What, if anything, would you have done differently, given 20/20 hindsight? Did you do (or not do) anything you really regret, that you think would have definitely made a positive difference in their development? Or if you feel they turned out okay, is there anything you did (or didn’t do) that you feel was a major contributing factor? Or do you feel, in retrospect, that it’s all pretty much luck of the draw?
Not yet, but we’re still trying. We still have 9 years, so there’s still hope. 
I will say that if there is one thing we did that might have had a positive effect on her personality (especially when young) is that we let that kid sleep all she wanted to as a baby/toddler. She was always happy and in a good mood when she awoke and thoughout the day she stayed that way.
Amazingly, no. Not yet, anyway.
He’s like the perfect kid: smart, social, happy, handsome, helpful and kind, athletic. We speak very openly to him about peer pressure, sex, substances and we explain to him why his choices are not good AND why they are good.
Meanwhile, my husband and I are anti-social in the extreme. He’s certainly not learning by our example.
I was very unhappy when the girl came along. I had next to no pre-natal care. I had never liked children or been around them much, so I was quick to hand the kid off to my mom or grandma, or leave her to her own devices. Things eventually got better, but I sure wish I could do that first part over again.
When the kids were older, I sent them to a private religious school so they could go to a pretty school with small class sizes. It was only for a few years and may not have done any permanent damage, but it did keep them sheltered for a time and then they had to transition back to public school. I had to do the same myself, so you’d think I’d have known better!
I certainly could have left the boy’s dad sooner and that would have been easier all round.
Both kids seem to be doing fairly well despite my fuckups.
My kids are both adults now, so I think the results are in. I was just at a family gathering, and a bare bones, unvarnished account of what they are doing sounds like bragging, so I think they turned out okay.
Number one thing we did for them: provide them with good genes. And were lucky.
Things we did have control over:
We read to them, and raised them with lots and lots of books.
Raised them to know that education and intelligence are very important, which is the way we were raised. Not grades so much, but learning. Between my wife and me we cover all academic areas except languages, so we enriched their schoolwork when needed, and could offer an alternate way of looking at things.
Listened to them about what they wanted to explore, and let them do so. For a while we thought the oldest one was going to want to go to film school. Since she acted in some NYU student films we knew how expensive this was. Luckily, she tried out directing and editing at a summer program, and decided it was not for her, so she is now in grad school on a fellowship and assistantship. The younger one wanted to ride horses, which was also expensive, but this developed into her being captain of the riding team in college which led to all kinds of good things.
We paid for their colleges, so they are both debt-free on graduation. Our parents did the same for us.
But finally, and maybe most importantly after genetics, they both knew we were there for them no matter what. There were times when things were rocky, but we all got through it.
It is hard to imagine any parent of a baby/toddler who wouldn’t let them sleep as much as they wanted! I had an old freeware C64 game where you had a baby, and the game measured your sanity, which only recovered when the baby was asleep. Very accurate.
I’m sure a lot of parents want to, but many can’t because of other commitments. My wife stayed at home with our baby, but a single parent can’t and must awaken the kid on their (the parent’s) schedule, not when the baby is fully rested.
True. We both work, and have to get everyone out the door by a certain time every day. Usually, the kid is awake by then, but sometimes, we need to wake him. 
And even on the weekends, we sometimes find ourselves out of the house when he starts getting nappish. We always head home as soon as we can when that happens, but sometimes, he turns into Mr. Cranktastic. For this reason, we really don’t go out much at all. Sleep is key.
You’d think so! But we shared our nanny for a couple of months with a baby whose parents would not let him nap (they only let him take one 1-hour nap a day (at this point our Little One was easily napping for 4 hours total during the day), at which point they woke him up :eek:) under the theory that this would help him sleep more at night.
It didn’t seem to be working, at least while we knew them. He went to bed later and woke up earlier than our Little One, and was cranky all the time. I felt really bad for him, and occasionally suggested to his parents very gently that the Little One napped well and had a much easier time of it, but there’s only so much you can do…
I WON’T charge room/board to my young adult kids! Caused tension with father that has only intensified, though other issues have become proxies.
I screwed my kids up less than my parents screwed up my sisters and me. They screwed up less than their parents screwed up with them. I figure in about seven generations one of my descendants will get it right.
There is no question that I screwed her up good. Yet, she is still made of awesome. I can only wonder how much more awesome she would be if she had a mom who knew what the hell she was doing.
No, but they’re 4 and 6 so we’ll still working at it.
I’ve had similar experiences. Babies need more sleep than we can imagine. I understand about having to get a kid up to go out the door, but we never had a problem with them sleeping that late. At about a year our first would conk out at about 7 pm and sleep right through to the next morning. Ah, bliss!
Not yet. Give me a few years, though.
I was in charge of fixing things and paying for things. Screwing up the kids was my wife’s responsibility.
My parents did this with both my brother and I - it was always established in our house that if you weren’t in school you were either gone, or you paid rent to contribute to the household.
Both of us went back to school, but I think charging rent is a good lesson in budget management and responsibility, if handled properly.
Just needs to be handled properly. Your family obviously did.
We raised our kids by what we describe as benign neglect. We set rules, sure, but didn’t enforce them very hard. I think the main thing we did right was by example. Neither of us smoked and they didn’t. I worked at home a lot, so I was visibly fairly industrious. They went to public schools all the way through and then we sent them to university in the US (because the Quebec “CEGEP” system is destructive IMO) and were able to pay off their loans. We never monitored their homework and, when one teacher insisted that homework be signed by the parent my wife would often sign it Fidel Castro or Mickey Mouse. When the teacher called to complain, my wife told her that we believed that the only discipline that mattered was self-discipline. Since the homework was always (well almost always) done she desisted. Once my daughter started crying because she had too many long multiplications to do and me wife said to her, “Look, do it or don’t do it, but stop crying.” I think she didn’t finish that assignment. I can remember only once that I was asked to help out with a homework problem. My son emailed me a question about linear algebra and I answered it with a very elegant, very general argument that went way beyond what was being asked.
The results: all three avoided smoking, drugs, immoderate use of alcohol, etc. All three finished college in four years and two got master’s. All are married to their original spouses and there are 6 grandchildren between them. And all three are gainfully employed in interesting jobs and making considerably more money than I ever did.
Would I do anything differently? Only one thing. At the beginning we spanked our elder son quite a lot and his behavior was getting worse and worse. We had both been spanked as kids and it seemed only natural. But we took ourselves in hand and said to each other that this isn’t working. So we stopped and never spanked him again. His behavior almost immediately and markedly improved. Knowing what I know now, I would never have spanked him.
Now the 64 million dollar question: nature or nurture? Were we just lucky with exceptionally good kids or was there something we did to make them that way? Damfino!