Your DC’s personalities have a much bigger impact than parenting.

[EasyWheezy]

I just assumed my kids would be the happy go lucky, chilled out, friendly ones. Of course they’ll have their moments but you assume, if you ‘do parenting’ okay, they will be great kids you enjoy spending time with. The difficult kids weren’t parented properly, or so I thought.

It took having my children to realise they literally come out how they are. Parenting of course has some baring. Of course trauma or neglect can f*ck up an easy one and expert parenting can make the best of a difficult one. Thing is, despite regular arguments on here about minutia, most people are good enough parents (if not better). If their kids are objectively wonderful or if they are hell it’s mostly because they came out that way, not because of parenting.

My eldest came out crying, whinging and demanding and he has never stopped. Every single day with him is exhausting. My youngest is one of the naturally easy going, grateful ones who makes me feel like a brilliant parent. My eldest is still young, so I hope with good parenting he’ll be okay. To the outside world though, he’s the child you hope you’d never get, and I sense he’ll find life quite difficult.

I wish I had more grasp on the fact what I do really means very little before I had kids. Anyone else feel the same?

I do. My DD was born fully formed I think. As it happens she is having a good time of it - healthy, parents who are relatively wealthy, loving family etc. but I can see how things could have
Gone wrong for her with a less supportive set up.

I think personality has a huge amount to do with it. I am the middle of 5 and although we share some characteristics we are all very different, and one sibling is noticeably more difficult (and always has been).

Parenting plays a very importabt role of course but so does peer groups, social influences, major/traumatic events, and just their age and stage as well. A holy terror as a toddler may be a chilled teen who may be a wild 25 year old, and a boring 40 year old.

Not sure I agree tbh. Of course they come out with their set of genes which largely inform their personality, but how a parent responds and parents DOES have an impact.

If a child has particular needs e.g. dyslexia, ADHD etc then it will make a big difference whether the parent rejects and berates them for it, or nutures and coaches them in how to live with it and use their unique skills and strengths.

I believe there was a book about this called The Nurture Assumption. I haven't read it.

Definitely a lot of truth in this. We do our best to bring them up and treat them equally, but the children haven't come out the same as each other.

I prefer to think of it as reassuring. They will find their own way. We will help as much as we can, but there is no point in "blaming" either for problems, or assuming you have directly made the best bits through good parenting either!

I agree that temperament is largely innate. Birth order is also quite influential I think.

You don't say how old your eldest DC is, but out eldest was miserable as a baby and delightful but very highly strung from toddler hood to early secondary school. Definitely not a kid who could take a joke or roll with the punches, and with all the modern day focus on resilience I used to worry about him a lot. Then he had what I can only describe as a personality transplant in Y9 and is now super chilled, great fun, and basically a completely different teen. I've no idea what happened but I am confident it was nothing that either his father or I did or didn't do.

I agree with the overall premise and know what you mean.

There’s something about the way you write about two of your kids that feels a bit judgey and defensive though. Might be something your kids sense if you aren’t careful in how you reflect on and work through that?

I agree to a large extent. As an example, I think that my DD eats most veg because she finds the taste pleasant, and not because of the way I weaned her!

How old is your eldest, OP? My DS2 was a crying, whinging and demanding child but it took us too long to discover it was because he was dyslexic and everything was extra hard and tiring for him.
He's now 21 and the happiest, loveliest, charming young man you could imagine.

I don’t agree @EasyWheezy I have 3 kids 2 with ASD one with traits of ASD so they all have some of the differences and difficulties you’d expect with ASD.

We have had to adapt our parenting massively to learn about each child as an individual and how to parent them as they are. We have had to deal with sensory issues, social issues, reading issues etc but the children have all grown and developed over time and things they struggled with they have learned or at least improved on. There is a body of work looking at growth vs fixed mindsets and certainly that work suggests that change is very possible.

I think it is 50/50 parenting/personality.

You see the impact of parenting on mental health as people get older more.

I agree, my eldest has been an easy child for the most part, despite having her dyslexia only diagnosed recently. I naively thought this was down to my excellent parenting. My youngest has been so much harder from the moment she was born. I have had to massively adapt my parenting to fit in with her personality.

