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Originally Posted by SunDeck
Agreed 100%. That's exactly the conclusion that I came to with my boy. His little sister does better than he does in situations that require them to adhere to adult rules of behavior and decorum.
On the other hand, at her age he could draw a train, a car, a house, a ship, you name it, complete with the appropriate scale and perspective. She draws circles with six dots on them and calls them "Daddy".
And this is the point that I wanted to make earlier- it's hard wiring that parents have to figure out. We do the best we can to put both our kids in situations that will work for them, but we have to put them into them in situations that we know will be difficult, too. Otherwise, they can't learn what "normal" expectations are. That's when we get the nods of dissapproval from busy bodies and know-it-alls who don't see the 99.8% of the rest of this kid's life, and who think the only thing we need to do is to give them a slap, or just "be firm". Trust me, if that's all it took we'd be there and so would a lot of parents.
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Yep, before you become a parent, you have all these preconceived notions about how to properly raise a child. Then you have one yourself and all of those notions go right out the window. My oldest son is 4 and my youngest is 5 months. Even at this early age I can tell that raising #2 is going to be different than #1.
I generally don't get upset when other parents have unruly kids when it appears they are actually engaging their children and making an effort to find out what's going on and modify the bad behavior and encourage the good. So I applaud parents who say "Josephus, please" or "Millicent, please," even if it has little effect.
I just have two pet peeves. The first is that I just can't abide by what I call "free-range day care." If you bring your child out, you should be responsible for keeping an eye on them and making sure they have something to occupy/entertain them while you are out, even if it has to be you yourself. I hate seeing kids running around because they are bored while their parents seem too wrapped up in their own conversations to notice that the waitress almost tripped over their kid and dumped a bowl of hot soup on their head. Also, if you are out with a group of people, those people should not be expected to keep an eye on your kid for you.
My other pet peeve, if it comes to the point where you have to discipline your child, please wait until you get home. There is nothing more uncomfortable that watching some harried parent go off on their kid in the middle of the grocery store.