<p>This sounds to me like a mom who lacks basic (to me, anyway) parenting skills in the area of how to get a kid to do something essential – like bathe, go to bed, do homework, be respectful to Grandma, use proper table-manners, etc.</p>
<p>How do any of us get these results? By tying consequences to a kid’s decisions and actions (or lack thereof). I wish I had known this Mom when her kid was young. I’m no brain-surgeon, but in a few minutes I could’ve told her how to get Johnny to bathe.</p>
<p>Remember Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle? Sometimes parents don’t understand that a big part of the job is manipulating (or creating incentives for), and then rewarding, desired behaviors…while doing just the opposite with undesired behaviors.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine not being able to with hold something from a middle schooler that would get them into the shower -video games, phone, computer, a sport, television, time with friends, movies, etc. He would be one bored and smelly kid sitting in his room alone with no gadgets.</p>
<p>Right, cartera…only I’m thinking rather than sitting in his room, I’d let him get even smellier by mowing the grass, cleaning the garage, washing my car, weeding my garden… ;)</p>
<p>Right - but that involves actually getting him to do those things and if she can’t get him into the shower, she may not be able to get him to mow the lawn without some pretty serious withholding. I would take absolutely every luxury away possible and add them back one at a time as showers, teeth brushing and basic hygiene improves. He would get 3 meals a day, go to school and that’s it.</p>
<p>If that didn’t work, go to 2 meals a day. By the time you’re at a one meal a day, he’ll probably be bathing - </p>
<p>A friend of mine removed his son’s door when he caught him doing drugs–he’d lost the privilege of privacy. He didn’t get it back for quite a while.</p>
<p>Actually, the child has been deprived of all social activities, gadgets, and everything but food, though she did put locks on the kitchen cabinets to limit his snacking. He is currently in a military summer camp–a decision for which she was also criticized because “don’t you know they abuse kids at those camps?”</p>
<p>I notice how quickly you jumped to the conclusion it was the mom’s fault. I’m not saying she’s perfect, but I could make a list a mile long of everything she’s tried to help and discipline her son. You just proved my point that parents are quickly damned if they are unlucky enough to have a difficult, non-compliant child. Some parents hover and thus can seem overbearing, but without knowing the ins and outs of their family life or whether or not a child might have ADD or some behavioral disorder, who can rightly label them a helicopter parent or negligent parent or anything else? Yet people do, hence parents sometimes have to be extremely involved to protect themselves from accusations and legal liability.</p>
<p>The reason people jump to the conclusion that it is a parent’s fault when there are discipline problems is because the vast majority of the time, it is. Rarely is a pathology at the root of a recalcitrant child. Of course, some children are much more difficult than others, but the “fix” is much more likely to lie with the parents rather than with professionals. The mention that she was physically picking up a middle schooler and putting him in the shower suggested to me that there was limited professional involvement.</p>
<p>I agree that most of the problem kids I know have problem parents. </p>
<p>But my parents raised two kids - me and my little brother. I was a straight-A student, never got in trouble. My brother? Barely graduated high school, abused drugs, failed out of two colleges. My parents did everything they could think of - grounded him, punished him, rewarded him, trusted him… eventually they sent him to a psychologist who said he suffered from depression. My brother had periods where he seemed to be on the right track, and periods where he just screwed everything up. He didn’t straighten out until after he’d been homeless. He was about 30 at that point. Now, in his early 40’s he an upstanding married man and step-father. </p>
<p>My parents raised both of us with the same values. My mom says now that she always blamed the parents of problem kids… until she had one herself. Sometimes, it’s not the parent.</p>
<p>That said, there is a difference between allowing your kid to fall off the jungle gym and break her arm, and allowing her to fall off a cliff and break her neck. The secret to good parenting lies in figuring out which issues in life are jungle gyms, and which are cliffs.</p>
<p>It’s not values that are important in the case described by TheGFG, it’s parenting strategies and techniques. Good parents acknowledge that they use very different approaches for their very different kinds of kids. One size does not fit all.</p>
