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 ?

Parenting. And if they didn't pack them up and take them home when repeatedly behaving like that then they were parenting poorly.

Why repeat the same actions and chastisements if they have no effect? It's exhausting and pointless. And lazy.

@NoSquirrels I love your post!

@allthebiscuits, it was the identical twin research I was referring to. Identical twins become more similar as they get older, suggesting genetic influences get stronger with age.

*there are problematic assumptions made in twin research though, that we treat identical twins the same as we treat non-identical ones. Which I doubt is true, personally. This dodgy assumption is the basis for the whole nature argument.

Elves - the posted you quoted was talking about toddler who don't push boundaries, which is quite different from toddlers who don't tantrum.

... though to be fair, what that poster said sounds very much like the sort of thing a doctor with a good bedside manner would say to the parent of a 'spirited' child.

In any case, what's quoted is clearly wrong:

always be concerned about a toddler who doesn't push boundaries because it means not a lot in going on between the ears

It can or might mean that. It doesn't necessarily mean it.

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

Completely agree! I'm actually shocked how many people think a naughty 3 year old is so due to poor parenting.

I have a 3 year old and have seen many children the same age who just struggle with impulse control. They are disciplined and given limits but when they get tired/cranky/jealous/whatever they hit, scream, throw. It takes some children longer to outgrow this phase than others so to blame it on parenting is ridiculous.

Of course there are some terrible parents but we're not talking about 8 year olds. 3 years old, come on.

Child Psychologist here.

Personality and temperament play a huge part, this can be mediated by parenting but it's more intense to parent these kinds of kids (I have 4, 2 are 'placid' and stop when I ask, 2 see no as a challenge).

Ultimately parenting is a marathon not a sprint. Some kids are more intensive and time heavy to parent in the early years. This can leave parents feeling judged, helpless and ineffective which can make the parenting relationship worse.

Kids tend to come right in the end and comparing them at 3 is not a great way to assess overall life outcome.

"Perfectly lovely parents" very often have nightmare offspring. Some of my nicest friends have vile DC on account of them not disciplining them properly and letting them always have their own way.

Personality and parenting but also how a child is developing. Not necessarily sen just different things developing at different rates for example my two year is ahead on understanding how things work and physically but behind on emotional development and communication which causes a lot of frustration. I can and do carry out the punishment every single time but he just doesn’t get it yet. But he will. The majority of children do even with sen, by 7 or 8 most are fine and understand and behave.
Judging isn’t great as they say the race is long and in the end it’s only with yourself

For me it’s all parenting in the long run for NT children. And that’s a bit caveat. At 3 it’s harder to tell. By 7/8 more parenting than luck certainly. Like many other PPs, I have a compliant older child and a feisty wild younger one. I don’t parent them the same because they are different and have different needs but I also enforce similar boundaries (so the rules are the same but how I enforce them and how I manage the behaviour around those same rules are different). And for the most part DS2 is a very well behaved child in public. For the most part. (He’s a toddler so we have good days and bad!).
How do I judge public behaviour? By looking at the parents not the kids. Kids will be kids, even well behaved ones have bad days. But how are the parents managing it? Are they sitting back on their phone and ignoring the behaviour or are they actively intervening (and sometimes that might mean removing the child from said place and then ignoring that behaviour)?

Having said all that I have a couple of friends with kids who have complex SEN and they both always enforce rules and boundaries for their kids. In a different way to mine and for different things, making allowances for stuff that is beyond the kid’s control (sensory stuff etc) but they both told me that they see it as their duty to make sure their children can, within the limitations of their needs, be as fully functioning members of society as possible and that means having to learn some social norms. Although their techniques for teaching these are different to mine etc. I have always admired their approach.

