To not necessarily want a well-behaved child?

[OneStepAheadOfTheToddler]

Ok, so the title of this thread is perhaps a little more controversial than I was intending it to be.

I was a well-behaved child. Everyone always complimented my parents on how my siblings and I behaved. We were quiet, shy, always stayed by their side, never ran away to explore and, if we ever did anything to show them up, were made to feel so guilty and ashamed about it that we never did it ever again. We hated shouting and raised voices and couldn't bear to disappoint our parents. We would never have dreamt about joining in with the naughty kids at school and weren't very good at making friends, although this is something that we've all got better at as we got older and discovered that actually we do like to enjoy ourselves after all . I was speaking to MIL the other day and she said it was exactly the same for her and her sisters; they wouldn't say boo to a goose, lived in fear of their parents' anger, didn't have much fun and had very little confidence or self-belief. In both cases, our parents could take us anywhere.

DS is not a well-behaved child. He's a sweet, funny toddler who never bites or hits. But he has ants in his pants, can't sit still for more than two minutes, loves doing naughty things for a reaction and yelling and telling off doesn't seem to have any impact. He's not afraid of anything. Whenever we go anywhere, he is off exploring in a trice. He is very sociable, loves other children and will always join in with any game that is going on. We stopped going to toddler groups for a bit since he was always the leader of the 'naughty boys' (with the occasional girl) who would run around the room in circles rather than listening to the lovely music teacher and it was too embarrassing. I have never been complimented on his behaviour and probably never will be. Though apparently he behaves much better in nursery and they're very fond of him. But I can't take him anywhere.

Now, I know there is a balance to be struck - we need to be firmer with DS whereas our parents probably went too far in the other direction. But the holy grail on here seems to be "Oh yes, I can take my children out for a 3 course meal in a Michelin-starred restaurant and they behave perfectly". Is it personality or parenting? And are parents of well-behaved children concerned that their children might struggle later on in life, as we did? If not, because your children are that perfect blend of well-behaved and confident, how have you achieved this? What tips can you give me?

[quote MummytoCSJH]@StCharlotte - another genuine question - why should adults wants trump those of the children? Especially given that the adults generally made a choice to have or care for them. I'm not saying in every situation but I don't subscribe to the view that adults are automatically more important than children.[/quote]
That's fair enough. It's only my opinion.

It’s not that adults trump kids or kids trump adults: everyone in a family has to wait sometimes, do stuff they don't necessarily want to do, because that’s life. It’s great prep for life, and esp starting school. So many kids start school thinking the world revolves entirely around them. It doesn’t, any more than it revolves around me. This permissive, overly analytical, naval-gazing parenting trend lulls kids into a false sense of place and importance in the world. The fall from grace in reception is often very painful, and the reverberations can last a lifetime.

As many others have said - its not binary. My DD had tantrums at 2 but since then has always been the easiest going, creative and dreamy, kind person. My DS never had a single tantrum and was never a bull in a china shop little boy but he was bright and quirky and clever. Both were joyful and fun.

My children were always well behaved on the important things like not snatching other children's toys, sharing, not grabbing food or helping themselves and they were well behaved guests, capable of behaving in restaurants, galleries and cafes. Because no one can bear a badly behaved brattish kids who have been treated like little emperors at home and have no sensitivity to others. Those that can't behave nicely and run roughshod over the quieter kids may have trouble with friendships and get in a lot of trouble at school. So its not really doing them any favours.

Kids like boundaries and consistency. Be firm about what's important but spend time with them and let them express themselves, try new things, laugh and play. Be funny and silly and joyful yourself. My friends always described me as Hitler about bedtime and then later envied the fact my kids had always been such good sleepers. And now I'd be regarded here on MN as one of those 'cool' liberal Mums. Its much easier to relax rules and be fun and open minded if you started with some rules to begin with. Harder to impose them later.

I was way too well behaved as a child and am now seen as the steady one that will drop anything, always phone etc. Sometimes I wish I hadn't been!!!

I do sometimes wonder what my parents were thinking. They were (and still are) very loving, but goodness did they expect us to be doormats in everything! For a long time after leaving home, I'd always be the one who ended up stuck listening to boring self-interested people (usually men) at parties for hours because that was what I was conditioned to do at home. Nod and say "how interesting" while secretly dying of boredom inside. Now I just say I need to go to the loo and disappear. Also taking on thankless tasks at work... The sort that take endless time and effort but don't result in any recognition and promotion... Because someone had to do it. It was the same at school... I'd really quite have liked to have refused the library monitor post but that would have felt too unhelpful.

