You managed to raise two productive members of society. Fair dues to you and them. But imagine one had hung out with some idiot that led him into a string of nightmare situations.
It was my job, as a parent, to nip that in the bud.
Or one of your kids had a chemical imbalance that had him doing stupid shit over and over.
See above response. Maybe it’s initially a parental problem, given the child is a child?
Or one of them had a personality that rebeled against any authority, etc, etc.
Who didn’t have one of those? Again, it has to be managed by an actively engaged parent, with love and support. But, it has to be addressed early, as soon as it rears its ugly head.
From year 0 to about 2010, I was an absolutely bang average parent. Somewhere in there, parental abdication and surrender to the ridiculous desires of kids seemingly blossomed. Maybe, my luck was simply being dumb enough to have had kids in 96 & 98, and having them sorted before trouble came their way.
FWIW, they both had their troubles as kids, which will remain private, but they were sorted out with both strong parenting and a little assistance. Again, bang average for most families I know.
Not everyone is so lucky. We should be helping them until they are ready. There is plenty of time for teens to get a regular education. They come out of college too early anyway.
IMO it's like wanting your kid to be good at sport. You need them to love it first. We need troubled kids to want to be better at something positive.
You can’t have it both ways…kids can’t be coming out of college too soon AND the world has to wait for them to “find their passion.” I’m on my third career. I clearly didn’t find my “passion” until society didn’t give a fuck and thought I was old enough to be a fuck up or work my ass off to change doing what I wanted.
While I agree, we are all different, a just, sound and productive society can’t function without strongly defined guardrails, which can’t depend on the whims of “adult children.”
PS. I agree on devices, uniforms, prison, etc. We need respect and fairness all round.
Respect, indeed. A distinct lack of that amongst a large swath of our youngsters these days. Mine learned that lesson early, because the alternative was deemed disadvantageous to their near future!