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I wish my parents would have pushed me more academically when I was younger. I taught myself to read at age 3, tested gifted in 1st grade, but the public school had a gifted pull-out program a few hours a week, and I didn't act bored or unhappy (I was a very obedient child) so they just let me be a kid and didn't really do anything with me. Then when high school honors and AP classes came around, I took them, and did horribly, because I had never been challenged academically by anything before that and I had no idea how to study. As a result, my GPA was horrible, and I didn't have the opportunity to perhaps have the career that I think I had the potential to have, had I been challenged earlier. I eventually figured out how to study in grad school (and got that 4.0 GPA) but by then it was too late for the things I really wanted to do.
But I can't fault my parents. They were (and still are) great parents. They were told repeatedly to just let your kid be a kid, and if she is gifted then she will be able to succeed anywhere. Advice I hear a lot these days too lol. They did what they were supposed to do.
While there might be a few specific instances where "I wish Mom/Dad had handled that differently," I was truly fortunate to be brought up in a loving house where we were disciplined without being abused, and taught to be independent without being neglected. Little things like being taught to do laundry in 4th grade (because mom had other children and houseful of laundry) as she didn't want to wash my football pants four nights a week. There were kids in college on their cell phone's with mother figuring laundry out.
The only thing I wonder about, and I don't know if it was parenting or just how we were wired, was better study habits. They did everything could to provide us with all the academic help we needed, to provide us a good place to do work, and placed a high value on academic achievement. It never really took. I was a decent student in high school but routinely had issues with getting homework done, studying, staying organized. I graduated college in four years but barely.
If only I'd had the sense to run away from home, as soon as I was able to stand on my hind legs. I wouldn't have told anyone my name or where I lived and the people who were supposed to be my parents would probably never have looked for me.
Nothing. As unspeakably awful as it was, I am who I am because of it and in spite of it.
This. My 6 siblings and I were latchkey kids like a lot of other kids back in the 70s and 80s. There were a lot of good things that came out of this but also some that were horrible. I am certain that the lack of parental supervision has shaped who I am today for the better but at the same time, some horrible things happened to me because of it.
Not childhood, so much .... but I wish that my dad had not died when I was 20 years old..... very suddenly and unexpectedly on December 23.....
He and I had a very rough few years when I turned into a know-it-all, obnoxious, brat of a teenager at age 15, but I graduated high school at 17 and was working full time for Bell at 18, so I was beginning to understand the realities of life a little better and forge a new and far better relationship with him when he left us.....
he was a wise man and I think that the trajectory of my life would have been far different had he been around for council.....
I wish I could've been raised in such a way I could've developed my real interests in life and learned more about them early on. There was nobody to teach me or mentor me that way. And if I could have just been diagnosed with ADD early in life, that would have been so great! I knew something was wrong with me, but if I'd known what it was, my life would have been much better, even if I wasn't treated back then.
^Exactly this. I was mocked/scolded for "being such a crybaby" and told to "stop being so emotional". By the time I was six I'd learned to control it and didn't cry anymore.
That year my same-age cousin died. I wanted to cry so bad, but I was a good girl and didn't. I trace my OCD to that day.
I did not cry again for years.
I also wish my parents had put their children ahead of their church, and I know this is something my mother regrets herself. If there was a conflict between a church event, say prayer meeting or choir practice or whatever, and our school plays or concerts, church was considered more important. As a result, we often had no parent at our chorus or band concerts or in the audience for a class play. We would also have to find our way there and home if my parents were not available. I don't think either parent ever attended even one softball game. I was on the town league for three years, in fifth, sixth, and seventh grade.
Religious parents, if you see yourselves in that story, think very hard about the message you are sending. 7 kids walked away from the church because it took our parents from us. I am the only one who returned much later to a different form of religion. The others are atheists.
Last edited by Mightyqueen801; 09-26-2016 at 05:35 PM..
I grew up hearing impaired, and while my parents (mom and stepfather) did their best with that - getting me hearing aids, trying speech therapy, public schooling, etc. - they didn't really put enough effort into REALLY communicating with me. If they had, they would have realized that for years I didn't really understand a thing they said. I just kinda faked it then was on my own for everything. These days, I realize this wasn't really my fault, despite "faking it" b/c everyone around me can tell when I'm faking it within five seconds. So, it rather seemed they just didn't want to put in that intimate level of effort. So, I kinda grew up realizing I didn't really bond with them or, even my brother, that well at all, until I became an adult and it was all on me to make bonding happen.
And... I surprisingly, didn't turn to drugs, alcohol, or prostitution to cope with the disconnection.
Also, I'm not a person of regrets whatsoever; but I got a cochlear implant at 25 years old, and it's been the biggest difference in communication me, and it's awesome. But if my parents knew about it when I was like 15, that might've made a huge difference in how high school and my college years went. IE, I probably could've paved a more successful future for myself, than what I'm trying to make it happen in my late 20's.
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