Making kids mind

Something that I hear frequently from casual acquaintances I interact with is complaints about kids not minding. I hesitate to give any advice that might be solicited because I have no experience with that. My kids were taught to mind at a young age and the issue never came up.

 Yesterday I was talking to a guy who told me all about how his 14 year old daughter brings guys home to spend the night, does drugs in the house, steals from him, calls him every name in the book and basically just does what he wants. I asked him why he doesn't put a stop to it and his answer was she does it anyway. 

My question is, if you got your kids off to a bad start how do you change the pattern once it becomes a serious problem, this particular guy smokes weed day and night right in front of his daughter, he talks about sexually explicit subjects in her presence and I suspect a lot goes on I don't know about. 

The only thing I could come up with for him to acknowledge and apologize for his own bad behavior and change it and then go on to explain to his daughter that from this point on her welfare will be his main concern and she might not like what that entails.

I’m the most incredibly indulgent parent. My son minds to a “t”: I spend more time convincing him to break rules than I do pushing him to mind. His kindergarten teachers rave about how well he listens.

So I’m totally willing to believe that at some point, they just have temperaments, and I’m going to be as slow to judge those parents as I am to give myself any particular credit.

My son has been even-tempered and cooperative from infancy, with the exception that he has never been a good sleeper. Since I am the world’s biggest insomniac, I think maybe he just inherited something from me, and I don’t punish him for not being able to sleep. It was frustrating when he’d be awake all night as a baby (he might be asleep for twenty minutes, then awake for an hour), but it really wasn’t colic, just wakefulness. Anyway, I know what you mean about children’s natural temperament playing a part in their behavior. He’s 11, and we’ve never had a serious problem with him. His teachers always tell us they wish they had a classroom full of kids like him.

On the other hand, we don’t smoke weed in front of him, or otherwise model misbehavior for him.

I would give his temperament as the primary factor in his behavior, but I think what we model for him is an important secondary factor.

As far as how to reboot a kid? I don’t know. Maybe a token economy, a course in Toughlove, and also the parent cleaning up his act? I know token economies have worked really well in getting kids in what used to be called “reform schools” to change their behavior. I don’t know how much their attitudes really changed, but that wasn’t the point; the point was to make them manageable. If you can make them manageable, they might fall into a different crowd in school, and that can change their attitude. Or not-- but possibly you can get them to a point alive where they might mature enough to realize that their choices weren’t so good, and possibly make better ones.

At fourteen its too late to establish discipline. Especially if its gone that far. At fourteen you live with what you’ve got or you find someone else to care for your kid and see if another adult won’t turn it around.

My son lived with my mother for about six months which helped. She and my dad had more time to spend with him - and he’s a fundamentally good kid. He spent another year getting homeschooled by me - which also helped. But there is only so much you can do with a teenager unless they want to change.

I have raised 3 obedient and well mannered kids. That is not to say they are perfect, cause they are most decidedly not. It was really close to the knuckle a time or two, folks. The answer is: consisquences to bad behaviour. It is fool proof.
Dad shouldn’t invite you to burn a blunt, he should punish you if he catches you doing it. That’s not to say they won’t do it. But they won’t Be doing it in your house. Or drinking, or skipping school, sneaking out, whatever the problem may be.

Children have a very keen, natural sense of justice and trust. They will immediately spot it if you betray that.

As a parent, you make and enforce the rules. But make sure the rules are seen as fair and honest, and your children can trust you to give them a fair hearing.

My daughters used to love to fight (somewhat normal) until this year when my oldest nearly ripped her little sisters neck open with her fingernails and was caught saying horrifying things because her little sister recorded it on an iPhone. I grounded them from everything except for sustenance eating for the entire weekend because they were both guilty. They hated it. Now, whenever they start bickering at all, I beg them to fight and I told them my biggest dream in life is to ground them again for as long as possible. They don’t fight physically anymore at least around me.

I use various discipline strategies but I am consistent and they know that. I love them more than anything but we are not buddies or friends and I am the boss. I have had them try to defy my decisions repeatedly before and they burst into tears before they got grounded just by the look in my eyes. I try to warn them what is going to happen if they violate certain rules beforehand to be fair but I will absolutely follow through with the prescribed punishment if they do it anyway. Consistency is the key.

My aunt is the best parent I know, and she was extremely good at consistency. I knew not to step out of line for her. My mother was not good at it, and for this reason, I was not as happy when I was with her. It’s also why my mother resorted to yelling, screaming and hitting, and my aunt never did. Maybe twice in my life, I got a well-deserved and judicious spanking from my aunt, but that was not the same thing as being struck out of frustration by my mother.

I had dogs before I had a child, and so I learned first-hand the importance of consistency. I think everyone should have to train a dog before they have a kid, because consistency is just as important for both, but the effects are far more obvious in the short term with dogs.

