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It's a shame this topic was created by a child focusing on issues that are very middle of the road. Extreme overprotectiveness is what's detrimental to children, not your average run of the mill strict parents. Nobody can argue that it's good for a child to never be permitted to leave the house---ever. Someone shared about a child whose mother wouldn't let him take a bus for fear he would have sex. I've known mothers whose fear of busses extended to not permitting the child to attend school or be a member of boy scouts. I knew one family where the children weren't permitted to touch anything in the house. Only their parents could use the TV remote. Their children were very developmentally delayed when they started school. The parents loved them dearly and were overly involved with the school and the developmental problems, but they never quite understood they were the cause of the problems. I know another child whose parents were court ordered to allow her outside whenever she wanted. She wasn't even permitted in her own yard prior to that. These EXTREME parents are the exception. They're more than strict, they are mentally incompetent to be parents and their children are being abused as a result. But strict rules about drinking, sex, adult content, and curfew isn't going to ruin a child.
What is even sadder is parents who raise their kids to be independent adults, but the kid ends up living at home at age 24, too scared of life to have friends and too scared of women to date. I would feel like a failure as a parent if my kid ended up a 40 year old virgin.
I wouldn't. It's up to the adult child --- if your child chose to not have sex with anyone and everyone or preferred a single celebate life, why do you feel you should have control over that adult child?
It's a shame this topic was created by a child focusing on issues that are very middle of the road. Extreme overprotectiveness is what's detrimental to children, not your average run of the mill strict parents. Nobody can argue that it's good for a child to never be permitted to leave the house---ever. Someone shared about a child whose mother wouldn't let him take a bus for fear he would have sex. I've known mothers whose fear of busses extended to not permitting the child to attend school or be a member of boy scouts. I knew one family where the children weren't permitted to touch anything in the house. Only their parents could use the TV remote. Their children were very developmentally delayed when they started school. The parents loved them dearly and were overly involved with the school and the developmental problems, but they never quite understood they were the cause of the problems. I know another child whose parents were court ordered to allow her outside whenever she wanted. She wasn't even permitted in her own yard prior to that. These EXTREME parents are the exception. They're more than strict, they are mentally incompetent to be parents and their children are being abused as a result. But strict rules about drinking, sex, adult content, and curfew isn't going to ruin a child.
Exactly. It's like violence --- parents may allow their toddlers to watch extremely graphic violence, or they may not. The child watching extreme graphic violence may turn out fine.
Kids need boundaries. Where ever the boundaries are set, you can be sure that the child will push up against them, that's totally normal.
Parents can be strict or parents can be lenient, but what seems to be more important is consistency. You can't allow something one time and then forbid it the next. And the parents need to be a united front for the most part.
I worked with a former Mennonite who said that it's a total myth and lie that when people leave that way of life that they become criminals and extremely promiscuous. She just became a Methodist and still dressed conservatively and lived a quiet life. Same with minister's kids, the only reason they appear to be more wild than their peers is because everyone watches them much more closely and judges them more harshly. They're no different than other kids.
getting AIDS and shooting up heroin getting killed by gang members, is not part of growing up, protection is needed of the young.
But it's not as if you're faced with a choice of either keeping your daughters in a walled convent school or watching them die of heroin addiction. You have to teach them to make good decisions, and that means NOT sheltering them -- they have to get out there and meet people and try things so they can learn to tell friends from enemies, constructive from destructive people, and always teaching them to tell good clean fun from running stupid risks.
Much to my shock and surprise my 21 year old daughter who is in her sixth month of her two year Peace Corps tour serving in an isolated Ecuadorian village has repeatedly thanked us for not being "helicopter parents" but rather parents who gave her age appropriate free reign over her life. We "sheltered" her from nothing.
By the time that she was 16 she was able to plan, and pay for her second trip to Europe. When she was nineteen she spent the entire summer in Guatemala teaching english and aids prevention. Did I ever think that at age 21 that she would recognize much less credit us for with her success so far in her life, not in three million years. But her ability act independently was an explicit goal which her mother and I had set out from the beginning, much to the astonishment/admonition of our more guarding friends.
But the facts of my daughters accomplishment (warning out of control parental beaming - she was also a double major, and speaks Spanish fluently, and needless to say has never been in trouble worth mentioning) and independence in comparison to her more cloistered friends and relatives seems to confirm what we believed to be the best balance between protection and independence.
Of course every child must be treated individually, some children granted the independence that we granted our daughter could have failed miserably or worse but I feel quite comfortable in saying that the planning of very minute of a child's life, feeling that we can keep them safe by keeping them not only away but unaware simply doesn't equip them from the real world that they will at some point have to live in.
But it's not as if you're faced with a choice of either keeping your daughters in a walled convent school or watching them die of heroin addiction. You have to teach them to make good decisions, and that means NOT sheltering them -- they have to get out there and meet people and try things so they can learn to tell friends from enemies, constructive from destructive people, and always teaching them to tell good clean fun from running stupid risks.
Feel free to teach them right and wrong, too.
Well of course. But I think there are some mistakes we all would rather not see our kids make. I wasn't crazy about the idea of my kid being involved in a fatal DUI, getting raped, having a horrific traffic accident b/c I allow her (them) to get involved in situations they weren't ready for. You can open the paper (or go online to see it) almost any day of the week and read about kids having traffic accidents where they were clearly in situations they shouldn't have been in, e.g. driving into the Colorado mountains or into downtown Denver a week after they get their license, etc. Nor was I too excited about unchaperoned parties. One time, I refused to let my DD go to a party at the home of the boyfriend of one of her friends, in a different town. This friend had a penchant for dating sketchy guys and I said "no" as I didn't even know him, this party would involve driving (or being driven) some distance. She was angry, but on Monday came home and told me about some other kids who also weren't allowed to go to said party.
Did I care if they blew a paycheck (or two) on some article of clothing I thought was extravagant? Not too much.
Much to my shock and surprise my 21 year old daughter who is in her sixth month of her two year Peace Corps tour serving in an isolated Ecuadorian village has repeatedly thanked us for not being "helicopter parents" but rather parents who gave her age appropriate free reign over her life. We "sheltered" her from nothing.
By the time that she was 16 she was able to plan, and pay for her second trip to Europe. When she was nineteen she spent the entire summer in Guatemala teaching english and aids prevention. Did I ever think that at age 21 that she would recognize much less credit us for with her success so far in her life, not in three million years. But her ability act independently was an explicit goal which her mother and I had set out from the beginning, much to the astonishment/admonition of our more guarding friends.
......... (warning out of control parental beaming - she was also a double major, and speaks Spanish fluently, and needless to say has never been in trouble worth mentioning)
I can only say that I have friends who are very religious and seem to have raised wonderful children. There are good kids and there are bad kids and it seems like how you raise them doesn't matter as much as we think it does. I have also known women who were raised by crack- h*o*r*e*s* and they turned out to be the most honorable, wonderful people on the planet.
I wouldn't. It's up to the adult child --- if your child chose to not have sex with anyone and everyone or preferred a single celebate life, why do you feel you should have control over that adult child?
No, in the OP's case it is not a choice. He is a desperate, basement dwelling weirdo who fears and hates women but feels like he deserves a hot girlfriend anyway. You might want to familiarize yourself with his banned usernames...GlitteringPrizes, AStalkingButler, KnowerofThings, CodeViolationMcEnroe and many others.
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