<p>Responding to a couple of recent posts where a few people are ganging up on posters with a contrarian point of view to that of the majority... Guys, this isn't your therapy session, it's an internet board. If you don't want to hear alternative points of view, or if you only want affirmation that the way you handled your kid, a situation, a problematic teacher, etc. is the best and only way, then don't post on a public board!</p>
<p>Getting hostile because someone disagrees with the way you handled or intend to handle a situation strikes me as disengenuous... when you post, you'll hear back from people. Sometimes they'll tell you how great you are and sometimes not. If you don't want a dialogue, take the dog out for a long walk and discuss your college/child rearing issues with the dog.</p>
<p>I've learned a lot here, but seems to me this board is a lot less useful than it could be if we start ganging up on people with a different interpretation than our own. Two sides to every story and sometimes more than that, so step back and let people weigh in-- as long as they're civil and use punctuation, which most of us do with some regularity.</p>
<p>Yes, I don't expect everyone here to be my clone (that would be pretty scary, actually ;) ) so it's great when people tell me what they really feel. It's also great when people mostly stick to the facts in how they disagree with someone. Laying out what facts you have observed and how you had opportunity to observe those facts usually keeps things from getting too personal and helps all of us learn more about complicated issues.</p>
<p>In real life, a huge percentage of parents want the good news and only the good news. They ask you to call them if you find out their fourteen year old is up to no good (along with your fourteen year old). But when you do, you discover they REALLY don't want bad news. That's been my experience. </p>
<p>Cheers you are so right! Even when it's only a quick call to say, "hey, saw your kid biking on the State Route 12 in heavy traffic coming home from work without a helmet... thought you'd want to know!" and you get holy hell for it!!!!</p>
<p>OMG no, no, no! I KNOW the good stuff! I want to know the bad so I can DO something about it! I don't know what the tiff is about, but I agree that we have to accept other viewpoints here. But I'd certainly be grateful if someone told me about something I needed to know about my kid, too.</p>
<p>After getting my ears blistered by parents whose DARLING children would NEVER drink the hard alcohol served by adults at parties (my S apparently drinks ALONE in a CLOSET! Uh, right!), I switched tactics.</p>
<p>Rather than have S paint the basement or wash all the leaded glass windows in the house, (previous punishments) we made him call the fathers of his friends and apologize for jeapordizing their children with such and such behavior. This served two purposes. One, it was a gut wrenching exercise for S and a true dissuasion. (DH sat next to him and they did it on speaker phone). Two, it gave the parents a heads up without direct accusation.</p>
<p>But it all goes back to your post about loving the kid you have. The imperfect one. The one that makes mistakes. And learns from them. :)</p>
<p>Cheers, Wow, I have to remember that one. Great idea. I agree: too many parents have the attitude that "my DARLING" wouldn't do that. I remember how shocked I was when my daughter was in first grade and a child in her class slapped the teacher because he didn't want to do what she was telling him to do (which was sit down while she talked). What shocked me wasn't the child's behavior --- it was that when they called the parents to the school, the mother ran into the principal's office DEMANDING to know what the TEACHER had done to FORCE her "poor baby" to react that way. I've long since learned not to be shocked when I hear parents react to their kids mistakes this way but I will never understand it. </p>
<p>And, Morgantruce, LOL! Yes, I also have a hard time with posters who keep reappearing with different screen names but the same perfect children and ivy-alumni connections.</p>
<p>I would think people would post here because they don't want to air dirty laundry (or whatever) in public and they can get the honest responses they wouldn't get from their friends. If not, what's the point?</p>
<p>Cheers, that was brilliant. More of a consequence than a puishment.</p>
<p>I really think there must be a whole storyline here that those of us who haven't been on CC for years really don't get. At all. Maybe we'll catch up in Act III.</p>