<p>Once in a blue moon, a child may have a constellation of serious problems that truly are beyond even the best parent’s ability to deal with. But the vast, vast majority of disciplinary problems I see could be (or could have been) corrected by good parenting.</p>
<p>Brap, brap, brap… <em>sound of helicopter blades</em> D2, age 15, just got on a plane by herself to fly to a summer program. With a plane change. She really just realized today how little attention she has paid to the logistics of flying, boarding passes, etc. I admit, I am obsessively checking her flight status. As D1 observed, she has never even ordered and paid for fast food by herself (which she will have to do in the changeover airport, no food on her flights). She is quite shy, so does her best to avoid those types of situations. This is SO good for her. But I am hovering (from an unobtrusive distance, I hope).</p>
<p>How’d she do, intparent? One of my DS’s, when he first flew back alone from a summer program, fell asleep in the waiting area before boarding and almost missed his flight. I think it is perfectly reasonable to keep an eye out and to continue to teach them the ropes. At 15 they are still learning. Heck, I am an old geezer and I am still learning!</p>
<p>intparent and jym, I do the teaching step by step. It sounds like what you are doing, intparent. My kids flew a lot because we flew a lot as a family. Traveling together as a family is, my kids think, the best activity. They flew as unaccompanied minors to Toronto, Washington DC and NJ. Then at 15, ShawSon flew by himself from Boston (where his mom brought him to the airport) to Sydney, where I picked him up. He spent a couple of days on his own in Sydney while he was working. [One day, he found an art supply store, bought art supplies, and walked to the Sydney Aquarium and drew]. Then we had a vacation together camping in the Outback.</p>
<p>This summer, he took his first trip without us. He and I sat at the computer together and made reservations, so he went over the choices with me. We got a Eurail pass and hostel reservations. However, when in Europe, he had to make specific reservations at the train stations. And, one of his traveling companions didn’t come and so we altered plans. He had to leave from his Amsterdam hostel (where 80% of the guests were stoned) by 7 AM without waking up the other folks in the room. On his own, he got to get to the airport in Amsterdam, flew to London and found the bus to Oxford and met his cousin there. That was his first time door to door without any adult involvement. But, since it was one step at a time, it was easy. When flying back from London to Geneva to catch his Geneva to Boston flight home the next day, his flight was canceled because of a strike by, get this, French air traffic controllers. He was standby on a flight that evening and on a 6:40 AM flight the next day. He called and asked what he should do. I investigated alternatives (staying around in London a few more days and then coming directly from London) but he emailed me to let me know he was on the standby flight.</p>
<p>I will say that I feel somewhat differently about sending my slender, pretty 17 year old daughter traveling on her own than I did/do about sending my 6’4" 215 pound son. With him, the only thing I’d be worried about is getting caught in some kind of scam, although he did ask about getting lessons in some kind of self-defense that the Israeli army commandos are trained in. But, with ShawD, i would be worried about physical harm. We live in a lovely town, but in our neighborhood people don’t lock their cars or houses, so one doesn’t acquire street smarts here. I don’t think that my different treatment of my two kids here is sexist, just rational, but I’m sure I could get accused of sexism.</p>
<p>Kids are all so different. Size and gender aside, some (like my D) simply don’t have
the temperament to be comfortable with independent travel in their teens.</p>
<p>My kids started traveling on their own at age 11, when they went to international summer camps - D to India, S to Norway. They had very different experiences - D couldn’t wait to travel again (Italy at age 13, Kenya at age 15). S never wants to leave home again! Now, D is traveling halfway across the country for college, and I have a feeling S will be living at home (he’s just a HS soph).</p>
<p>With all of this independent travel, I don’t think you folks are on the same helicopter I am. My oldest is leaving for college next month and I am just now letting her pay for stuff at the grocery store. Seeing the error of my ways, I’m letting my 16 year old son travel on his own using public transportation, but track him every step of the way. I hadn’t even realized how controlling I was.</p>