What do your parents think of you?
My mother thinks I’m a good friend. We don’t have a vertical relationship by way of authority. We joke, we play games. She’s happy I’ve grown into a positive, open-minded and independent person. She likes me for who I am. She has never worried about me.My father has some illusions about me, since he didn’t live with me from the age of 6 up until the age of 20, when I moved in with him for a year, for university. Apparently he thinks other people have to push me, pressure and guilt motivate me and that I should do as he says. This however isn’t true, because I push myself the most, pressuring me is the best way to stop me from doing things (because I will not give you the joy of taking credit for it) and I generally don’t do as people tell me to (unless I agree with them). I’m as hard-headed as he is and that has resulted in quite a few conflicts, lots of friction and a general sense of “he doesn’t understand me really, and he doesn’t want to (by how he behaves), but he still wants attention because family = nr. 1”. Right now, he is satisfied, because I’m employed, I have more degrees than him, I have my own home etc etc. I think his behaviour can be explained by the fact that he has worried about me, mostly because of his own hardships in life. I try to understand him.
Do you think a teen should know how much money their parents make?
The disadvantages are many. Probably the biggest is not what most teens would think, that the child will want a bigger chunk. The biggest is that the teen will want to start from where their parents are at. For instance a child finds out that the parent makes $80K a year. So he looks at his $150 a week job and decides to quit.... cuz he's obviously going nowhere fast. The problem is that when his parents were his age they made half what he's making now, it takes time. Kids don't want to wait, this whole forum is devoted to kids who don't want to wait. This is the instant pudding generation. So when Junior brings home the $150 a week check and mom and dad say, "Wow son, thats twice what we made when we were your age" Junior decides he is on the right track and is doing well. Hopefully Mom and Dad have the foresight to send Junior to the store to pickup groceries a couple of times, so he knows the value of a dollar, and has allowed him to get a subscription to WoW so he knows how to make payments. I had no idea how much my father made until way out of college when he divorced my mother and then bought and paid for a house over the course of 3 months.
What do you think about parents that do their kids homework?
I think they are short-sighted, rescuing their kids from the difficulty of homework now at the expense of the children being able to learn on their own later on. The same goes for kids who come on this website looking for answers that they can just copy down verbatim, instead of just getting a push in the right direction. That said, I think a lot of the homework teachers assign these days is busywork, something for the kids who catch on quickly to do while the teacher works with the struggling kids. I also think that teachers assign unrealistic projects to the kids. I can't believe they really expect a 5th grade kid to "construct an authentic log cabin without using lincoln logs, demonstrating 6 features from the novel" (one of the assignments my son got this year), without some parental help. In things like this, I try very hard to let my kids do what they can do themselves, and only step in when adult assistance as needed. As a result, our projects are often a bit cruder than some of the kids who had parents do it all, but I comfort myself with the knowledge that my kids learned a lot more from the project.
Fear and Respect of a parent what do you think?
Fear and respect ARE two totally different things, although sometimes the word "fear" can be used to mean being reverent, as opposed to meaning being afraid. In any case, this is what I believe about fear and respect: Being respectful and loving to my children caused them to be respectful and loving to me. My children do not fear me because I do not re-act to my anger and frustration towards them. Sure, I am human. I DO get angry and frustrated sometimes. But I do not act out because of it. My children do not see me yell, hit, spank, slam things around, stomp or any other 'tantrum's behavior that is cause by anger and frustration. I have never 'lost control' and did something harmful to them because I was angry at them so they do not fear me doing something harmful to them .Any punishments (and in our house that does include a spanking sometimes) has never been because of my (or my husband's) anger or frustration. It has always been a direct result of their misbehavior, so my children do not confuse punishment with 'mom's temper'. They respect me because I am respectful of them. If their bedroom door is shut, I knock, if they are on the phone, I am quiet, if they want to speak, I listen. If I make a mistake, I apologize. They see me allow the other driver to come on over into my lane without getting upset. They watch me speak to other people with respect . All of these things (and more) have caused my children to see that I am a person who treats other's with respect and therefore they treat me with respect. Another wonderful thing about all of this is that they treat other people with respect too. Children do not have to fear a parent just because he/she uses discipline and sets limits. Respect comes from a mutual understanding of each other's personal value...fear comes from abuse and hatefulness.