I didn’t have any parenting skills to start off with. I feel like I grew up a semi feral child. There were two things I felt my parents got right. I always felt they were the most honest and fair people on the earth even if they didn’t always treat me fairly. I also felt secure from hunger, abandonment things like that. I raised my child exactly opposite of how I was raised, I gave him direction. My son did seem to inherit my trait of messiness. The only rule about that was once a week he had to clean his room and if it wasn’t clean in between keep the door shut.

Pardon my ignorance, but how does grounding work? How do you stop them simply getting up and going out? What is the incentive for them to stay indoors all that time? (a curious non-parent).

There is no “incentive” because it isn’t negotiable. I am their father and they are going to do what I say whether they like it or not because I am legally and morally responsible for them. Full grounding means all electronic devices are taken away, they can’t go to any stores or do anything that they want to and the only food they get is nutritious things that they don’t really like. The only concession I made was that they could clean and watch PBS documentaries for an entire weekend. Of course they hated it and I didn’t like it either. That was the point.

They aren’t going to get up and walk out because they know I will drop tackle them. My youngest tried that once and I physically restrained her until she calmed down. That is what a parent’s job is. They are not adults or special snowflakes. The comparison to dogs above is a good one. It really is a training skill that requires a pack leader and a reward/punishment system to train them to become the best people they can be. Kids aren’t just short humans. They aren’t fully developed in any sense and need a responsible adult to teach them what to do and keep them in line.

Parents have to set the example … if the person described in the OP is sitting around the house smoking pot in front of his kids, then his kids are going to smoke pot … simple … when I established rules for the household, everybody had to follow them, including myself, “no booze in the house” meant I drank elsewhere …

14-years-old is a bit young for “tough love” … but at some point, a parent can just kick the child out … just a couple hundred years ago, a 16-year-old was expected to get married and have kids … 10-year-olds were privileged to stay in school and not work twelve hour days six days a week …

Remember, in many ways, children are just mini-YOUs … if you don’t like how the child behaves, know that they learned this from you and you alone … fix yourself first …

I am going to copy your post and show it to him, minus your handle of course.

It might not work. Kids just walk out, and leave for days if they think that your rules are bullshit.

There is a point with a kid - and by fourteen its there - where you can’t impose rules because they can walk out. You have a legal obligation to keep them safe as possible - and you want to keep them as safe as possible because you love them, but you need to acknowledge that them running away is a real possibility.

When they turn eighteen you can tough love them - my son’s behavior got a lot better when he turned eighteen and knew we could throw him out. Until then, at fourteen, they know they hold the cards - unless you are willing to call the police on drugs, call the police on statutory rape, or risk them running away.

And if they are a girl, they will always be ablw to barter sex for a place to stay, which can turn into much worse very quickly . . And if they feel like they can’t come home, it means they have to stay when they start getting hit, or pimped out. These are real things that happen every day.

Some kids have almost no “buttons”. They will suffer anything rather than submit to what they see as bullshit.

I have friends who have a nephew who lived with them for a while. He wouldn’t follow rules. He got kicked out of his moms. He got kicked out of their place. He got kicked out of the group home as a minor - he was on the street at sixteen or seventeen because he simply wouldn’t follow anyone’s rules - not his mothers, not his aunts, not the schools, not the group home, not the place of employment that the group home got him.

If I ask my friends how he is doing - he is now eighteen - maybe just turned nineteen - I get “he hasn’t died or ended up in prison yet.” They think he is currently making a living selling meth.

I deal with young adults who were incorrigible kids. Most of them didn't turn out well. Some get into drug programs and turn their lives around. Most tend to go in and out for several years, I don't know the statistics on them but I would say not good outcomes for the most part.

Yep, its tough. I have a kid who was close, and is working on straightening out - although I suspect he’ll smoke a lot of weed for a number of years yet. We had the conversation “if we push too hard, does he run off?”

I don’t think you can start instilling discipline at fourteen. I think this is one of those kids where “it is what it is, she will either straighten out or not, on her own - and give her enough support so she gets to make that choice.”

When my aunt and uncle did grounding, you could watch TV if someone else happened to be already watching it (two TVs in a house with seven people), but you couldn’t turn it on or change the channel, and the only place you could go was to shul. Once my cousin Malky was grounded for two weeks, and was so stir-crazy, that he volunteered for a shiva minyan just to get out of the house.

I don’t think that is a good idea. The advice in that post is not terribly helpful for ordinary parent/child relationships. (“Drop tackling” is really not a stellar child-rearing strategy IMHO.) It is even less helpful in a situation like the one you describe in the OP, where the parent has essentially abdicated his responsibilities and is now shocked to the core that his child is acting out.

The traditional punishment/reward style of discipline will only work if the child accepts the terms of the contract. A teenager who is completely out of control, as in this case, will not meekly submit to ordinary sanctions. I feel very sorry for this girl, as it sounds as though her father has utterly failed her. It is possible that he could turn things around, but it would require much more than laying down the law. He would have to be prepared to change his own behavior first and foremost.