Our children arn’t perfect!!

[theprincessthepea]

AIBU for being annoyed anytime someone glorifies their child and assumes that they can do no wrong? Comments like - “They are so good, they would never act out…” / “My son/daughter would never do that, that behaviour is unlike them”

Sure - but they have acted out of character - don’t ignore it, look into it and do something about it! I’ve seen it on MN a few times - and recently in real life, a girl has been so badly bullied she won’t attend school but the bullies mum denies her daughter could ever get involved (her dd is a nightmare but she doesn’t see that side).

I have a teen and a baby. Yes they are good kids. Yes in my eyes they are perfect! But they are not faultless - the older one has attitude sometimes, she sulks, but she’s also thoughtful, curious etc. The baby is a baby, and I’m sure I’ll have to teach him sharing, no touching other babies faces etc etc. I couldn’t imagine parenting my children thinking that they didn’t have faults.

With my eldest she has done stuff that has been out of character, but we don’t ignore it - we tackle them together - and honestly I think she’s better for it.

I’m not being unreasonable … am I …

I absolutely worship and adore my kids... But can they be arseholes? Absolutely yes. I'm under no illusions that they're perfect, nor am I. I think we like to (and should) give people the benefit of the doubt, but no-one is perfect!

Anyone who claims their kids are somehow perfect, or that they'd never do anything bad or unkind, has zero understanding of human nature. There isn't a person on the planet who doesn't occasionally give in to selfish impulses, make a poor choice or hurt someone else (intentionally or not). Moreover even pretty bloody great kids sometimes defy their parents, openly or not, or act contrary to what they have been taught. In fact it is probably good for them to do so, as the alternative would be for them to accept authority and rules mindlessly.

I imagine that parents of the 'my child would never' school have somehow completely forgotten how they found it to be a child / teenager, and are hugely overestimating how well they know their own children (despite presumably not having been completely 'known' by their own parents)... or more likely they're just showing off and playing a status game.

My one caveat to all this is that some kids are definitely a lot nicer, kinder, more self-controlled etc than others, and I'm sure parenting can play some role in that even if it's not the only cause... so I do get why some parents are proud of their kids and why this can come across irritatingly at times...

@Greywarden I think your point about going back to how one personally found childhood/adolescent years and overestimating how well they know their children.

I appreciate it’s a difficult balance.

My kid isn’t perfect but I would 100% believe their version of the story or event over the schools version. Schools don’t give the full account

You might be better off considering the school’s account a bit more than 0%…

My younger kids 17, and 20 are genuinely really good kids but I know they have probably said nasty things about people etc, but I haven’t told them off since primary school. I don’t claim it’s because i’m some amazing parent, just lucky. I think living in a calm house of no shouting, etc and my calm nature rubs off, but more than anything just lucky.

My eldest definitely wasn’t as good, and whilst at uni did something pretty nasty to fellow housemates, though promoted by mental health issues and problems no doubt stemming from my relationship with my ex (father of younger two) and way it all ended / blew up (I left due to how my ex treated my eldest). He definitely didn’t live in a calm house with no arguing, which is why I was determined younger two wouldn’t have to live like that, i’ve stayed single for 15yrs and focused on my kids, and job.

So I don’t think my kids can do no wrong, just been incredibly lucky to have 2 chilled out kids who are home bodies and more focused on academics than anything else.

The problem with this is if your children know that, then they know they can tell you whatever they want you to hear. True or not quite the whole truth. The thing to keep in mind really is the different perspectives involved.

There's a difference between saying 'My child would never do that' and that child being perfect.

I have a ds who is kind, warm hearted and funny. I know he would never bully anyone, he worries when any of his class mates is unhappy or distressed, and goes out of his way to try to help.

That doesn't mean he is perfect. He throws his clothes on the floor, often leaves his homework to the last minute and is a nightmare to get out of bed in the morning.

If the school said he was handing in work late, I'd believe them. If they said he was bullying someone I would not. That doesn't mean I would not speak to my ds or investigate what was going on.

I wouldn't trust an adults version, including myself, 100% of the time let alone a child

If 10 people witness an event either good or bad or indifferent, i bet there would be 10 different versions of anything

I always think, anyone who says "my child would never" is setting themselves up for a karmic reality check one day.

Unfortunately a lot of parents think they're doing their children favours by believing them and "standing by them" in the face of lots of evidence that they did infact, act like an arsehole.

These parents prevent them learning a lesson to be better next time. That child will grow up to become a bit of a dick, because they will even start to actually BELIEVE they can do no wrong. They've always had parents telling the school "they didn't do that, they said XYZ" they will believe their own lies.

They may even be opening themselves up from being a bully, to being bullied. Take this scenario: If Sally is able to go around and act like an arsehole and treat people badly, never being punished because her mum always told the school "Sally would never". Then one day Sally may find herself without many friends, because everyone's sick of Sally's shit. Then Sally's parents will of course, blame everyone else's children. However, if Sally's mum had taken on board comments about Sally's behaviour and taught her an appropriate lesson, then maybe Sally wouldn't be so lonely now...

Why??? Just curious.

I discovered, when DS was a teen, that he bare face lies. He learned it from his dad, so I would never have believed him 100%. And from working in schools I can say that lots of kids have bad attitudes and are rude. Not all, but lots.

I very rapidly realised that children aren't perfect as soon as I had more than one child that could talk. They could both tell me about the same incident with sincerity/conviction but it was clear one of them had to by lying because both version of what they were saying couldnt be true. They were also, on occasion, horrid to each other. Despite mainly being sweet, loving and caring.

