Dr Phil

[Lily-Bee]

Hi all,

Ive been watching a lot of Dr Phil episodes and I notice that he has a lot of episodes about kids that are out of control. But then 99% of the time he ends up saying it is no wonder since their parents are abusive. This triggers me enormously as I wish someone had told my mum at the time; youre the real problem here! I wish people would be more aware and realise that children acting out is most often a sign. Unless mentally unwell usually children act up due to modelling their parents or frustration. I think when you see a child acting up you need to have alarm bells going off that theyre might be something wrong in the home. I do not mean typical teen naughtyness, I mean real issues.

 

What do you all think?

[addy2]

I agree lily alot of children's behaviour is caused by the parents or the way they parent. I sometimes hear people speak to their kids in a rude disrespectful way and then they wonder why the kids treat them the way they do. My cousin shouts at her daughter and is extreme in how she treats her and then lets her misbehave without any rules or discipline and then wonders why her daughter is badly behaved the kid has no idea how to behave. Three of my kids have autism and I went to a support meeting and listened to a woman talk about how badly behaved her daughter is so she assumes she had autism but she hasn't got a diagnosis the team said she doesn't have autism, I told her autism and bad behaviour doesn't necessarily go together my boys aren't badly behaved then she talked about her behaviour, from listening to her i should have called social services I was in shock I can see why the kid is badly behaved. I think alot of parents need parenting classes

i am by no way a perfect parent but i really think people need to look at themself as well as the kids x

[artemis84]

Having worked in schools for many years and now in the social care side of children's services I can say that there has been an ever increasing need for parenting classes among the parents in the playground.  Of course, there are exceptions, but generally badly behaved kids do learn that behaviour from their peers, or, more often, their parental role models.

Picking up on your other point Lily, I also agree there.  I have always taken bad behaviour to mean something somewhere is not as it should be in the child's life and tried to offer more pastoral support to those children.  It was, still is, incredibly important to me as a professional that I look deeper than how the child presents on the surface, and I believe all good childcare workers need to do this. Like you say, so many issues could be prevented from getting worse if people stepped in when they saw the first signs of them through the actions of the children.

[bluemoon5]

Gosh as a parent struggling with my children's behaviour and as someone with bpd I am not sure how I feel about this thread I think it is very difficult to have severe personality disorders and not in someway effect our kids but it is I am sure possible.  It is sometimes the quite children who get over looked by the authorities not the ones with outwardly challenging behaviour, abuse happens inside and outside the family home, get what I am saying? As for me my parents were and are charmers no one had any idea and still don't what really went on and yes I do believe that their parenting has had a massive impact on my health. I wish that they would acknowledge this but my dad has dementia and thinks our family life was great and all his 4 children are happy and fulfilled and my step mum is an absolute expert at denial.

[Lily-Bee]

Bluemoon the fact that youre saying you know your issues might affect your kids tells me a lot. The thing with bad parents I think often is the denial, the refusal to work at it, the refusal to say I need help or listen to the children etc. Real love and caring goes a very very long way to feel that yes maybe maybe my mum has issues but she was there for me etc. You know what I mean, my parents pretty much werent there had no idea what was going on with me and to this day will not hear me or say I am sorry.

Lily

[addy2]

I agree with lily blue moon if your aware of your issues you aren't a bad parent, a bad parent isn't someone who struggles a bad parent to me is someone who doesn't care, and you clearly care. It sounds stupid me having an opinion on this cause if I leave my partner I loose my kids, even though he's more a danger to them than I ever could be, just having a dx is enough.