Do parents respect bad kids more?

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Grace, I take issues with what you say.

You're saying that his attempts at him being bad caused his parents to behave this way. But, what you're not asking is what caused him to think he must be a bad kid to gain his approval in the 1st place.

His attempts at being bad >>> parents behavior to get him to be good.

when he was good >>> parents behavior did not respect him.

parents behavior did not respect him >>>> his attempts at being bad to get their respect.

You're looking at only the first item in this crazy circle w/o looking at the other parts. It's like you're presenting as though the birth of a child caused the mother's pregnancy. And, this makes sense?

I’ve encountered this sort of thing...but I don’t believe it is a dominant thing.

It sort of happens with me and my brother. He was an incorrigible kid. He is respected more than I am—but he is not liked.

According to psychologists, kids act out for a reason and they look behind the behavior first to see why they are doing it before placing any labels on them. Sometimes a kid acts out because they feel ignored and they want attention and only way of getting it is getting into trouble and being bad even if it's negative attention. Then their parents notice them and give them attention.


TLDR: Not all kids with behavior have a behavior disorder. It could be due to another disorder or due to their family environment.

"Attention" is close but no cigar. If anything, I was getting too much attention. My every move was scrutinized and criticized, even biting my nails, let alone my grades in school, in order to "to make a good person out of me". My biggest dream was to just be left alone. So, I deliberately misbehaved, in order to push my parents into giving up on me, and actually leaving me alone. Like: "Forget this kid! Our efforts to make a good person out of him failed. Let him do whatever he wants, as long as he doesn't hurt others." The few times they said "do whatever you want!", it was entrapment (or "punishment baiting", as I called it), not a permission, and I was perceptive enough to figure it out.

Meanwhile, I saw kids far less kind and gentle than me treated much better and getting much more freedom in their own families. Even my parents sang praises for some of the bad kids they knew, because those kids knew how to kiss butt at the right time. While I, being an aspie, tried to gain approval by acting in a submissive, supplicating manner. Which came off as weakness, and evoked disrespectful treatment, maybe even on an instinctive, subconscious level.

One shouldn’t live one’s life with regret—especially if the conditions which lead to the regret are alleviated.

I was treated with disrespect at times. My brother was a “bad boy” who was respected. That’s the way it was. I had to live with that. I still have to live with that to a certain extent.

I had to grow up and transcend my childhood in order to have a chance in life.

Its not that I thought his attempts to be bad caused his parents to be disrespectful. But more that I thought deliberately choosing to act out wouldnt make them respect him any more than they did when he acted good.

But anyway, I think this bad kid/good kid argument has kinda run its course

I was doing what I could to survive. Plus, even as a naive aspie, I was very perceptive. I "knew" that short-term approval and praise don't hold a candle to the deep, profound respect I would have gotten if I were a bad kid. How did I know? I saw many bad kids treated with far greater kindness by their own families and having much more freedom, than I could even dream of. It went and still goes against all the preachy mantras I received about being a good kid.

It's still better to be a good kid. You'll win out in the end. The good people usually prevail in life----despite what you may see on TV.

Bad people are not as respected as they get older. They are dumped by women who are sick of all the crap they have to put up with via those "bad boys."

That's true if you're naturally assertive and know how to instinctively read what your parents want from you. Which means you know how to kiss butt while still fighting hard for your interests. My sister was very good at this, and she was my parents' favorite. But for the rest of us, being a bad kid is a good shortcut for getting respect in the family.

I'll give you one thing: good adults get more respect in their family (of origin). But not good kids.

I often times wonder this because my parents are kinda like this every now and then. My brother and my sister argue with them a lot but they respect them more as adults then they respect me who doesn't talk back or argue with them and they will often times shame and chastise me over useless thing. While they don't favor my other siblings and probably favor me more, they often times talk down to me, don't take me seriously and treat me like I'm a child still. Though I guess that has to do with the fact that I live with them more so then how old I am to be truthful. Even though they have kinda set me up in a way to where I will probably always have to live with them while everyone else has already achieved their own life.

It's not respect, it's fear. You were scolded with much vitriol and strictly ruled because (if you're anything like me) you probably appeared like you weren't paying attention when in fact you were very focused. My mother would scream at me, "Are you listening because you look like you're in space!!" Of course, I was listening. I can't help that I had "those" eyes that look like they're out in space. My father had those spacey eyes too and it didn't stop her from romancing him. Also, too, parents can be like that because they are terrified that you might become bad if given just a slight bit of slack and then they won't know how to control you and will fear you. Fear is not a fun emotion and it's not meant to be a constant emotion either - very bad for health.

So in your opinion parents of bad kids fear their inability to control their own children and therefore give them more leeway while cracking down on their good kids in fear of them becoming like the bad kids?
Hmmm....I can see that. I think most parents have a subtle fear of what their children might become

I'm not the person you're responding to, but... Yes, exactly! Parent enjoy having power over their kids, and good kids are easier to boss around: they simply won't fight back. So parent try to keep good kids "good" (read: submissive) by treating them like a subhuman. Not unlike a drill sergeant abusing recruits during basic training: to break down their civilian personas, and remake them to military standards. Bad kids, on the other hand, quickly cause parents to give up hope of total power, so they change their tone and start genuinely respecting bad kids.