There are often posters on here saying their child would never behave a certain way and I am inclined to think they just don't have really difficult children (I would probably also have said that about my eldest and now I know better).

I think there are lots of studies to back this up, that parenting is only a small part of the equation, because I read that in a book... that there are lots of studies.

I have definitely found this. And by having 2 children who have been largely parented the same, but who are completely different. Parents take too much credit for the things their children get right and excel at, and receive too much blame for the child's negatives.

I agree. You provide safety, stability, love, care, kindness, structure, boundaries, encourage increasing independence, if that's within their abilities, and the rest is personality and innate stuff. Sometimes you can't even keep them safe either in spite of your best efforts.

I'm not sure I agree. I think temperament makes a difference but parenting also makes a difference.Obviously two children in the same family aren't going to have perfectly identical parenting because most parents will adapt to the children's temperament rather than copy and paste their parenting.

I think there can be huge influence with environment if someone is neglected in a fundamental aspect-the effect on babies' brains etc. But even severe neglect or abuse can produce hugely different results in different people.

I disagree.

Children have hugely different personalities and each of them may need different tactics/strategies to parent them.

Skilled parenting of children with particular needs and difficulties makes a massive difference to their development/progress/mental and physical health.

Trying to parent a child with additional needs according to a 'how I treat them/parent them won't make a difference' sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I agree with that as well - having one child that wanted to do everything for herself even when she couldn't and another that would prefer everything done for her even when she can requires different approaches. But the same basics. I don't have any experience with more severe needs.

I agree that people are born with their personalities fully formed. My kids are just the same people they were as babies. Obviously, I know them better now and they're more mature, etc, but when I look back their unique personalities were there from birth.

I think it's a mix of personality and parenting but as important is environment and who/what they are surrounded and influenced by. A good friendship group makes a massive difference from teenage upwards I think.

Nature Vs nurture.

I think there's 4 outcomes.

The placid child who will become a placid adult whatever their upbringing.

The placid child affected by their upbringing.

The demanding (for want of a better child) who improves with parenting.

The demanding child who never changes.

Over 2 decades of working with children with behaviour difficulties and there is no one size fits all. It's really hard to accept whatever you do you may not make a positive change and I'm beginning to wonder if some people don't like being calm and their personalities mean they enjoy the drama they create.

I think those not affected by the nurture is a far less number but there's always anomalies to everything.

@EasyWheezy I agree. You made me laugh about the DC who came out crying and whining...I had one like that too 😆. Another one of mine came out angelic but did not say or do very much as a baby, still doesn't say or do very much now as a teen 🙂

I agree! Our kids have entirely different temperaments, one is neurotypical and one neurodiverse, one prone to meltdowns and one is a huge risk taker, one is very cautious and one is outspoken. One seeks stimulation and one actively avoids it. They've been that way since birth. Both entirely lovely but they have different reactions to the same situation, despite similar parenting. I find it fascinating! Sometimes you can't escape the way your brain is naturally wired.

Thanks all for the responses. Some great posts, even those that don’t agree with me. Lots of food for thought.

He’s still v young - nearly 5. School have mentioned potential neurodiversity and it is something we are keeping in the back of our
minds. I shudder now at how ableist my subconscious views on parenting used to be.

I hope it didn’t sound like I was checking out of parenting DS1 or that I love him less than DS2. It’s quite the opposite really. He requires so much more skilled parenting and emotional regulation than DS2 and, despite that, I still regularly feel like I’m failing. DS2 is the sort of child that could thrive with any half good parents really. It’s easy. I don’t feel like I know him so well. I feel like I know every detail and intricacy of DS1.

I suppose my first post missed the fact that parenting isn’t really for personal enjoyment, it’s to produce a fully fledged human at the end. As @itsgettingweird said, a demanding child may ‘improve’ with skilled parenting. It’s just the realisation that they still might be a difficult adult despite the parents best and hardest work, because, fundamentally that’s who they are. Maybe I should take a leaf out of @anotheropinion book and be reassured by this though.

@EasyWheezy I think we have a similar situation going on. First is neurodiverse, just turned 5. Parenting them is different from their sibling who I suspect is neurotypical. We also struggle with emotional regulation and frustration issues. I was also quite judgy of this kind of behaviour before having a child who struggles with this, through no fault of their own. Solidarity!