Are young people in the US wrapped up in cotton wool?

Hmm, I have directly witnessed multiple episodes of parents who were best friends with their kids, before the kids left the house. It was an ugly sight, especially for the single parent households.

I don't think parents should be their kids best friends until those kids are independent and on their own. Then that kind of relationship can develop without screwing up the kids.

It is quite crazy that you can legally join the military at 18 years old and die for your country but you can't legally drink until you're 21. I'm not sure who that make sense to ?

originally posted by: TinySickTears

originally posted by: CornishCeltGuy
a reply to: Irishhaf

Sounds like a good plan

Wrapping up in cotton wool is the worst thing I think any parent can do, and being so strict that your youngster is too scared to tell you stuff is also a fail. I was good cop and my son's mother was bad cop, he'd tell me everything, and I'd sugar coat it when I told his mother, and chilled her out. It was great teamwork, she knew it was the best way for us all to work together as a family.

i think lying to your kids is bad too

i dont mean telling your 5 year old about santa.

im talking kids that ask their parents about grass or something when they are however old. parents lie and tell them all kinds of terrible # to try and deter them from trying it.
wanting to deter your kids from that is a good thing. lying about it is bad though cause at some point they are going to get curious when they are a young teen and they will try it and realize all their parents told them about it is bull#. then they will start to question other things too or start to not trust their parents.

my daughter is 6 and just yesterday she asked my wife where babies come from. i wasnt here so my wife waited for me to get home so we could talk about how to tell our daughter.
i said just tell her.

so i told her about the penis and the vagina. how it is called sex.
she looked at me with a look on her face like its the grossest thing ever.
then dropped it like it was nothing.

i wasnt going to tell her some damn bird drops kids off or some magic happens.
why do that you know?

Good for you. My wife and I were always honest with our son. She handled the medical mechanisms and I handed him a box of condemns on prom night.He gave them back and said, “got it covered Dad.” I don’t know about American kids not being street wise. By the time my son was 16, I think I could have dropped him naked in a foreign country and in 6 months he would be running the place. He is 41 now and the Vice President of a muilt-million dollar corporation. The best thing is, he is raising my two granddaughters to be just like him. They are both are black belt instructors, experts with a AR-15 and oldest, at 15 can drive anything. We take life seriously. The kids are world travelers, Europe, Central America, give them two weeks they can speak the language enough to get by.
Type A personalitys run in my family. It may be birth order. At a family reunion It’s like do it, do it, do it, or get out of my way.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

I'm not saying that isn't cool. It all depends on the kid.
And for every cotton wool story, there are 100 badass kids doing great in life. They just don't make the news.
Like this 15-year old who invented a new detection for pancreatic cancer.
www.smithsonianmag.com...

But nooooo, peeps wanna focus on the degenerate losers on Love Island and Big Brother!(not directed at you Cornish..lol)


And may I add, y'all have a pretty bad rap on the tourist route....LOL

www.theguardian.com...

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

I mean, there's the law. Then there's reality.

My son was put into rehab when he was 18. He's doing great now, because he is intelligent and was able to see the error in his ways. But my point is that everyone walks there own path, and some choose the fire. Laws only matter to people who are of a mind to allow it.

originally posted by: ClovenSky
Hmm, I have directly witnessed multiple episodes of parents who were best friends with their kids, before the kids left the house. It was an ugly sight, especially for the single parent households.

I don't think parents should be their kids best friends until those kids are independent and on their own. Then that kind of relationship can develop without screwing up the kids.

I disagree. At a certain age peer pressure far outways any parenting. A child who has a controlling parent that is constantly telling them how to live and threatening punishment for every missdeed will lose touch with their children. Teens will be teens, some can talk to their parents some have to hide it.

I would much rather my child see me as a friend they can talk to about life without judgement. Without the fear of being punished for every missdeed. Someone who can admit I made the same mistakes and offer them real guidance from the perspective of someone who lived through it and made it out the other side.

The child who fears the parent is not more likely to obey any rules they are only more likely to hide it. If your child feels they have to hide everything they do out of fear of condemnation or punishment how is that parent going to really know who their child is?

The child is forced to live a lie at home. Why imbitter our children when we can be their friend?