This takes me back to NCT meet ups where my parenting was judged to fuck as my son wouldn’t/couldn’t do what he was told. He was later diagnosed with adhd/asd

If you are all first time parents my guess is that this just won’t have occurred to the majority of you - out of a group of twenty chances of at least one of the kids having some sort of diagnosis are relatively high

That said I think we all know some crappy ineffective parents. My kids grew up with one child about whom people would literally roll their eyes as she was such unbelievably hard work (the kind of child who on a play date would go through the fridge and then empty out all the toys upstairs)I always felt sorry for her as her parents were extremely indulgent and just hadn’t done the basics. She’s fine now but she had to work it all out for herself

Temperament of the child and parenting combined.

The actual evidence from twin studies etc. (as opposed to people's own anecdata etc. ) suggests that genes are very important.

Two points:

Parents and children share DNA (assuming no adoption: adoption studies, again, suggest that parents' influence is a lot more limited than people tend to imagine). If parents who are doing all the "right things" (according to the parenting books) tend to have better behaved children, at least some of that will be because calm, consistent genetic parents are more likely to have children who are well behaved anyway, sharing similar personality traits.

And: children influence parenting styles. A well behaved child is more likely to respond to calm, consistent parenting. A hellion may well drive his parents to respond with rage, or to give up altogether. A casual observer may assume that it is the parenting causing the personality traits, rather than the other way round.

It isn't all parenting. If a child has no understanding due to severe disability then all the most fantastic parenting in the world isn't going to give them that understanding. Those parents frequently work harder than any others just to keep their child safe but the child may by appearance look like the worst behaved child.

OP, at 3 it is far too early to tell yet. I have a colleague with adult children who says all children have the same amount of bad in them, it just varies when it comes out. I think there's an element of truth in that, but also it's a reminder that the most important skills in parenting are flexibility and humility. Remember your 3yo 'angel' might turn out to be the bully in primary school or the teenage rebel. What works with a young child (clear boundaries) might lead to a teenager going off the rails (parents who are inflexible).

The reality is that most parents are actually good enough parents and most of those NCT middle class kids will turn out as reasonably successful functioning adults. I have a relative who fosters. At the extreme end of the scale abusive and neglectful parenting does do permanent damage but in a 2hr party many of those very damaged foster kids appear very well behaved, there's a strange kind of confidence and self assurance about young children who have had very disrupted lives. They have already built barriers to protect themselves that a loved and cared for child of the same age won't have yet. It takes time and a lot of skill to parent damaged children well and some people are better parents than others. Relative has had foster children who have very complex needs who are deemed not suitable for adoption at very young ages, they then move on to the long term foster parents who are incredible at caring for these 'unlovable' children. I know I couldn't care for those children well enough, I don't think many people could, particularly those on here who are so convinced of their good parenting.

It’s bad parenting, no excuse.

With NT kids I believe it's entirely down to role models and relationship actually. I really don't think parenting style matters a whole lot when you bring it down to that. Negligent parents don't produce unpleasant children because they aren't being strict or consistent enough, it's because their kids end up feeling insecure because their parents constantly prioritise other things over them (whether that's drugs/alcohol, romantic partners, other children, etc). As long as you're doing some kind of broadly acceptable parenting and your kids are neurotypical, it's highly likely to work for them. Of course it's easy to get hung up on small differences though and assume that other children you come across who behave poorly aren't being parented in the exact way you believe in but I don't think this is usually the problem. Parenting style IME seems to be much more about what suits the parent and how the parent feels comfortable than what suits the child.

Then you have kids with various kinds of special needs who will need pretty intensive parenting (often of a kind that doesn't look like normal parenting) and whose behaviour also makes it extremely difficult to stick to those kinds of things. In addition sometimes it can look as though a parent is being totally crap in response to a SN child, but it's important to bear in mind (a) SN parenting may not look like ordinary parenting, and (b) a great many types of SN are inherited. The parents may well have the same condition.

My ADHD child was massively different even as a baby to his little brother even though it is far too early to say anything about DS2. All this time I assumed DS1 had no self control or independence at that age because he was a baby, but while DS2 is of course very impulsive and dependent, there are also streaks, or buds, I suppose, if both things in DS2 already, which surprised me a lot and has made me reevaluate what DS1 was like when he was very young as I'd thought probably it was me.

