son is making my home messy

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Don't let anyone stop you from posting for advice here Caz

Hi OP you will work it out

I wrote a contract of rules and regulations with my son when he was a teen, who has severe ADHD, composed and authorised mutually, signed and put in a prominent position on the fridge, concerning curfews, friends boundaries, money, property, obligations, privileges and food for his friends. We worked it out together and found an acceptable format, but I was presenting each necessary rule. I gave more flexibility at the weekends. Homework before video games ( well Super Mario was the trend then).


Clear boundaries are a must for teens. The cause and effect is clear in a contract. Remembering to hug them if they f..k up is so important, together with the punishment, then they know they may have made a mistake but they are still loved. I screamed like a banshee when my kids were young, I am much nicer with my grandkids.

Parents have to be strong....even if they don’t want to be.

Setting boundaries is essential.

I find that Teach’s fridge proposal would be right up my alley were I a parent.

Caz. Please don’t feel bad. I think you did okay. Make sure you hug your son sometimes—to show him that you care about him.

The problem with contracts between parents and kids is the inequitable enforcement. If the child breaches the contract, he will get grounded, lose his TV "privileges" (notice the quotes), not be able to eat dessert, and whatever other punishments the parent can come up with, enough to make the Geneva Convention members shudder in fear. (Relax, all of you! I'm being facetious here.) If the parent breaches the contract, nothing will happen; they're the parent, after all. He who makes the rules can break them at will.

"If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones." (Julia, quoted in "1984" by George Orwell) Hmm...

The parent must make sure to set a good example. The parent MUST keep his/her part of the bargain.

Otherwise, contracts are useless.

"Good example", my foot! Parent/child contracts are a non-starter from the get-go: they're mandatory only for the child and optional for the parent. Why? There is no neutral authority penalizing the parent(s). What's the parent's penalty be for breach of contract? Exactly: absolutely nothing!

That's why I think conventional families are broken, oppressive institutions, and must be abolished. And like the cliched mantra "Be the change you wish to see in this world" goes, I'm doing so by never starting my own family. This way, I will never become one of the oppressors (ahem, OP) I want to see abolished.

My husband and I used to put ourselves in timeout just to show the kids that adults DO face consequences, too. Reality is that parents face many, many consequences when they act poorly, but most aren't visible to children. We felt it was necessary for the children to SEE it.

The consequences parents voluntarily self-inflict are a cakewalk compared to the consequences forcefully inflicted on kids. Not to mention, the parents can down a shot of whiskey prior to their own consequences, to make them go by easier. Right? Right?

But I digress. Funny story. In 6th grade social studies, when we were studying the Magna Carta, there was a homework assignment: "draw up the Magna Carta for your own family". I found the assignment too traumatizing to actually go through with. So I used an underhanded tactic: I pretended not to understand the idiom "draw up", and actually drew a Magna Carta. I drew a vertical rectangle with a title saying "[Last Name] Magna Carta", squiggly lines standing in for text, and a seal of approval at the bottom. I even lightly shaded it with tan pencil, for that sepia look.

The teacher wrote C- and "see me" on the assignment. When I went up to her, I "explained" that I didn't understand what "draw up" meant. She offered me a chance to redo the assignment for a higher grade, but I declined. She said OK, but told me to use a dictionary next time I don't understand textbook instructions. I figured I could "drown out" that C- with A's and B's elsewhere. But actually writing my family's Magna Carta would be too traumatizing. Either that, or I'd get called into the school psychologist's office for what I might write there, who'd tell my parents and get me in trouble at home.

Last edited by Aspie1 on 30 Oct 2019, 9:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I havent been here for awhile but found this thread is still going with still some offending stuff being said to me t how do I get a thread locked ?

Why?
What we're doing is having a debate on a forum. The US law says it's OK. See: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/forums.

In the words of my therapist, "you tell me".

I'd explain why I think that's false, but other posters did enough as it is. So instead, think about George Washington and year 1776. Why was he so fervent in leading America to independence? Here's why: (1) Sugar Act, (2) Quartering Act, (3) Stamp Act, (4) Tea Act, and (5) Intolerable Acts. England loved the power, I'm sure. Although, those Acts were also about revenue collection to fund the infrastructure in the 13 Colonies. But America wanted the freedom to govern itself. There's a reason why it drinks coffee instead of tea. (*cough* Boston Tea Party *cough*)

See any parallels?

Im still not going to post in parents discussion from now on....I do not like being called horrible it hurt my feelings and I have enough of that from bullies at work

I'm really sorry you feel bullied at work, and you feel upset at us, too.

There are some people who just want to get a "rise" out of you. I would ignore them.

I'm actually not convinced that "horrible" was directed at you. And, yes, it is against the rules to make a personal attack like that. You can and should report posts that are personal attacks to the moderator team.

Feel free to send me a private message with questions if you don't feel comfortable posting on the board. All parents deserve to be able to find the help and support they need to do the best job they are capable of. None of us are perfect.

I think a decade of going around in circles on your issues with parents and power is enough for me. While all parents retain authority by virtue of being adults and hopefully knowing a lot more about life than their kids, a good parent will never leave their kids feeling so out-powered that they spend their entire adult life obsessing over it. I am sorry you went through what you went through, but NO ONE HERE is your parent, and NO ONE HERE is LIKE your parents. My kids have NOT grown up feeling like we had power and choices they did not, and they continue to CHOOSE to look to us for guidance and safety. A good parent wants their child to feel safe, secure and loved in their home environment. I learned early on that having a few rules was actually necessary to that; not because other parents say so, but because my children's behavior and happiness proved it to me. I don't like rules and wasn't inclined to make them, but it became obvious that running a household that way was HINDERING my kids, instead of making them happy. All parents strive to find the right balance; it isn't easy. What you are doing here with all this debating isn't helping anyone. You aren't getting the resolution you need to make peace with your childhood (if you were, we wouldn't still be having this discussion a decade later), you aren't helping Caz72, and if you aren't helping Caz72, you most certainly are not helping your son.

Parents can NOT just go have a drink to make themselves feel better. You can't make smart and empathetic choices while drunk. Sure, I liked my time outs, but my kids learned to like theirs, too. The cool thing about using time outs as a discipline tool is that is less about punishment than it is about an opportunity to get your head on right. That works for both kids and adults.

I'm sorry the OP feels put off by the responses, but she didn't make it easy to feel sympathetic for her, either. I, for once, never called her "horrible" or any other names. I just pointed out how lucky she is not to be as powerless as her son. Also, it's impossible to help both the OP and her son concurrently; their goals are different, if not contradictory. Otherwise, it's like rooting for both Washington Nationals and the Houston Astros.

Parents can have a drink after the kids to go bed, and quickly fall asleep to the sound of alcohol sloshing in their head, while kids miserably toss and turn for hours. The only thing I used my timeouts for was perfecting revenge plans, which included... that thing you asked me not to flippantly talk about.

Last edited by Aspie1 on 31 Oct 2019, 3:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.