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I bought up two balanced, contributing, intelligent, kind and mannered young adults, as a Single Mum.
My secret?
The No.1 thing I think I drilled into their heads over the years was the Importance of Thought.
Think About It, I would say. What do you think, I would ask.
If they came home with some horror story about a kid at school who did (whatever) I would almost always say
"well he didn't think that through, did he? Now he's being punished/expelled/dumped/whatever!"
It wasn't a Conscious Choice to bring them up this way, either. But now I look back, that's what I did, and thinking is something they both excel at.
I loved them half to death also
But generally speaking, I think the greatest lesson I gave them was
THINK. Use your brain. Consider Consequences, Assumptions and Circumstances. Weigh up likely outcomes. Don't accept a word someone else says without Fact Checking. Rely on your own Intelligence and Instincts. Question EVERYTHING. I didn't do their thinking for them, a mistake a lot of parents make I believe.
Most children are not actual capable of stopping to think through the on sequences of their actions. Abstract reasoning begins for most kids around 12 but development of the abstract mind continues until late teens to early twenties.
That's part of why teens make such boneheaded decisions, their brains are still physically developing, particularly areas that translate to abstract reasoning.
I think people take way more credit for their children's success than they deserve. I once imagined that I would impart so much wisdom to my child...until I had one who doesn't give a rat's behind what I say or think and never has. I just think most of his personality is chemistry and genetics and has little to do with any words I might speak. So I think OP is patting herself on the back at least partly for dodging a bunch of bullets she didn't even know were flying.
You could think that - but the same folk who are shooting me down for raising successful kids and sharing MY personal secret are the same ones who would ALSO shoot me down if I posted on here what monsters my kids had become.
Its ALWAYS the mothers fault - unless they do well it seems - then its just dropped from the Heavens like a spaceship, then Mother had Nothing To Do With It.
You could think that - but the same folk who are shooting me down for raising successful kids and sharing MY personal secret are the same ones who would ALSO shoot me down if I posted on here what monsters my kids had become.
Don't sweat it. It's the C-D effect. People love to disagree.
My parents raised us on the same thing: Think. Think about where you are. Think about what you're going to do. Think about the consequences of your actions. THINK! We had it drilled into us from the time we were small. Each of us became contributing citizens and raised our own kids the same way.
(No one told us our brains weren't going to be fully developed until our 20's. If we had tried to use that as an excuse when we didn't use our heads my dad would have said, "Then use the part that's already developed!")
You could think that - but the same folk who are shooting me down for raising successful kids and sharing MY personal secret are the same ones who would ALSO shoot me down if I posted on here what monsters my kids had become.
Its ALWAYS the mothers fault - unless they do well it seems - then its just dropped from the Heavens like a spaceship, then Mother had Nothing To Do With It.
Well, you're right about that, everything is the mother's fault. But good grief, most of us who have grown kids have ones that have turned out just fine. Strict parents, lenient parents, religious parents, atheist parents, etc. There's no "one way".
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