AND THAT IS WHY I think conventional families should be abolished---like slavery was in 1865---and replaced with Mutual Adoption Clubs (MACs). That's when about 20 families raise children communally, tribal-style, and kids are free to move in and out of homes within their MAC. It can be in a shared apartment, an apartment building, or a subdivision of houses. Joining a MAC would be mandated by law, within 6 months of birth of the first child or 2 months of immigration into the country. Noncompliance would be penalized by permanent loss of custody. Also, at least 50% of households within each MAC would required to own at least one cat or dog; financial aid would be offered to those who have trouble affording one. This is for the benefits of the children in the MAC, for whom a pet can do wonders than even an iPad 900++ doesn't hold a candle to. All would be monitored by on-site MAC Directors and the local police.

Since good kid are "easier" to raise (read: less hassle), each two parents will try to create the most inviting, comfortable home for good kids to move into. They may get a pet, give a later bedtime, allow unlimited water intake, not punish for bad grades, etc., while still enforcing reasonable boundaries. Since good kids are fine with reasonable boundaries, the end result will be great. Simply put, parents will COMPETE to convince good kids to move into their home, rather than treating their own good kid like a subhuman. Conversely, parents will want to DETER bad kids from moving in or push them to move out, so they'll give them less respect, as bad kids deserve. So, as in the business world, competition leads to continuous improvement of the end result. And fairness will prevail.

With conventional families abolished and MACs fully implemented, childhood anxiety will drop by 90% (common nightmares may still occur), and childhood depression will drop by 98%. We can drive family therapists out of business too. In fact, their job title is a euphemism and a misnomer. They're there to help only parents, not the whole "family". They even MOCK kids who tell them about family problems. All while parents have easy access to alcohol and antidepressants, while kids do not.

I once read that abused kids are more behaved than normal kids because of fear. They won't test their limits, they will be very mature for their age and not challenge their parents. Then everyone around those parents get comments about how such great parents they are and how they have such great children and how they wish their kids were that easy.

People confuse respect and well behaved and maturity with fear. But it's very difficult to tell if a child is an abused child if they are so well behaved and well dressed and fed and other things. Same as if the child is involved in school activities and sports. Kids don't normally tell their friends and teachers about their abuse because who is going to believe a child if they show no signs of abuse and the parent is a "nice" person and has talked about how "proud" they are about their kid and their grades. It's all an act so there are lot of flying monkeys around.

Then there are the other kids that just act out from the abuse while some just comply and bow down to their standards to avoid any abuse.

What's even worse is that family therapists enable and perpetuate the abuse. When a kid talk to them about being mistreated in the family, instead of teaching him verbal self-defense tactics, they only MOCK and GASLIGHT the kid. (Which makes sense: "family" therapists work for the parents, not the kid.) So the kid is left feeling even more alone and abandoned that he came in, and "understands" that there is no hope for him getting out of the situation. So it's no wonder I was relieved to find out suicide existed. I was even researching funeral homes in the Yellow Pages when I was 11. I was looking for the one that's least costly and closest to home, to lessen the burden I'd put on my parents if/when I... you know. Hey, I was good kid. A few years later, I got jaded, and started wanting to go away a little more dramatically.

Funny story. When I was 13, my parents left me home alone in the evening. They knew I was too "well-behaved" to do any damage. At the time, we had basic analog cable that was pretty cheap. So I started watching a movie on TV, like any teenage boy would. One of them happened to be "Falling Down". That movie messed with my head a little, and I started having obsessive fantasies about living out my last day like the movie's main character did. He got more respect in the last 6 hours of his life, than he got in the 30 years beforehand! Well, being a kid, I didn't like how he _____ at the end. (spoiler) But looking at the ending from an adult perspective, it was just as dignified as him revolting against the abusive system he lived in.

The problem with therapists enabling this stuff is they are a flying monkey. The abusers are very good manipulators and can just tell the doctor their kid is out of control and they lie and say they are being mistreated to con people and the therapist buys it. The kid is left defeated because they can't tell them what is really going on or else they won't be believed because the parent has already told them they are liars.

But what happens at the end is even if the kid was so well behaved, the parents then wonder why their kid never sees them and never talks to them and why they never include them in their grand kids' lives. In their mind they see themselves as great parents and think their kid was so mature and well mannered so they didn't need to be concerned about them. No their kid was that way because of the neglect and the abuse. They spin it and alter their memory. All they remember is the good kid, not how they raised them and things they did. Someday the kid will cut you out of their life when they are old enough to be on their own. They may go to college that is across the country or continent, move hundred of miles away, join some military just to get away, all this seems so common among kids who had "tough" parents.