re: The "Wait until you have kids" crowd........

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I raise my voice and that is all it has ever taken.

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This. I've never felt like corporal punishment was appropriate for children. I've always just told them I was disappointed and occasionally hit them with my belt and that has always been sufficient.

I picked my son up early from school and took him to Walmart, skipping a nap.

Big mistake.

He wanted a toy and I said no. He started screaming and crying. I picked him up and he hit me.

I carried him out to the car and he started screaming, "Help me! He's taking me! He's taking me! Put me down!"

A woman was following me through the parking lot recording me on her cell phone and threatened to call the police.

fricking bitch. I was so embarrassed.

My daughter (2.5) has started to just force herself to vomit when she is upset instead of screaming/crying.

Yeah.

Its totally awesome.

Yeah, never again.

I know most of the boasts and criticisms on here are tongue-in-cheek, but children basically are who they are. You can parent them in many different ways, these can be effective in one child's case and completely ineffective in another.

I have two kids who were raised as similarly as can be imagined. I had to whip the older child once in his life. He was a high achiever and always wanted to please us. The younger child is completely different. I beat his arse repeatedly when he was young, and have used various methods to get the behavior I want as he's gotten older. He simply doesn't respond. His attitude is poor toward anything he doesn't want to do.

Point being, I'm a strong believer in nature over nurture.

I'll explain it to the non "wait until you have kids" crowd.



It's not like you don't have the capability to ever parent or understand kids. It's just that you see them in small segments. Just for a bit and that's all you have. You don't have to go home with them, make sure they have napped, been fed, been made to do chores (if they are old enough), bathed, and put to bed. We ran into this with my MIL. She is constantly critiquing my wife on how we discipline and deal with our daughter. Eats us up. BUT she had only seen her in "vacation mode", when everyone is having fun and our daughter is getting everything she wants because it's their right to spoil her. I was out of town for two weeks and she came up to stay and help out my wife, and she got the full blast. Totally changed her point of view on the matter.

That's what I would ever mean by that. You're just getting a small sample size.

LINK

Dude, sometimes it is what it is and no "parenting" will work. My brother in law and sister liked to give us "tips" about parenting (no kids btw) and I just laughed. I let them handle have my first son for an overnight experience. Didn't make it to 6 pm before we got a call for pickup.

Second son is a piece of cake. No difference in parenting. Just like that sometimes and you have to adjust.

Temperament varies between children, including was in the same family.

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Be careful

Only children are weird as frick

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meh, I was an only child and i think i turned out ok. we just had our first and have already decided one is enough, we are only having one.

Having one kid is basically like being childless. It's not even a challenge until you make 2.

Eta: and people that only have one and bitch and moan about it should stfu