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What should we let our kids do?

very true shane, one of things Social Services have had to take on board over the last few years is that removing a child from the home, even an abusive home, may not actually be the best solution for the child, because, ultimately, it is still their home. They were far to keen to take children away in the past, sometimes from their beds in the middle of the night, and it did enormous damage to the children concerned.

I kind of agree with you Clive. In our household my wife is the confidant. Our 12 year old talks to her about anything in everything. I am the big scary monster who maintains the discipline. When my 3 year old daughter gets older I suspect the roles may be reversed!
 
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Moggy prepare yourself coz right now your wife is your daughters best friend , they gossip and giggle and enjoy each others company coz mum likes to imagine shes young again and your daughters seeking acceptance into an adult world . But when peer pressure , perhaps bullying , abusive boyfriends and all the other things included in the "terrible teen years" begin to come into effect it will be the big scary monster she turns to for advice coz in her mind you are the strong one , the one who can fix things when they are broken , the one who fears nothing (just coz mum runs away from spiders lol) . I first met my stepdaughter when she was 9 and as any stepfather knows it took years to gain her acceptance , but by the time she was 13 subjects such as her monthly cycle , polycystic ovaries , boyfriends and god knows what else all became my responsibility . Charlotte understands mum is too lovely to talk straight and will answer questions with things like "don't worry it will be ok" whereas i will sit her down and explain until i'm sure she understands to her own satisfaction whatever the subject entails .

I guess thats the flip side of the coin resulting from my own upbringing where every time i asked why was replied "BECAUSE I SAID SO" and every time i complained about anything i was told "TOUGH" and usually belted around the lughole . Thats something else i've noticed good parenting often skips a generation inasmuch as those brought up harshly often spoil their kids and those brought up in cotton wool rarely become good parents .
 
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I've already told her, tell the boyfriend, papa's got a gun and he knows how to use it!
 
If only it were that simple , generally one look at me puts the fear of god into boyfriends ........ but try telling her he's a DI**H**D ! ...... no no no daddy he's a wonderful person he just has a few "issues" i need to iron out :doh: It hurts but sometimes your only choice is to sit back and watch them learn from their own mistakes because you will lose them forever if you try to prevent them .
 
Have to agree with you about the straight answers thing!!

'Tough' and 'Because I said so' pretty much summed up my childhood too. Have to say I actually left and didn't speak a single word to my mother for a year, the few times I returned home to get stuff or mail (I was 19 and in uni at the time) she would simply scream and run out of the room or house. Lot of help really. And this from the woman who at one stage refused to fill out the grant application form because it asked too many 'personal' questions. Leaves you not overly endeared to them now (I'm in my mid thirties).

I don't have kids, but the one thing I would like to say I would do if I ever have is actually offer a bit of advice and explain how the world works. I had to figure a lot of it out myself, my only saving grace was that I spent a lot of my childhood with my grandparents who really treated me as their own child and for that I'll be eternally grateful. Sadly though my grandfather passed away when I was 13 and it did get a lot harder then as the only person mother ever listened to sense from was him.
 
kids, no matter how you raise them, they are individuals and will turn out the way THEY want to be.
you raise them to the best of YOUR ability, teach them morals, how to think on their own, how to protect themselves and then you HAVE to let them be their own person. support them emotionally when you can, don't support them when they do wrong.

the world can be a beautiful place but it can also be the meanest teacher.

i also was raised in a farm enviroment, i handled knives when very young. i handled guns at 8, you learned how to use tools to fix things and to build things. i learned to take ideas and make them real. i made mistakes but i still have all my fingers and toes, i still think things through. my parents were far from perfect as am i.

i feel sorry for those that raise their kids in the protective bubble that society has created for todays generation. but more so, i feel sorry for the kids raised inside that bubble.

kids will fall and get hurt, teach them to get up and shake it off. years ago i was visiting a police officer in his home, he had 2 young kids. one fell while running after the other and skinned his knee quite badly. i expected the officer or his wife to go running up to the kid to suck up but neither did. the officer looked over at the kid and said "come on, shake it off". the kid stood up, shook his whole body like a dog shaking water off and then walked over to the dad. the dad took him inside and cleaned up the wound. minutes later the kid was out running around like nothing happened.

the officer confided that was how his parents raised him. injury happens but how you react has a much deeper impact. that kid will grow up to be able to deal with life with a clear mind instead of running to mommy and daddy every time life doesn't go as planned.
 
