GIMNEPIWO wrote:This is what I wrote on page whatever:
Probably the same percentage of kids that hear the Star Spangled Banner and have no idea of it's meaning ... ya just can't dance to it ... ... anyway, if you tell kids that they can't listen to it, that's the first thing they'll do when your head is turned ... if you make an observation and point out how derogatory the lyrics are without forcing it down they're throat, they will often make the right decision on their own ... but playing any music at a tourny loud enough for anyone to hear out of your group is discourteous .... if you allow your team or another to do it, that's the lesson you are teaching them ... no class !
What I'm saying now is :
I do not claim to know everything, far from it ... but if you think telling your DD not to listen to this crap "forever", not to drink, not to cut a class, not to down load crap on their cell phone, not to eat potato chips in her room, NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT !.... what do you think the first thing she is going to do, when or if, she feels the need to test your authority is ... and testing authority is part of growing up ... will Skarpina never need to test your authority? ... I don't know, maybe ... my oldest was not a tester ( except for that time when she put her fingers in the coffee grinder against my advice ) ... In our house, which is like a stop on the train to Bizarreville ... we arm them as best we can to make their own good decisions, set the boundaries without cramming it down their throats, and we they fu*k up ... we say, "how'd that work out for you?" ... and so far ... they make more good decisions than bad ... but when they screw up they are not affraid to come to us because we are not going to rub their noses in it ...
... you call "appeal to experience" a fallacy ? Skarpy Skarpy Skarpy ? ... WTF? ... So, what do you tell DD & the DS's ? ... listen to me because I pay the bills ? listen to me because I have a nicer car than you? ... listen to me because I say so ? .... or do you speak from your experiences and try to relate it to their situation ? Do you talk about why these songs are morally wrong ... and that its bad to degrade woman ... why its bad to call them Ho's ... why its bad to use inflammatory language ... ??? Are you being patronizing when you relate your own experiences to their children ? ... And in my case ... if I fu*ked up and it relates to my kids situation ... guess what, I tell them ... Dad is NOT perfect .... "here is how it played out for me"... Experience is the best teacher, and as a history buff, you should know that ...
Experience may be the best teacher, but experience does not guaranty that you are correct. If your abundance of experience has provided you with some relevant facts bearing on how/why listening to Superman the Ho is beneficial for a 14 y.o. girl, I'm all ears. But don't think that "I'm more experienced, so therefore I am correct" is going to fly. It wasn't me that identified "appeal to experience" as a fallacy. Plato did.
Anyway, while you certainly have more experience raising your kids, who have patterned their decisions largely in response to the environment that you have created, you have zero experience raising my kids in the environment that I have created.
Ridiculous permissiveness and blind/deaf/dumb parenting have exploded over the past 50 years...mysteriously coinciding with an explosion in teen sex, drug use, violence, and other risky/stupid behavior. I think I'll go with the less permissive paradigm that prevailed for, oh, pretty much the rest of human history. After all, some kids aren't drinking, screwing, etc. in high school. Wonder what parenting model prevails in most of
those households (not really...I KNOW which one does).
I absolutely tell my kids about why certain things are right and wrong, as I have been very clear about in my other posts. Equally important, I back my moral judgment up with
action. I don't tell them this stuff is morally wrong, but by all means shake your ass to it. I tell them this stuff is morally wrong, and you may not listen to it.
I don't impose a ton of rules on my kids, but the ones I do make are enforced strictly. Having clear boundaries is actually liberating to kids, because they don't need to worry or wonder whether something they are doing will get them in trouble. They know what things are out of bounds, and they are absolutely free to do everything else.
But should "Skarpina" ever want to test my authority regarding the "out of bounds" stuff, rest assured that she will not find my authority wanting. I justify my rules with clear explanations, and all of my kids know that if they can formulate a good argument why the rule shouldn't apply, I will probably remove it. But if they instead decide to willfully disobey a clear household rule--the equivalent of doing the forbiddent act AND lying--then they will find out very quickly what it really means to not have any privileges. I set this precedent early, and as forcefully as necessary to get the point across. Miraculously, I haven't had many problems with serious disobedience as my kids have gotten older.
I can only assume that you are serious when you question whether I will tell my kids not to drink and not to cut class...as if doing so is somehow unreasonable. You bet your ass I will tell them not to do those things. Don't you?
And by the way, there's not a person on these boards who knows more about F'ing up as a teenager than I do. And I know exactly what allowed me to do so. Too much freedom, and too few consequences.