@OneStepAheadOfTheToddler I’d take all of these posts calling your child names with a big pinch of salt. Or a fuck off, really.

He’s not even three. He’s still a baby.

I think it’s great that you want to raise him well but ffs he does not sound like a handful! He sounds like a toddler. A boisterous, fun-loving toddler.

You know I’ve posted my advice on behaviour but I really do think a lot of it doesn’t kick in until at least three.

Gentle discipline yes. Teaching safety of course!

Everything else will come with time and continuing setting boundaries.

He’s not a bloody delinquent. He’s a toddler being a toddler!

my two are close in age and literary bounce off each other. they are 7band 5, we still don't take them to restaurants although I haven't tried in years and think they would be fine now and be able to sit quietly for an hour. There not really sit down kids, never have being they like being outdoors running and climbing. the only time they'll sit quietly is if there's an iPad in front of them.
my 7 year old sounds similar to how your toddler is when he was younger. we tried baby groups but he didn't want to sing, do crafts or story time. He wanted to run. he is now a very loving kind outdoorsy boy and we tell them both the most important thing you can do in life is to be kind to others, there defiantly not the best behaved kids but they are defiantly kind to others and always include everyone and I think that's what's most important.

What punishment can you actually give to a child who doesn't care if they are punished?!

That was me as a kid -- in elementary, my mother banned teachers from giving me before or after school detentions because "they punish [my mother] more than [child-me]" which was absolutely true. Much like the old curse 'may you have a child just like you', my oldest is similar.

Even now, he cares very little about punishment, he'll literally shrug off anything. It's rough, and as someone who is very big on boundaries I know it isn't just 'stop that behaviour', that it takes a lot of time, but that kid has been stronger than me for a good few years now and I still have to be concerned about his impact on everyone even now when I can't remove him from a space without his full cooperation.

I'd recommend How to ADHD as she has a lot of great tips and I know everyone is different. In our case, the only things that worked were:

A consistent environment as possible with his additional needs in mind. I still, with him being 15, at his request, help him create a weekly schedule of things he needs to go in daily boxes that he completes before doing fun things. He chose alternative education course (with fewer days per week but more hours each day) partially because of its reliable structure with other space for flexibility.

Focusing more on responsibilities and acquiring skills than punishments - both daily responsibilities and extra curriculars focused on it - SJA Cadets has been great for him. We discussed pretty much all restrictions when he was younger as his father and I being responsible for him and therefore could not allow him to do X when he had been doing X-related issue.

And when things got bad when he was 6+ we 'tomato-stalked' him for a week at a time, which essentially meant that because he couldn't be trusted to be out of our sight after something particularly bad, he wasn't going to be. He had to stick with his father or I at all times beyond going to the loo and we made that very boring. Not much fun for us either, but it helped him take it seriously and helped with his overload to just reduce everything down to do this.

OneStepAheadOfTheToddler: if they were prevented from speaking out, then they told someone and were prevented from doing so for reputation sake. That's pretty common. It doesn't make your original argument that they didn't because 'the abusive adult is right' correct as that's not what happened to those you know and it just makes it weirder that you used child abuse victims as a shield for your parenting choices. You can just say you prefer not to hold strict boundaries for certain behaviours without using us like that.

Haven't RTFT but OP have you read up on the 4 parenting styles? Authoritarian which sounds like your upbringing? And Permissive which people are advising against on here, with good reason. And authoritative, which is what you want to aim at.

theattachedfamily.com/membersonly/?p=2151#:~:text=An%20Authoritarian%20parent%20might%20say,right%20now%20with%20your%20friends.&text=A%20Permissive%20parent%20would%20say,fun%2C%20but%20be%20careful.%E2%80%9D

@Bibabbles. Apologies, but I'm afraid I don't follow the thread of your argument. I'm sure this is my fault, not yours. So I'll restate my thoughts and maybe you can let me know which part of what I'm saying you think is unacceptable...

One of the reasons I think it is important not to bring children up to be "people pleasers" (as I was) is because this makes it harder for them to speak up and rock the boat when other people (be it adults, other children etc.) behave in an unacceptable manner towards them. Because they have learnt from an early age that the most important thing is to keep the people around them happy. So people can say things to them like "This is all your fault" and "If you say anything, you'll make Mummy unhappy" and it has more of an impact. Although never abused, guilt and emotional blackmail were frequently used to make me toe the line. So I can see how it could be used in this context... This is a slightly different issue from abused children speaking up and being completely disregarded, which I agree has happened often as well.

