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When did you realize your grown child was different?
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<blockquote data-quote="BusynMember" data-source="post: 637912" data-attributes="member: 1550"><p>Cedar, he was starved, ostracised, given bleach to drink, cut off from his family who had to refer to him as "it", banished to the cold garage at a very young age even at night, assaulted, emotionally abused beyond what any of us have known, and finally rescued by a kind teacher and put into foster care, which is also no picnic.</p><p></p><p>Yet, for those who don't know, he never saw jail. He joined the military and left honorably. He spent his life trying to help other abused kids. He is a kind father who never lays a hand on his son. He is one of my heroes.</p><p></p><p>So this nurture thing is not absolute. Next time we blame ourselves because our difficult children say we were bad parents and their lives are all our faults, think about David Pelzer. In the end, it was his decision to be a better man than his mother was a parent. It is a choice all of our difficult children make...to be better or to bum out about w hat they think (true or false) was a bad childhood. David Pelzer suffered from reacdtive attachment disorder, which is quite serious and did affect his ability to show his feelings correctly in marriage. But he still didn't end up on drugs or in jail.</p><p></p><p>David has a younger brother who became the object of his mother's serious abuse after David was rescued. He also did not end up in jail. Again, he made a choice.</p><p></p><p>There are thousands of abused children who do better than our adult children and thousands who do the same things or worse. By age eighteen it is no longer us, it is a personal choice about how to handle what th ey feel (right or wrong) was an unjust childhood. One plus one doesn't equal two in childrearing. Our children become who they are largely through genetics and personality traits and, if we are lucky, they retain a bit of what we taught them.</p><p></p><p>None of us taught our adult children to be rude, to threaten physically or emotionally those we love, to abuse substances, to steal, or to break the law at all. Most of us did EVERYTHING available to us as a resource to help our child, often going into debt. Their behavior becomes a choice when they are legally old enough to decide what kind of person they wish to be. The older they get, the more it becomes their own decision.</p><p></p><p>Interestingly, and not surprising, David and Richard Pelzer's mother and father, when he was there, did not choose to get their young children help or to get help themselves. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Contrast that with our constant battle.</p><p></p><p>Food for thought.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="BusynMember, post: 637912, member: 1550"] Cedar, he was starved, ostracised, given bleach to drink, cut off from his family who had to refer to him as "it", banished to the cold garage at a very young age even at night, assaulted, emotionally abused beyond what any of us have known, and finally rescued by a kind teacher and put into foster care, which is also no picnic. Yet, for those who don't know, he never saw jail. He joined the military and left honorably. He spent his life trying to help other abused kids. He is a kind father who never lays a hand on his son. He is one of my heroes. So this nurture thing is not absolute. Next time we blame ourselves because our difficult children say we were bad parents and their lives are all our faults, think about David Pelzer. In the end, it was his decision to be a better man than his mother was a parent. It is a choice all of our difficult children make...to be better or to bum out about w hat they think (true or false) was a bad childhood. David Pelzer suffered from reacdtive attachment disorder, which is quite serious and did affect his ability to show his feelings correctly in marriage. But he still didn't end up on drugs or in jail. David has a younger brother who became the object of his mother's serious abuse after David was rescued. He also did not end up in jail. Again, he made a choice. There are thousands of abused children who do better than our adult children and thousands who do the same things or worse. By age eighteen it is no longer us, it is a personal choice about how to handle what th ey feel (right or wrong) was an unjust childhood. One plus one doesn't equal two in childrearing. Our children become who they are largely through genetics and personality traits and, if we are lucky, they retain a bit of what we taught them. None of us taught our adult children to be rude, to threaten physically or emotionally those we love, to abuse substances, to steal, or to break the law at all. Most of us did EVERYTHING available to us as a resource to help our child, often going into debt. Their behavior becomes a choice when they are legally old enough to decide what kind of person they wish to be. The older they get, the more it becomes their own decision. Interestingly, and not surprising, David and Richard Pelzer's mother and father, when he was there, did not choose to get their young children help or to get help themselves. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Contrast that with our constant battle. Food for thought. [/QUOTE]
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When did you realize your grown child was different?
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