<p>This site has become a bit of an addiction for me but I can't fathom why someone would post fictitional stats about the problems fictitional kids have in deciding whether they will grace the Ivy of sibling A or the Ivy of sibling B, or plow semi-new ground at Ivy 3 where they'd be a legacy. If there really is a "market" out there of people who want to pretend "ownership" of one of these uber-children, I'll gladly syndicate mine out (if she would even qualify). Maybe then tuition won't seem as daunting a challenge. Jiminy.</p>
<p>Some people just like to be trolls online. That is one reason (among others) that I don't believe everything I read in online discussion. I find that trolls usually bug people by pushing buttons related to commonplace anxieties. Maybe because my worries are different from those of other people, I don't even read most of the threads that have caused the most concern here on CC about posters using false identities. I know CC's new brand name of bulletin board software well enough to know that management can determine IP addresses of people who post, which is one largely effective way to determine whether or not posters are using multiple names. </p>
<p>I'm actually much more used to the old commercial online services on which the rule was to use one's real name. I expected that gave MOST participants incentive to be truthful and helpful just to protect the honor of their names. (Once in a while my expectation in that regard was disappointed. ;) ) On this forum, with so many minors posting, we probably have little choice but to expect everyone to use screennames. Anything that's really mission-critical I always verify in printed, dead-tree sources anyway, so I don't worry about misleading stories online.</p>
<p>Carolyn and Morgantruce, I love the way you're handling this by-now-well-known multiple-name troll--Thanks and good for you. I think it is an important service,especially to the kids, to be on the alert for this kind of thing.</p>
<p>Tokenadult, you are very wise and we should all be that way, but as you note some of the kids posting and reading here are probably assuming that everyone is who they say they are with the qualifications they say they have, when in fact that recently has not always been true.</p>
<p>Cheers, hats off to you for handling tough situations with smarts and good humor. I may be remembering this advice in a few years as two of mine are just entering the years of temptation....</p>
<p>Thanks patient, but those weren't tough situations. They were predictable. Affluent suburban/urban kids will (in all likelihood) experiment with alcohol... and more. It's more a question of how much and when and whaddya gonna do 'bout it?</p>
<p>Tough situations would be:</p>
<p>Teen Pregnancy/parenthood
Severe Teen Alcohol or Drug Addiction
Severe Mental Illness Diagnosed in High School
Accidental Death of Teenager
Life threatening illness of Teenager or Tween.</p>
<p>Different parents, all family or friends very dear to me, have survived one of the above. I consider myself lucky to be sweating garden variety stuff.</p>
<p>On that point, yesterday, the gas station attendant told my DH that he watched my DS-2's crowd buy a couple of dozen eggs--then attendant himself was hit by eggs as he drove home. (The downside of having a recongnizable accent).</p>
<p>S2 denies actual purchase or actual tossing-- but declines to give up his friends so we gave him the choice. Make a formal apology to attendant or call the other boy's fathers to tell them what's happened. He's opted for the apology.</p>
<p>Morgantruce, maybe I can help here. The DS-2 and S2 are clearly referring to the coupe models of Saturn automobiles. I believe the DS has the premium cloth seats (the DL has the leather).</p>
<p>DS-2= darling son number two</p>
<p>S-2=same kid,he just lost his "darling" reference after the first dozen thrown eggs</p>
<p>Patient, sorry, did not mean to single anyone out, it was a lazy Sunday evening and I obviously did not have enough to do and was saying that I just did not get this entire thread...never mind, I don't need to understand everything!</p>
<p>Let me see... S2 minus D = RATFDT eggs. I think I've got it now. But wait, I need the secret code for "eggs".</p>
<p>Oh... please tell me where can I get my own secret decoder ring? Never mind. I probably wouldn't use the secret decoder ring OR the special letter codes for those very difficult words (like son). </p>
<p>Speaking of names for automobile models, it seems that car manufacturers use the limited alphabet of X, R, S, T and the number 2 when they are really trying to put one over on car buyers: RX2, RS, SR2, etc. Once in a great while they'll try to sell you a Z2 or even a Q4, but they wouldn't even think about trying to sell a FB3 or a UP5.</p>