I also work in a school with younger children and learned that at that age they really see stuff from thier own perspective only. A common situation is they feel that someone has pushed or hit them. But having witnessed it, they were 'hit' but it was by a 5 year old struggling to get thier jumper on and swinging arms about with thier eyes covered by the jumper and they just wandered straight into the space where the arms were swinging round. (Obviously some children really did get pushed with malice too).

You're not wrong, but sometimes those parents will be right.

When I was about 14, an admin error (I assume) meant I was accused of skipping school for a couple of days. The idea of this was laughable. It would have been so out of character. I loved school, and was also too scared of getting told off to skip school even if I wanted to. I never even had a single detention the whole time I was at school. The main office called my mum, but not until about a week later, so the teachers didn't specifically remember whether I'd been there or not. If my mum had said "my child would never do this" she'd have been 100% correct. But she didn't. She didn't believe me, and I was harshly punished by her.
Honestly it affected my relationship with my mum to know how much she didn't trust me. (Also how much she didn't care, because despite believing that I'd skipped school for two days she made no attempt to find out what could have happened to make me do something so out of character. She wouldn't have got anywhere because I didn't do it, but still, she didn't ask).

My DD lies like a politician. She started doing it at 4. We call it out all the time even though we sometimes find it funny.

We had a moment where we can to consider if our 11 year old was skipping school. We get notifications if his payment card is used and it was used one morning at a shop in town when he should have been in school. We rang school and luckily they confirmed he had registered. His wallet had been pinched and he hadn't noticed. He was a keen year 7, enjoying the move to big school, I would genuinely have been shocked if he had skivved to go to a shopping centre. In your parents' situation I'd have tried harder to find some evidence but that was much harder when I was a child as we only registered twice a day, not every lesson, our lunches weren't monitored etc. I think the current generation of parents would worry about why their 14 year old wasn't feeling comfortable to go to school rather than punishing them.

But what if there are other supporting statements. My daughter and 2 of her friends and a TA all gave same account when spoken to individually by teacher, of an incident involving child A. A's mum states her daughter absolutely did not that and TA, my daughter and 2 friends are all lying. This is not the first time child A has done this type of thing. If you were child A's mum would you still believe your child's account over the schools?

I'm not sure an ability to acknowledge two of the mildest and most generic faults a teenager could have, attitude and sulking, swiftly balanced with a statement that she is overall fantastic necessarily means you'd behave any differently than another parent if she was accused of something you don't believe to be part of her character. Maybe come back and say how willing you were to believe it if she ever is accused of something serious and heinous.

I have ended a 35 yr long friendship because the mum of a boy couldn’t entertain the notion her son had been a sexually inappropriate shltbag with my DD. She asked him, he denied it, and he ‘never lies’

I'm sorry that hapenned to you and your daughter.

Even the most kind, wonderful, smart child lies. Sometimes they lie to avoid trouble, sometimes they lie to try to protect others, sometimes they panic and lie, sometimes they lie with malicious intent. My girls are amazing but they definitely do the first 3, it's a natural part of growing up, children lie to find out what happens when they do, it's part of their learning process.

Anyone who says their child doesn't lie, is lying to themself

The thing is, kids are human, and there isn't a human on this planet that is perfect. So yes even generally good kids can have their moments. Hormones, stupidity, anger, frustration and a billion other things can result in poor choices and poor behaviour. Denying it and not making them deal with reality and learn from it doesn't do them any favours.

YANBU!

My kids have always been angels (!) at school/with relatives and very save their worst behaviour for me! 😂 So I can believe they aren't perfect. My son is now a lovely 19 year old but oh my god he was a pain in the arse as a toddler. Attended full time nursery and they absolutely loved him- such a lovely well behaved boy they said. He was looked after a lot by relatives (I was a single mum) who also fawned and cooed over him. With me? It's like the devil was in him! Used to scream no no no at me, very defiant!

My daughter (primary school) aged is again another angel child around everyone else. Saves her worst sassy defiant selectively deaf behaviour for her father (we're not together) and has a particularly unpleasant high pitched squeal she uses to defy him. To the world she's a doe eyed wouldn't melt shy little cherub 😂

@5128gap my daughter is a teen now and when she was in primary school she was involved in 3 major events that were self inflicted that required pastoral support. It was related to friendship drama and it was causing so much disruption in the class. I know my dd pretty well, we’ve always spoken and she is quite sensitive - I tend to know when she is lying or telling a half truth.

Anyway with one of the scenarios the teacher came up to me and said she was 1 of 5 girls causing havoc in the playground. I took the teachers word for it but I had to listen to my DDs side of the story. She told me her side, I married it up to what the teacher said and also spoke to the other parents to see if the story matched, what role my DD played and I kept asking her the same thing until she confessed - because I came to her with all of the scenarios and more than 1 person couldn’t be wrong. One of her “punishments” was that she had to write in a friendship book every day to highlight why it’s important to not be mean, etc etc. I’ve not heard her being involved in any drama since.

A few months ago a mum came up to me and said my DD was rude to her. I asked my DD, her story actually matched the woman’s but it was actually her friend that was being rude. I believed my DD in that instance - again I can gauge when she is lying.

@JoyousEagle it highlights that it’s so important for parents to know their children - my mum didn’t know me at all so I empathise with your story - it’s heartbreaking when you are telling the truth but arnt trusted.

@Happyinarcon schoold give their angle - kids give their angle and everything in between. I’d trust you’d st least take what they say into account.