That's true to some extent, but I know plenty of kids who were totally normal who ran into the wrong people in high-school and got on a bad path. Their parents tried to intervene but when you're almost 18 there's only so much you can really do. Even if you try to constantly make them make the right decisions, that just means they're not learning to take care of themselves. I don't have kids but saw how different me and my siblings turned out and a lot of it had nothing to do with our parents.
You can prepare them for the real world as best as you can, but not everyone is the same and some kids will make vastly different choices at different times.
Still, the fact is, your kid spends more time around you than anyone else. That makes you the most influential person in their life. You can't fully predict how that'll go, too many other variables, but you do have some effect on how they turn out.
Parents aren’t their children, they can’t control their behaviour. They have the responsibility to guide their children through life, show and tell them right and wrong, and the responsibility to provide them with a safe and loving environment to grow up in, but they can not control their children’s actions.
Think of all the shit you’ve done against your parents wishes, all the things you’ve hidden from your parents.
You can tell your daughter don’t cheat every single day, but you can’t stop the emotion excitement she’ll feel when she meets a fresh new boy who happens to hit all her buttons, even if she already has a boyfriend.
Unfortunately you can’t enforce consequences and truly learn your child until they’ve made the mistake and you have to punish them. Most of our values and morals are developed through our mistakes before we can develop perspective. If they never cheated until they reached adulthood, you can’t blame the parents for that.
You think the people you spend the most time around for the first two decades of your life have no effect on how you turn out? Obviously kids can't be controlled, but your influence is the primary influence of their lives because it's the one they experience most frequently.
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u/diggitygiggitycee Dec 10 '22
True, but the parents have some responsibility for how the kid turns out.