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I was about 12 when i walked out and didn't return or speak to my mother again for maybe 4 years , it took some ingenuity to feed myself and keep social services off my back i can tell you , got in trouble at work for going to school got in trouble at school for going to work and so and and so forth . If i could turn back the clock i wouldn't change a thing as it prepared me for life . I'm happy now and tend to view lifes trials and tribulations with amused interest rather than worry and doubt . Whatever life throws at you you will still be here tomorrow and if your not you won't know a damn thing about it anyway :icon-biggrin:

Crusher the copper story is a great example of how to do it right i'm sure he and his children earned themselves great respect as individuals from such a simple philosophy :thumbup:
 
We also have to be compassionate to children's situations as human beings.

They're born and progress through the baby stage learning simply by observation and interaction with their surroundings (which includes parents, aunts and uncles, dogs and cats etc., and the geek in glasses pulling stupid faces at them) which all must be very confusing.

Once they're speaking, that additional means of communication allows them to ask questions. As parents, we should take full advantage of that progression to communicate to them explanations of the confusing and otherwise unexplained things that surround them.

"Look" said my kid from the back of the car one evening, "the moon is following us"! It was her simple observation without any real knowledge of what the moon was even, or why it appeared to be following us. We explained all this to her. Maybe she understood, maybe she didn't, but we didn't leave it as "because it is" or "shut the F**k up, I can't be bothered to explain".

We talk about teaching our kids and of course that's essential. But IMO most of their learning is centered on receiving an explanation of something that is not self explanatory or they can't explain themselves. Encouragement and explanations are paramount IMO.

We spent last week at the seaside and we're trying to "teach" her to swim. She's very comfortable in the water now but she still needs her arm-bands. She'll happily swim around all day in them. Then we went to a salt lake, which is a health spar type of place, with a natural lake close to the coast, which is naturally saline with approximately 7 times the density of salt compared with the Black Sea. (I think the lake is about 4 times the salt density of the North Sea). Anyway, it's a bit like the Dead Sea where you can float easily, we've all seen the photos of people lying on their backs reading a newspaper.

Ana was swimming about with her arm bands on and I said to her that this water was like magic water because it has a lot of salt in it. She said she'd noticed the difference because it tasted much saltier. I explained that meant it was easier to float in. Of course at 4 yrs + she wouldn't appreciate a physics lesson of differential specific gravities of various solutions and stuff, but she accepted what I said and I encouraged her to take her arm bands off. Scary stuff when you know that you can't swim!

She did anyway, and held on to me like a limpet. Step by step we parted and she was holding only my hands, then I said to her you let go of me. After a while she did, and she floated! She was ecstatic! The best thing was she had done it herself. I hear people say "just throw them in the deep end, they'll soon learn to swim" but IMO lessons are much better learned by the kid itself, more than being taught something or being forced into a situation and being made to deal with it.
 
"She did anyway, and held on to me like a limpet. Step by step we parted and she was holding only my hands, then I said to her you let go of me. After a while she did, and she floated! She was ecstatic! The best thing was she had done it herself."

And I bet you were too, Clive! One very smiling Dad I'll bet! Nothing quite like the pride in seeing them achieve with a little gentle guidance, trust and support. What you described above was that balance of challenge and encouragement where real learning occurs.:clap:
 
And I bet you were too, Clive! One very smiling Dad I'll bet! Nothing quite like the pride in seeing them achieve with a little gentle guidance, trust and support. What you described above was that balance of challenge and encouragement where real learning occurs.:clap:

:icon-wink: like a Cheshire cat!
 
I bet they bloody loved that. Good for you Clive.

Certainly did :lol:

It was “can we ride on the roof again?” all the way home... much to the scowls of the mums... :crazy:

The ‘boy’ in red is my daughter, the other lad is her pal from after-school.

Life seems so tame these days compared with what we used to get up to 56 years ago, when I was 10 years old, it’s quite sad really.
 
That's the best for kids!

I remember doing that as a child but it always irritated the owners. Strangers are so precious over their cars...

It is more polite to ask first Cris :lol:
 
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Good thread. We’re busy installing some new bits on the roof rack which is enough to raise eyebrows around here.
 
We were the envy of school when all from our village got kicked off the school bus and my grandad pulled up in a flat deck Bedford TK lorry telling us to jump on :lol:

I'm sure he forgot we were on there with nothing to hold onto though because i still remember thinking to myself jesus christ this is dangerous !
 
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