While I get what you're saying...yeah never say never. I didn't necessarily mean it in the most literal sense but I'm not like these modern parents who let their kids walk all over them, hover over them like a helicopter and ending up with an entitled little brat like the millennials running around today.
I'm sorry if my reply came off harshly. It's obviously a very sensitive subject for me.
Happy to hear you didn't mean it absolutely literally
Raising kids is probably the hardest challenge anyone faces in life, and nobody knows for sure the exact right answers.
I can't believe the crap I see that passes for parenting these days. I go in a store and see kids running around like savages and their parents are just slack jawed staring at their phones oblivious to the brats they're forcing the rest of society to suffer.
We've gone from one extreme (severe physical abuse) to the other (can't even touch your children or leave them alone for a second) in the span of 60 or so years.
Like everything in life, all the middle ground has eroded. Nobody understands the need for balance anymore.
You see it with child rearing, in our politics, on every hot button issue, etcetera.
To me, giving a kid some autonomy is letting him go ride his bike around the neighborhood without me hovering over him, letting him fall and skin his knees on the playground, but having him defy me and then letting that slide isn't good parenting.
Okay let's give examples. Your kid is 16 and really wants an ear piercing. You don't think they should have one. Or they're 17 and want to buy a car, but you don't think it's a good car for the money. Or they are 14 and don't want to go to that summer camp. Or 15 and they have a slight fever, but don't want to take the Nyquil you bought for them. Maybe they want to stay the night at a friend's house but you'd rather they didn't. Maybe they want to drop playing basketball and instead do some other activity like programming, or studying another language, or whatever, but you're a fan of sports and feel they'd be better doing something athletic.
By all means, explain your position rationally. If it's a truly hot button issue for you, then obviously override them. But at some point, you have to let a kid make a dumb decision, suffer the consequences, and learn from it.
Like I was saying, it's a balance. If your ten year old wants to do drugs, obviously no parent would be okay with that. If your twelve year old kid doesn't want to go to school anymore, obviously that's too bad and you have to make them.
It's not a matter of your kid does whatever the heck they want. It's not a matter of you always getting your way. There needs to be a way for each of you to convey, "this is really important to me", and to build a mutual respect on both sides.
Obviously if they say, "it's really important to me that I eat ice cream instead of vegetables tonight", then they are abusing that trust between you, and by all means, override them.
But leave the window there to let them know they have
some autonomy over their own lives.
They also need to sometimes just do fun things for themselves. You may not like them playing video games, and by all means, say no when they have school work or bad grades or whatever. But just flat out saying no forever, because you feel they're not good for them... not a nice thing to do.
My job as a parent is to prepare them for the real world. To raise them with the skills and self confidence to face real world challenges.
Exactly! And one of the most important things to teach them is to think and act for themselves. To guide them to the right decisions, but at some point letting them ride without the training wheels. They may fall a few times, but it'll be okay.
not to infantalize them into their 20s like these uber pussy millennials being raised today.
We definitely have a problem with that on college campuses today, that's for sure.
My son also has been diagnosed with ADHD and OCD
Poor kid. Those are horrible comorbid disorders to have to deal with. My sincerest empathies on that
He probably will need medication to succeed there. Otherwise that's a recipe for a life of an inability to concentrate and study, and full of anxiety from the obsessions and rituals.
Ritalin and Concerta really help with ADHD symptoms, but OCD is a lot harder. SSRIs aren't very effective and have way too many serious side effects for a child. For OCD, the best bet is probably cognitive behavioral therapy sessions. But even that only has limited effect.
I don't envy your position there. But I hope it all works out for you both.
it's probably one of the most disgusting unsanitary places on the face of this Earth
Yep, one of the best parts about 24/7 diaper usage is never having to step foot inside any public bathrooms. Adult versions really aren't much better. For someone with germ OCD it's basically a form of torture to send them into those places.
because of both the OCD and severe ADHD my son is in Special Needs collaborative classes under an IEP
Wow, I didn't know they did that! Certainly not when I was a kid. Special needs was for severe physical disabilities and low IQ scores only.
As long as it doesn't result in them teaching him lower grade materials, then that's wonderful! Kids with both ADHD and OCD tend to be really smart too. A great way to help with ADHD naturally is to keep the kids interested and challenged, as in giving them advanced placement work instead of regular work.
Not to mention, how do you handle bedwetting even when the child was potty trained at an early age? A lot of parents used to do all sorts of things to try to stop it. Spankings, punishments, embarrassment, these things were common methods of parenting when I was a child in the early 70's.
I will never be able to understand how any parents could do that. Absolutely sickening.
If you make sure they don't drink before bed, how can you blame a child for an involuntary bodily function while they are sleeping?
Obviously if they were faking it to wear diapers, that's a different story, but it's not too hard to sneak into the room periodically to verify, or even these days to set up a hidden camera to see if they're doing it after waking up or not.