It’s really, REALLY gotta suck to raise a child, do your best, and have them turn out to be, well, a sh**ty person.

But you hear about it all the time, unfortunately.

And these parents got real about what they’d done differently when they were raising their kids.

Take a look at what they had to say.

Can’t win ’em all.

“You don’t have to win every power struggle.

I think I’ve learned a lot from having 4 very different kids, and I think too many parents 1. Think the same strategies work for all kids (ie, rule-consequence-behavior falls in line, rinse and repeat) and 2. Focus on the behavior rather than the cause.

If you have a kid who doesn’t respond to your parenting style/philosophy, you should rethink your approach. It’s not all the kid’s fault.

Some kids will burn their lives to the ground to make a point. I have one like that. For too long, it was a vicious cycle of

kid acts out

I punish

kid is angry, acts out more

I punish harder

kid is angrier, acts out even more

I punish even harder

and on and on and on and on. Something needs to break the cycle.

For instance, if your kid is challenging your authority, it’s usually a bid for more independence. They’re trying to be more mature, and they want your adult respect. You don’t have to excuse the bad behavior; consequences are OK. But you ALSO have to look for ways to help your kid get that need met.

You don’t have to tie it to the actual incident, so it doesn’t look like a reward. Give them more responsibility for themselves.

Let him walk to school alone if he doesn’t get to do that.

Quit bugging him so much about what he does with his free time, even if you think he should be “getting more fresh air.”

Look for any opportunity to let him choose something. “We’re going to do something as a family on Sunday. You can choose what we do.” or where we eat or whatever.

Don’t tell him WHEN he has to do his chores. Let him set his Saturday schedule: “I need you to mow the lawn and do the dishes today. You can do it any time between now and 6 p.m.”

If you address the cause of the behavior, it’s going to do way more to correct a bad behavior, and you’ll also get more respect from your kid.

If you insist on winning every power struggle, your kid is going to see everything as a fight.”

Bad choice.

“Be very careful who you have kids with.

If I could do it all over again, I would have chosen better.

They ended up with one responsible parent who was completely overwhelmed trying to do the job of two people.”

Resentful.

“In my opinion, the one defining characteristic of bad parents is being resentful of their own children.

Resentful that they took some of their freedom, resentful of their youth, resentful of their opportunities, resentful of their intelligence, resentful of their beauty, resentful of their possessions, resentful of their education, resentful of their accomplishments, resentful of their happiness, etc.

I think this is FAR more common than most people realize. These parents may consciously “provide” for their kids while they unconsciously sabotage them. The kids pick up on this and end up aspiring to their parents’ unspoken expectations.

Good parents want their kids to exceed their own achievements and, most importantly, to be happy. Good parents are empathetic to their children. They’re happy when their kids are happy.

They’re sad when their kids are sad. Resentful parents don’t really want their kids to be happy unless they credit the parents for their happiness. No achievement belongs to the kids, but every failure does.”

You can cut them out.

“I wish I knew that some grandparents shouldn’t be allowed to have a relationship with a vulnerable, easily manipulated child.

I wish I knew it was okay to cut people out of your life.”

We all make mistakes.

“Admitting to being wrong and apologizing to your kids when you haven’t been the best example to them.

And understanding that *everyone* should need to do this at some point, because no one is perfect and raising a child isn’t something you can do perfectly.

If you present yourself as perfect to your kids and hide all your errors, no matter how smoothly you manage to do it, they will grow up thinking that authority is infallible (or purely about power), mistakes are inexcusable or rare, and vulnerability is something to be ashamed of.”

Guilt.

“Our 4 year old had health issues as a baby snd really challenged our sanity.

I’ll never forget when his older brother, at the time 5 years old, came in from the next room and told me I was being “too rough” with his baby brother while changing his diaper (he was screaming and wriggling as babies do). I probably held him too hard but I definitely yelled at the baby at least once, and my eldest son was totally right.

This moment will never leave me and it brings me so much shame to this day. One of my biggest regrets. We’ve come a long way out of that but he was a baby and I still feel like I caused him to become the extremely impulsive child he is now, which I guess is good because that guilt motivates me to grow as far away from that version of myself as possible.”

Open forum.

“We talked to our son about everything under the sun. We had an open forum.

We talked extensively about money management, s**uality, dating, how to treat other people, drug use, alcoholism and its consequences.

He and I also watched a ton of documentaries together on all of the above topics. I have a thing for shows like Underground Inc, Drugs Inc, Broken, and mini series like Dopesick

Once he turned 18 he began to do literally everything we advised against. Its been a hard few years. After losing his GF, losing his job and spending some time in jail I think he’s starting to listen.

He’s been doing a very good job lately. We love him and we support him despite how hard its been. I feel bad even typing this….

Its really tough to look back and legitimately say what could have been done differently. What I can say to coming parents is

Don’t give up on your kid

Do the best you can

You can’t control everything.”

Spoiled.

“We wanted our kids to be happy so I think we coddled and spoiled them. They aren’t ready to function independently in the adult world.

In retrospect, I think learning some hard lessons growing up helps prepare them and is less damaging than learning those lessons as adults.”

It’s never too late to be a good parent. Always remember that.