Stuart Noble wrote:
Steve Firth wrote:
Andy Hall wrote:

On 2007-10-08 10:42:47 +0100, Stuart Noble
said:

IME if teenagers behave like 5 year olds it's because at 5 they weren't
allowed to behave like teenagers.
That's profound....

Indeed and very true. My wife's a psychologist, and as she says when we
see some teenager having a strop with their parents "Oh look, another
badly behaved parent." Parents mostly blame other people, usually the
child, but mostly it's the parent at fault when things break down.

Parents do the best they can given that most of them have other burning
issues to deal with at that time in their lives, but they do seem to
make hard work of it all. Children only want your time, and don't much
care how you spend it together, but the parents get bored. They want "fun".

Totally agree. I saw some study somewhere years sao on te mpat of
corporal punishment on childrens behaviour.

The overall conclusion was the juvenile deliquency was heavily
correlated with being ignored. Whether a whack round the head or some
'quality parenting time' was given, the results as far as bad behaviour
were pretty much identical.

I find the same with our young terrier. Left to his own devices he will
go and chase things mercilessly, but a constant series of bellowed
command are gradually getting him to realise he IS noticed, and a
mixture of carrot and stick tones is turning the scamp into quite a
reasonable example of caninehood.