Blaming the parents

[Antsgomarching]

Do you think the parents are always to blame? Whether its personality or behaviour when kids go wrong is it the parents fault even if they didn’t mean to do anything harmful?

I always wonder because you hear people say “he/she is just like that, we raised them the same as their sister and she’s not like that” yet a bit of me struggles to believe it, anyone from the “stately homes” thread could probably tell you that two kids can have very different upbringings in the same house yet their parents will swear up and down that they have always been fair.

I don’t always trust parents to be reliable narrators, my own mother was abusive yet people LOVE her. she comes across as sympathetic, kind, a bit ditzy but she was pointedly abusive (covered this with a psychologist who confirmed it was definitely abusive and its left me with various anxiety disorders etc) She had a shit childhood so would perhaps not be able to assess her own behaviour dispassionately so may genuinely believe she’s a good decent person however you have to lie a lot to maintain the outward fiction so who knows.

I genuinely don’t mean to upset anyone who is /has struggled with their own children. I have a DC of my own and I lose my temper or get frustrated and I think “is this causing permanent alterations in you, are you going to be changed by this” am I harming you long term because I snapped at you when you threw banana all over the floor. Will I wonder in 20 years what went wrong and never look to my own impatience or maybe my DC felt hurt or rejected or constantly criticised and I don’t see it.

I’m not saying this in a challenging or abrasive way it’s a genuine what do you think question. I haven’t really sorted it out in my own head and having had DC myself has just dredged up loads of shit from my own childhood.

he/she is just like that, we raised them the same as their sister and she’s not like that
That is not good parenting either though. There isnt one size fits all to parenting. Some children do fine with limited parenting, some children need absolute boundaries and clear and consistent consequences. If the parent has done very little to both children, the first did ok despite the lack of parenting, not because of it.

You can suitcase a small child out of a situation. When theyre teens, you need systems.

Its nature with a little nurture.
Id twins sometimes have similar lives if separated.

My eldest is very difficult. They never slept from birth. Then from toddler enjoyed winding you up.
We've had hidden keys, running off home when they should have been waiting for us. Lots of trouble at school. A bit at nursery. When we tried to put her in nursery at 13m just cried so i ended up not going back to work.

As you can see this isnt parenting as nursery and school cant change behaviour either
Also some things that make children 'difficult ' are actually just neurodiverse and some of that is inherited.

Depends - if there’s a misbehaved child who gets away with being rude and cheeky because the parents aren’t disciplining the child then yes they are enabling the bad behaviour.

If it’s a case of a serial killer then no it’s not always the fault of the parents as to why a human being turns out to be so vile and dark.

In some ancient cultures of South East Asia, it is believed that the state of physical and mental health of both parents at the time of conception, mother’s eating habits and state of mind during pregnancy, and a myriad other factors go towards constituting the character/health of the unborn child. After their birth, however, it is a combination of the quality of care, food, education, environment, etc, etc., which go in determining the kind of person a child will grow up to be. Although somethings are quite obvious - food, education, sleep and discipline, the others are not always easy to control.

If you have twins, one could be introverted, spend all free time reading and listening to music.
The other could be extroverted and spend free time with friends and at parties.

If one day twin 2 gives in to peer pressure to drink/take drugs and twin 1 is doing a literature course at college etc it’s nothing to do with parenting and purely due to personality and outside influences.

I think the attitude of schools is particularly crazy, blame for the parents yet

• Criminal responsibility is from 10 i think so acknowledging the child is old enough to know right and wrong
• And also when the family have other kids that were fine.
• Or fine at school but the fine at schoo! Kid is a little #### at home, but the one who struggles with behaviour at school and is impuklsive ferever feells awful about themself. The difficult at home kid has more friends etc...

Also schools clearly have favourites and ones who have been in trouble previously unfortunately get in trouble for very minor things later.

All of tye stand out kids who have been left out of parties etc have turned out to have asd/adhd.