It's my job as a parent to teach my child right from wrong. It's my job as a parent to do what I can to guide my child away from bad influence. When a child reaches 15-16 it is my job to get out the way and hope the lessons learned in youth send them down a successful path.

I will not be there to dictate my childs life once they move out on their own. It's much better to know what mistakes they make before that time so that I may be able to guide them to a better situation.

Always condemning the behavior will lead to silence and a confused child with no one but other children to guide them.

I support the European standards of 16. Children are old enough to start taking on adult responsibilities while still young enough to learn from mistskes without destroying their life. I would rather my child learn how to be an adult with me their by their side, then to throw them to the wolves at some arbitrary age set by the government.

In my opinion the 2 children that end up in the worst situations as young adults had parents who were controlling and lost touch with their kids or abusive parents.

I will be my daughter's friend, she can do anything wrong and I will love her and be there for her without judgement.

I don't think the situations you are witnessing have anything to do with friendship. They have everything to do with respect. My children were taught to respect their elders and would never expect that disrespect of any kind would be tolerated.

I would have no problem smaking my child in the mouth for being disrespectful, they should expect the same from their friends. No one should disrespect anyone. Friendship includes respect, but doesn't include judgment.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

he loved pulling old cougars, said the sex was much better than girls his own age.

Thank God, we here in the States, by and large refrain from sex with animals. And the British think we are uncivilized.

I always felt Europe had a better way of dealing with issues like drinking and such than the US. We ban and prohibit and criminalize so much it ends up having the opposite affect. Tell a teenager not to do something - what happens? He can't wait to do it, if for no other reason than toe find out why it was forbidden in the first place.

One thing I will never agree with is the parent who wants to be the childs best friend. The child has plenty of friends already but only one or two parents. If the parents start being friends too someone else needs to step in and be the parent. But that doesn't happen.

I think the US could learn a lot from Europe on alcohol, drugs, nudity, responsibility, civic duty, etc. Children here are a bunch of spoiled brats who never heard the word NO. And we are seeing exactly what kind of adult that creates.

Sounds like any spoiled kid who was put in a plastic bubble by there parents, that only when to be let out of it, all hell breaks loose.

1st world issues.

How many kids expect things for going through the trials of the commodities kf adulthood an tribal society where it expected, when the parents knew better not to get their expectations to high like the kids.

How many kids in America are looking for cushy collared jobs when there ton of other well paying jobs that demand a little elbow grease where immigrants would gladly stroke that shaft, like teenage girls these days.

Ummm...no.

PLENTY of evidence to the contrary.

www.telegraph.co.uk... reply to: Vroomfondel

And Scotland just put up the price of cheap booze to tackle the problem.

I'd say the United States is large and extremely diverse.

Like a bunch of smaller countries/areas that have their own cultures.

You can't really "blanket" people (or how kids are raised) as a whole.

I, personally, am very happy I was raised along the California Coast (Los Angeles Beach Area). It is a culture of openness and acceptance of diversity. It's also very competitive in both work and play.

FACT comparison of size:
USA - total: 9,826,630 sq km
UK - total: 244,820 sq km

a reply to: Isurrender73

But if you are their best friend, can your advice be trusted? I think they even realize on some level that it can't. When they see you living by a set of codes or morals that you don't compromise on, even for them, they learn self control and respect. If you are their best friend, how often are you tempted to compromise yourself to maintain that friendship? Even if you are strong, how many others aren't?

What happens if you have very few friends yourself and you are a single parent. How much have you witnessed the parent in these situations living through their children?

I my probably wrong in my views that it is much better to establish a loving relationship of caring and respect. Caring will be present in both scenarios but respect is often lost in a friendship relationship where the participants are not equal. Making them equal to yourself will be a huge disservice to them when they enter real life. Teaching them self control and self respect on the other hand.....

a reply to: ClovenSky

I think that sometimes people equate friendship in parenting to letting children run amok. Letting children run amok is not parenting or being a friend.

I have no friends that would let me disrespect them and act like an idiot towards them. My friends when I was a teen/young adult were there for me if I #ed up. They would laugh at me when I drank too much and threw up, then remind me about it next time we went drinking.