@OhCaptain. Thank you, I don't think he's beyond redemption yet!

But I have found this thread interesting, both for the advice I've received and also to see how polarising this has been. I've also been a little shocked by some posters describing a 2 year old in what I would consider to be entirely inappropriate terms...

If I saw your thread after our 2 kids, I'd have said parenting. But now we have DC3, I'd say it's personality

All raised the same. Same discipline etc, but DC3 is really challenging. Makes me feel like the shittiest parent ever.

Not so much judging the child OP, as judging you (rather, parents like you). As well as the parenting epidemic, we are also in a diagnosis epidemic, with labels being attached to so many kids that they become the norm rather than any kind of exception. I honestly believe that modern permissive parenting has a lot to do with it. I don’t think PDA is clinically recognised in this country (it certainly wasn’t 5 years ago when I had a case involving a child with alleged PDA), but a condition in which a child can’t take orders seems to fit squarely into the modern parenting trend. Is it a disorder, or simply an effect?

Yes but it’s a balance isn’t it? You need to have a few people pleaser traits to get through life or you will find yourself rather lonely and without a job! You do need to think of others and be empathetic without going too far and overlooking your own needs..

I really think you should read the book suggested by a pp. You still sound very anxious about kerbing negative behaviour for fear of going too far like your parents did which won’t help your son (or his peers)

OP you sound as though you are still reacting to your upbringing albeit with good intentions.
I think it would really help if you had some counselling about the issues with your parents.
Despite the outward maturity-quiet, good, sensible etc people brought up by controlling, critical parents are often emotionally immature.
I dont mean silly, childish, I mean lack of emotional intelligence, critical thinking and judgement.
Everything is controlled by external motivation and the whims of others not by having internal motivation and a strong sense of self and values.

Before you dismiss this, I was that person.
I had counselling and eventually for the sake of my children went LC with my parents as my DD was the "golden child" and my DS abused as the " scapegoat"
I also did a parenting course.

Boundaries are not reinforced by whacking your child and shouting.
Role modelling, age appropriate activities and consequences.
Ive never hit, shouted at or sat my DC on a step anywhere.
Explain behaviour ( no running, hold my hand near the road) child runs off, one warning, ignores and so into the buggy.
Ignore screaming, discuss when everyone is calm.
Consistency is key.

Good luck OP
I think the time when our own childhoods are exposed is when we have children

From what you describe in your op I would consider that normal toddler behaviour.

I had 2 who did similar.

Another mum of 1 perfectly behaved Dd would avoid me in the playground before school. Then she had her second. A little boy.
She came up to me one day and apologised for thinking I was a bad parent because my 2 would run around being loud and raucous in the playground before school and her little girl would be by her side waiting to go into class or playing quietly with her friends

Despite all their best efforts her now toddler Ds was in her words out of control and running around being loud as well.

I just think some children are like that and no amount of shouting and anger at their behaviour is going to make them better behaved for more than 2 minutes.

And for those congratulating themselves that they are brilliant parents because their children are well behaved. You have been lucky because if you had one more that child might not have been quite as compliant.

Ds is ADHD and Dd is probably ADHD but I didn’t recognise it as ADHD as that is what I was like when I was there age.

Believe me when I say I was shouted at and screamed at and belted to make be be quiet or behave and all it did was eventually to make sure I didn’t get up or run around I would have to spend all my concentration on behaving so I didn’t really learn anything in school and the stress caused me to have a stomach ulcer by the age of 11

Another thing I'm not sure of is how you can know that you've struck the right balance. Not trying to be snarky at all, but there are a lot of posters on here with well-behaved children who ARE sure they've struck the right balance. That their children are a good mix of perfectly behaved and disciplined, putting others first, and yet still independent and confident. My parents were sure they'd struck the right balance. But how are you sure that, when you reach the tween/teen stage, you're not going to end up with a child chronically lacking in confidence who can't stand up for themselves? Or would it have happened anyway because nature is more important than nurture? In which case, why take credit or blame for something that's largely not down to you anyway 😁? I should say in advance that I'm genuinely interested in these questions rather than just trying to get at certain posters, so please don't respond if you consider this a personal attack .

I don't think you can ever know that you've got the balance right, but also that that's true of absolutely every element of parenting and that you have to decide, at some point, to do what seems best and right to you and accept it's all you can do. Parents frequently overestimate the extent to which their DC will think they got it right and we tend to be a lot more forgiving of ourselves and our peers than we are of our parents.

