Parenting

Parenting

Most of us had children in our twenties or younger. Almost none of us had any training on how to be a parent before the little monster came out of the womb. Our training came from either how we were parented or who we looked up to in the family.

In my situation, both my parents had to work many, many hours just so we could get by. The rest of my family was either dead or distant. Therefore, my sister and I were mostly on our own. We did the best we could, but I became a workaholic and my sister became an alcoholic. 

My kids came when I was in my very early twenties. I worked all the time and had no idea on how to raise them. My first wife didn't know much either. Basically, my kids were on their own. The good news is that, like me, they turned out OK. 

It's easy to be a parent when your kids are great. However, without any training, it's a bitch to be a parent when one or more of your kids are not that good. 

My sister was a problem child and that led to her having problems in life. My parents didn't have a clue on how to help her. They just let her destroy her life and their life. I had to be the good son to make them feel better. BTW, she wound up being ten years sober before Ovarian Cancer killed her at sixty four (I hate that f..king disease).

I don't know if parent training would change a problem child into a good son or daughter. Like any human or animal, there are brains that are wired in a way that could determine if a child will be good or bad. What I do believe is that parent training could help the "parents" better deal with the problem child.

You see, when we have a problem child we feel it reflects on us. "Oh, they are the family with the problem child." We punish ourselves because we can't get out of our heads that we must have done something wrong. We punish ourselves because we're frustrated that we don't know how to fix the problem. 

We know the problem child is not happy and in some crazy way we make ourselves unhappy because we don't know what else to do - negative energy begets negative energy. In some crazy way, we think we're doing the wrong thing if we have a very happy life while the problem child is having a miserable life. I'm not a Therapist, but I'm smart enough to know:

Having An Unhappy Depressed Life Will Never Fix Anything