Lastly different parenting styles value different things and behaviours at different ages. If you have quite an authoritative parenting style you might be horrified to see children talking to their parents with what you deem to be a lack of respect. On the other hand those parents may not have focused on eliminating that behaviour because they don't believe that it's very important in the scheme of things.

Most of the time I tend not to judge. Mainly because sometimes I see the best children coming from the worst, severely disfunctional families and the worst DC coming from the best families.

I think it's a bit of both. I've got children who never needed telling twice and a raised eyebrow would be enough to stop them in their tracks and then I have one who needed constant supervision and rigid consistency to have any hope of containing him.

Bit of both. I have two who will stop when told and one who will put up a fight about everything.

"but it's important to bear in mind (a) SN parenting may not look like ordinary parenting,"

I agree. If ds is behaving in a frenzied way or starting to hit me because he is highly anxious, the last thing I am going to do is to start loudly telling him off. He needs me to be calm and reassuring, not a loud reaction to whatever he is doing.

Managing the behaviour of some children can be a real skill, achieved over years of experience and of knowing the child and something that some parents of easier children will have no understanding of.

They are little. Things will change. They are utterly wearing at that age and it can be exhausting trying to be consistent all the time. My friend’s son was a nightmare as a toddler. He’s a delightful 19yr old now.

I have one friend who has two teens, one lazy, rude, drinking, smoking etc, one no issues at all.

From experience (teacher for more years than I care to remember) - I’ve never met a nasty child with lovely parents. Naughty with lovely parents, yes. Nasty with lovely parents, no.

I’m sure there are exceptions and there are definitely more or less effective parenting styles, especially at this age, but on the whole, I think that if you are good people and tell your kids what is ok and not, they should turn out ok in the end!

I think it's a mixture. When people say girls are harder or boys are more difficult , I always know a example that contradictory to it.

I think it's a lot to do with personality with a bit of parenting throw in.

My brother and I were brought up exactly the same and he was a handful and really outgoing, I was however extremely shy and very cooperative. We were both however well mannered and behaved well.

As said above it depends hugely on the child. People judge the hell out of my child. I do my best to be a good parent, i.e. connecting emotionally with DS, giving him firm and consistent boundaries, not shouting, giving lots of positive reinforcement, and doing what I can to keep him amused in situations like doctors' waiting rooms where he wants to be somewhere else.

But DS probably has ASD.

He only learnt to sleep more than one sleep cycle at a time aged 2.3, so up to that point was quite screamy when overstimulated because he was permanently exhausted. He was also permanently on edge, overstimulated, frightened of other (rough, loud) children, so "unsociable" in not playing with others, and liable to melt down at any moment because he was so on edge. People at playgroup thought he was a spoilt little s**t. In a quieter environment with lots of structure and strict behavioural expectations of all the kids (Montessori kindy), he's still not very sociable, but he's happy and relaxed and pootling around doing things and watching the other kids. Looks like a completely different child. Staff think he's delightful and laid-back.

Another example: he has oral aversion so can't eat texture and has difficulty with other things, so I let him watch TV while he eats so he doesn't think about the food and gag on it. Grandparents think he is a spoilt brat around food and enjoys having power over me. Actually, I think it's completely reproducible that if you force him to eat unfamiliar food without sufficient distraction, he gets distressed. And if you solve it (blend the food, and/or distract) and treat him gently, he's fine.

Likewise waiting rooms. People stare in judgement as I quietly, desperately do the song and dance act with books, toys, phone, carrying him up the corridor to look at stuff, etc., desperately trying to keep him from melting down in frustration. Catsbumface old ladies tell me he should be able to amuse himself "at his age". I smile sweetly and point out he's tall for 2 and a half.

There's an immense amount of judgement out there. Don't add to it...