You're ('you' in the general sense, not the specific!) not going to raise the first human being without any hang-ups and issues, and trying to do this, or thinking you've found the way to do it, is likely to lead to at best some disappointment and at worst considerably bigger issues than those you're trying to avoid. Everyone has flaws that they can trace to their childhood and upbringing, it's part of the human condition.

That's the thing with parenting though isn't it? You can never be truly sure. A bit like when people say that leaving a child to cry to sleep did them no harm...I used to think well how can you possibly know that as you don't get to see how the child would have turned out had you made a different decision...? I do think it's wrong to equate being appropriately well behaved with being meek and having no character though. Plenty of pleasant, well-behaved people are also brave, funny, adventurous, sparky etc... I think it's a massive advantage in life to be able to get on with different sorts of people. That doesn't mean having to be a total people pleaser, but does involve having sensitivity to those around you and knowing how to adapt your behaviour to the situation.

Well, I think nature is enormously important. I've heard more than one tale, like pp's, from smug parents of two placid, biddable children, who were shocked at their own lack of real parenting skills, by their third, boisterous child.

But put simply, parenting is about setting and enforcing boundaries - in such a way that the child understands and internalises both good habits (to avoid the need for effortful thinking in most everyday situations) and, is capable of working out what the right thing to do is, when a new, different or difficult situation presents itself.

So 'shut up or I'll clout you / lock you away at home' is a failure (because there's no understanding, only fear and/or anger) but so is 'do what you like and discover your own natural boundaries' because the child isn't capable of understanding why they're not getting return invitations and making friends. They had a nice time, their friend might have had fun too but the friend's parents did not, because of the impolite, ill-disciplined child.

The teaching of good manners and behaviour is something of a parent to parent / teacher etc contract, which sets the child up to develop successfully in all sorts of situations. They only gradually learn for themsleves why all those rules and petty politenesses matter, in some ways not fully getting it until adulthood, by when the learning or damage is done.

None of us can ever know that we’ve definitely struck the right balance. We can only do our best and hope that it’s enough for our children to be happy, healthy, and have good moral characters.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

And yes, I agree there is no perfect path. Parenting style inevitably flows from the parents' personalities and also responds to the child's. Where these are the same and borth calm, is where people have an easy time.

I know for example, that the decisions I make about what films my DC can watch are based party on my own ideas and experiences but also on the personality of my DC. So I am stricter than some parents, more permissive than others - but it's for reasons I can explain. Likewise with bed times. I know what my DC is like without enough sleep and how easily they get to sleep.

And I think, in the end, if the main things they have to complain about are about you, not their experience of the rest of the world, you've won. Especially if their complaints are of the petty, 'you were more or less permissive' type.

A teacher once said to me that it's normal for DCs to behave well at school, badly at home, because at school they're performing for teachers and peers, whereas home is their safe space, where they can let out their emotions. The DCs she worried about were the ones who behaved badly at school for the same reason - that home life was an effortful performance, school was their safe space. (Obviously some DCs have behavioural challenges all round. She wasn't talking about SEN).

If his behaviour is disruptive to others then you need to deal with it not excuse it with 'ants in his pants' or you're going to have a really difficult time when he starts school.
There's a huge gap between his current behaviour and sitting in a 3 star michelin restaurant with kids. I wouldn't take my children to a long formal meal for no good reason, but I do expect them to sit a table in our local and eat with us not run around. We fully engage with them at the table with toys, Dobble, Lego, talk to them etc. They don't get tablets or devices .
With little ones we took it in turns to walk them outside, or chose places that were more kids friendly or had a garden.
As for being the 'leader' - to our surprise we've found out that our kind, sensitive, quieter boy is actually the 'leader' of most the boys in school - calls the shots on games etc. Found this out via another parent.
When I asked him about this he said that he's good at assigning 'roles' in games and makes sure no-one every gets left out or has to always do the same thing.
You don't have to be the 'naughty' loud kid to get people's attention.

We have close friends who's style is to let the kids be loud, question everything, they don't discipline very well - or at all - and quite frankly their kids are a bloody nightmare. We're one of the few who will have the kids over - and even then we limit that - because as a parent I don't want to be debating with a 6 and 9 year old for half an hour about why they can't have another biscuit or why they have to stop screaming.
Every holiday they go on there's usually a massive drama to - usually starting on the plane - over their kids behaviour. Running around, yelling, kicking the chair in front etc. etc.