At what age do you expect a child to be able to handle the real world, which is full of making mistskes? How can you teach your child if they won't talk to you about the mistakes? My mother was honest with me about everything as a kid. By the time I was 15 she was much more of a friend than a parent.

The mistakes I made in life had much more to do with depression, because sometimes life can come crashing in on you, than anything my mother did or did not teach me. I think this is the case for most.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

It depends on what you are talking about.

Some things they start kids on way too young, IMO, and other things you get CPS called on your butt if you dare to let your kid do.

For example, they start sexualizing kids way too young. Kids are taught serious sex ed topics as young as kindergarten, and if a child that young or younger insists they are some other sex than they are, we take them seriously and start serious medical treatment on them. I think it was California that had or discussed having a law in place that would let 12-year-olds access abortion services without notifying parents.

At the same time, if I were to let my child play outside on his own, even if he were in a mixed age group of kids (some over 10 years of age), and they all decided to walk a quarter mile up the road to a local park, some local busy-body could call the police and I could be investigated for child endangerment and have CPS crawling up my behind.

Seems to me that if a kid is "adult" enough to make the decisions in the first paragraph, then they're old enough to walk to the park in a mixed age group. Right? Not in the US.

We also have provisions in the law that our kids are kids until they're nearly 30 for the purposes of determining whose health insurance policies they can stay on. These same "kids" can join the army and fight and die for the country, but they're not old enough to be responsible for their own health care. Of course, there are lots of kids who are 30 and still haven't managed to get out of mom and dad's basement too. I have a cousin in California who is still living with her parents past that age.

And just because you can join the army, vote, and all that good stuff, doesn't mean you are considered capable to getting a drink and being adult about it. Legal drinking age isn't until you are 21.

So as you can see, in the US, when a person is considered adult has very little to do with when they actually are old enough to handle something or make responsible decisions about it and more to do with when it's politically expedient to draw an arbitrary line on the age spectrum.

a reply to: SurveyTheSurveyors

The problem is in California, what your saying is not applicable due to high costs of living. Due to housing being expensive,some people as old as 27 still live with their parents.

In fact, a lot of people are talking about moving out of the state due to this.

Lol....some kids need cotton wool and others need steel wool. I have had both!!!!!


a reply to: ketsuko

originally posted by: lakenheath24
Lol....some kids need cotton wool and others need steel wool. I have had both!!!!!


a reply to: ketsuko

The point is that there are some things the law steps in to do ... for the children. But every child is an individual and no one knows a child better than his or her parents (or no one should).

If a kid is capable of handling a drink younger than 21, then the parents should be the ones to make that decision, not the state. Parents are more likely to recognize a real problem over a passing fancy than a teacher or anyone else when it comes to a kid who thinks he is suddenly a she. If a kid can walk himself to the park down the way at 9, then he's responsible enough to do it. It isn't the place of some concerned neighbor to call the cops and then for CPS to tell you no he's not after a short investigation.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

You are absolutely wrong!!!!!!

In the US we don't consider them kids at 17,
there are mere babies at that age, they aren't kids until at least 24 (only half joking)

I still consider my parents friends, always have... BUT, I also knew that if I really pushed it an attitude adjustment was incoming. They taught me right from wrong and if I crossed a line they were no longer friends, they no longer had my back and they were going to punish me. This was all clearly taught to me as I grew up, here is the line cross it at your peril.

I think you can be friends but it has to have boundaries, the problems I have noticed as I have hit middle age is a lot of kids were never shown boundaries of any sort.

originally posted by: Irishhaf
I still consider my parents friends, always have... BUT, I also knew that if I really pushed it an attitude adjustment was incoming. They taught me right from wrong and if I crossed a line they were no longer friends, they no longer had my back and they were going to punish me. This was all clearly taught to me as I grew up, here is the line cross it at your peril.

I think you can be friends but it has to have boundaries, the problems I have noticed as I have hit middle age is a lot of kids were never shown boundaries of any sort.

It's all part of positive reinforcement.

When your kid acts like a responsible, well-healed member of society, you treat him like one. You treat him like as much of an equal as he's capable of being. IME, kids like that feeling and respond well to it. Usually, they will do whatever they can to get more of it.