was to be frank a nightmare. Even as a baby she was strong willed, took ages to settle, needed constantly to be held, walked at 9 months through sheer grit and determination. I was never a “sit down,be quiet, shut up” parent and very engaged, distracted bad behaviour, firm but fair but she was just so stubborn. now she is older she’s gorgeous.

Maybe it's different for each individual but seriously my 13 year old was a horror at that age (I'd had an easy ride with older sibling)...no matter what I did he was an absolute nightmare...Now he's a little darling (kind of..I may be biased 😊) with good morals, he's kind, funny, popular, I'm hoping my hard work has paid off but I do honestly think you can't judge as they are all different, my friends have had things the opposite way round with their children and they are amazing parents so I do believe in 'different stokes for different folks'.