I’m adding this to my list:
- Sometimes he’ll inexplicably fail to parse sentences in English. Don’t worry, he’s much better with computer languages.
Thank you Dr. Drake.
My apologies Quartz.
Quit drinking so much, you jerks!
Don’t hit us, either.
This may seem kind of trivial, but I would tell them to bite the bullet, buy a halfway decent camera, and spend a few hours learning to use it. Also, don’t put the photos in those cheap-ass photo albums where the acid is going to leach away most of the colors in a few decades. Even better, actually hang onto the negatives instead of throwing them in the trash as soon as you get the packet of prints back from the photo lab.
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Don’t worry about him he’ll turn out fine, what follows are merely suggestions and tweaks overall you guys are going to do great.
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Give him a little more freedom to make his own mistakes. You don’t need to coach him through every decision. If he wants to send $3.50 of his own money to that soldier ad in the back of the comic book, let him. Yes, he’ll be disappointed with what he gets but it will be his decision.
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Encourage him to actually figure out what he wants rather than just accepting what he’s got. Find out if he actually likes to play the trombone or if he’s just continuing in band because that’s what he did last year.
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Make sure he does his homework. Yes, it’s boring gruntwork and he can ace the tests without doing the work, but it will teach him good discipline.
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In fifth grade when he suddenly starts being sick all the time, he’s faking it. Rather than having him stay at home, explore the source of his anxiety that makes him not want to go to school.
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Concentrate more on encouraging his older brother. Its not easy being of a non-academic bent when all the rest of the family have or are destined to get PhD’s.
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Don’t move her to Arizona. Anywhere in New England would be great. Most of the Mid-Atlantic region. You don’t know about the tech boom of the '90s yet, but the PacNW or NoCal would turn out okay, too. Raising her in Phoenix will strand her in a cultural void where cowboys with six-shooters are still more valued than professors with private libraries, and she will be miserable every last second of it.
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When she tells you she’s unhappy, listen to her, and then try to do something about it. Turns out, she has legit medical problems that are causing most of the ‘annoying quirk’ complaints you are ignoring, and if you’d paid attention to the ‘no friends’ complaints earlier, maybe you wouldn’t have had to yank her out of that first school when the physical violence began. You probably can’t fix everything, but very little is more damaging than a parent who is too self-absorbed to care, and doesn’t try.
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Don’t decide which kid has what personality before they grow up and develop one. It turns out your eldest is not a hopeless klutz and can read people as well as anyone else can when you aren’t constantly “sympathizing” with her for being a hopeless nerd.
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Get some help. You two are ill-equipped to raise children, but you’re probably going to do it anyway, so you need to get a therapist/psychiatrist, and then LISTEN to them. You both know perfectly well that lunacy runs in the family, and perhaps if you find yourself a doctor, you can convert that from ‘generic permanent crazy’ to ‘treatable mental illness’. While you’re at it, get the kids each a therapist, too, so they have someone to talk to who won’t respond with ‘everyone’s that unhappy, suck it up’.
Glad to see there are other embittered former children, too.
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For the sake of all that’s good and holy, do not smoke around your children. Go outside to do it: the sunshine will do you good.
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Mom, go back to college and finish that degree instead of complaining about it for 70 years.
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Don’t feed your kids so damn much meat. Ditto with the canned soups.
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Be nicer to your husband.
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Move out of that inbred cowtown before we have to go to school. At 25 cents a gallon for gas, commuting is an option.
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If not 5, have the school skip us forward a few grades.
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We were always sicker or more badly injured than you thought. Take us to the ER or to the doctor more often.
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Take us to a better dentist, please. Perhaps one that believes in Novocaine, dental floss, and fluoride would be a start.
Although I am very happy with my life right now, there is a part of me that wished I could go back and say:
At age 14, he’s going to ask you to take him out of that hellhole of a private school you put him in. Listen to him and do it.
I would advise my parents (mainly, my mom, since she and my dad divorced so early):
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When you get re-married and have my half-brother, remember you have *two *kids. Not just the one who screams and has tantrums and gets suspended in kindergarten. :smack:
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Please come to school functions (if it’s at all possible). I know you’re shy, and think you’re ugly, and dumb, but guess what, you’re not. And your kid would love to see you there.
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Don’t get too worried when your daughter prefers writing and reading to going out and socializing like you did as a teen. She’ll be fine.*
*Well, she’ll do great in school, be stable for 15-plus years after college, and then flounder a bit mentally. But hey, she won’t end up a unhappy teen mom, in prison, or abusing recreational drugs. You can’t have everything. 
She’s a child. She won’t be a grown up for at least 20 years, so please don’t treat her like she should already be grown. You are supposed to teach her stuff, not get mad when she doesn’t already know everything.
Just because you think she’s smart and she’s good at a lot of things doesn’t make her lazy when she’s not good at everything all the time. No one is good at everything all the time. And trying to live up to that will not be good for her.
I dunno, maybe take a child psychology course?
To my father: Get yourself into therapy, to get a handle on your temper. Remember, when your kid misbehaves, there are ways to deal with it other than hitting him.
I’d give them a bit of information instead:
- She’s not going to be an only child.*
- Yes, she’s got her mom’s coloring but she thinks like her Dad. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
- My mother was still basing some of her decisions about me on “not wanting to pamper the only-child too much” by the time we were in 1st, 3rd and 9th grade. You’d think two boys aged 6 and 8 aren’t exactly invisible.