Breaking the Spirit of a Willful Child...

Shonuff said:

Cutlery has been the voice of reason in this thread. I'm not here to be my child's friend or entertainment provider. I'm here to be a parent.

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That's a decent attitude, so have you tried Iannis' suggestion? At that age a spanking for the more egregious outbursts might be useful. Young children are rowdy by nature. My parents only had to spank me and my sister a few times over the years. It punctuated the lessons very effectively.

moonarchia said:

That's a decent attitude, so have you tried Iannis' suggestion? At that age a spanking for the more egregious outbursts might be useful. Young children are rowdy by nature. My parents only had to spank me and my sister a few times over the years. It punctuated the lessons very effectively.

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This is correct advice from someone who actually seems to know what spanking is and how its supposed to be used.

Like your parents, I've only spanked my kids a very small number of times. A few spankings early in life teach lessons that let the kid avoid much greater pain later in life. Which is the essence of good parenting.

i was a second child, i was a little snot at that age, my parents had money and i was the class clown in school. i got into scouting and weightlifting, learned how to do shit on my own and grew out of it, mostly. i know this is a different era we live in and scouting is for little sissies and weightlifting under age 13 is probably considered child abuse. but exercise and outdoor activities sounds like the best way to go. get him away from the video games and maybe dont talk about how much of a #1 your daughter is because it makes your son feel inferior.

Another thing I started doing is hugging my kid after he gets in trouble too. I think it really helped him to see that my love and affection is always there, and not just a treat for when he's good. I'm not a very affectionate person by nature so it took effort on my part, but after we talk and hug, he definitely seems more determined to straighten out his behavior.

I think we are all missing out on why he titled the thread the way he did.


Skip to 4:20 for the good stuff.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005JSSAH8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do

Make him do some sports, I was lazy and dropped most physical activity by the time I hit teenage years, but those few years where I was swimming/running/playing basketball/doing scouting proved invaluable since I didn't balloon out of control. Give him a choice in what he wants to do, but he will do something. It's a different collective and different goals and he won't have to sit on his ass and some time away from home and games won't hurt either. I'd suggest throwing in some art in there too, but you might encroach onto asian parenting territory. Ultimately, set hard rules and don't bargain. Beating solves nothing, what crushed me was the guilt when I fucked up. Kids want to impress their parents, making it clear how much of a disappointment I was terrifying.

Man, this thread has it all...