Controllers, abusers and manipulative people don`t question themselves. They don`t ask themselves if the problem is them. They always say the problem is someone else. ~Darlene Ouimet

This is so true and thought I share it with you.

We live in a world where there is such an "entitlement". Sadly, we have contributed to this. We thought we should raise our children praising them, telling them what a good job they did, telling them how proud we were of every little thing they did, etc. I truly believe that kind of positive reaffirmation would make them strong achievers in life. I think it might have back-fired.

That entitlement feeling, plus just immaturity, makes our adult children feel nothing is their fault. I don't believe they see how cruel they are.

I have noticed a huge personality change from my son at age 22 vs. now at 33. He still is a bit "I know more than you" but not as much. I tread lightly and pray.

In another post, unconditional love demanded by our EC's translates to having others march to their own drummer. How true! We used to drop everything to go down and help them garden, craft, whatever and they treated the actions like they were doing us a favor????? We have 11 grandchildren (two of them are from our ES) so we are not young, but we were expected to have the same stamina we had when ES was 29 years younger. It seemed there had to be an excuse for us to visit them other than just plain ol' love and affection. Well, all that is gone now. We're in it for the long haul. It seems as the days turned into weeks and then months, it is getting easier for them to ignore us. It's all based on a need-to-know basis ---- and they don't seem to even want to know or be known. I am so comforted knowing that God knows how we feel.

In response to Norske1, I have taught 1,000's of students of all ages for 37 years. I have had a good opportunity to observe kids all these years as well as raise 4 of our own. I found this excerpt interesting from Dr. Howard Sala (I listen to him each morning as part of my devotions) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “Forget about self-esteem and concentrate more on self-control and discipline." Professor Roy Baumeister, a psychologist and author at Florida State University who said that, would have disagreed with the premise ten years ago, even five years ago. Until recently, Baumeister would have told you that a lack of self-esteem is at the root of all human suffering, failure, and evil. Psychologists everywhere were convinced that if people could only love and accept themselves more, "their problems would gradually vanish and their lives would flourish. They would even treat each other better." After many years of documented research, Dr. Baumeister found that high self-esteem doesn't stop youngsters from cheating, doing drugs, or experimenting with sex. If anything, kids with high-self esteem did that at an earlier age than their peers with low self-esteem. Telling students to shape up, work harder and start studying did more to raise grades than striving to build self-esteem.

everloving11 - you are exactly right. But now I think it is even worse. Now there is no recognition for which little league won the game, so everyone gets a "participation" trophy so no one feels bad. That isn't what real life is all about.

Makes me want to go back to the 1880s when children,young and old, respected their parents. Heck, even back in the 1950's kids still had respect for their parents.

I agree with everything said here. Nobody "mollycoddled" their kids when I was young. I meant little more than an extra chair at the table to my parents. I never knew what a hug or a kiss was till I started dating. Affection was the first thing I looked for in a boy. I never heard "I love you" at home. Not once. I never heard "I'm proud of you, or I'm glad I gave life to you".
I made an internal vow that when I had my own family things would be different. My kids would know they were loved, and they would have a healthy self-esteem. Well!! Apparently God is appalled at inner vows when we judge and think we can do a better job of parenting than our parents did. He says "Oh you think so do you?? We'll just see about that!" And years of life have proven to me repeatedly that I was wrong.
Now what does God expect me to give to my ES? Unconditional love like He gives me?

This is an interesting topic and one very relevant to our family right now, as my ED is (in our opinion) a prodigal child as well. I know she has accused us of conditional love. I heard someone explain it best- that as a parent, our love for our child is unconditional, but our support for our child IS conditional. We will not stand alongside and cheer on consistent poor, immoral and destructive choices.

Great points in previous posts about correlation of self-esteem and good life choices. I believe my ED was so self-righteous and prideful that she decided to make her own set of life rules based on her whims and short-sighted desires. Praying for God to immerse her and all these EC in truth and redeem their hearts, restore their lives and reconcile these families.

Back in the 1950's I had an awe and almost fear of policemen, teachers, and preachers. These were people who didn't even use the restroom in public or do "common" things. Now, I can tell you, even in a private Christian school, I have to work hard to gain their respect. What is interesting is that it is becoming a worldwide pandemic. I teach several teens from China (as well as other Asian countries) and they no longer exhibit a natural respect and courtesy that the ones a few years ago did. You see, their parents are the last ones who have a remnant of the culture of Buddhism which taught these virtues. These children were raised in a culture void of these traits. Now view the USA - our generation still has a culture of Christianity influencing us with the main virtue of "Do unto others as you would have them do to you." Our kids are in a culture where this is not encouraged but rather a "look-out-for-number one" mindset. How many of us have grandchildren who are strong Christians? Probably not many. HOWEVER, kids are still kids - the very nature of children hasn't changed over the centuries. They have always been born selfish and self-willed. They have a natural creativity and curiosity. They exhibit both innocence and insight. I love teaching kids of all ages and having the opportunity to love them and give them hope. So where is out responsibility in all this? Our children were influenced by a rapidly evolving culture (including media and arts) of technology that helped to propagate the very things out EC bought into. YET, it is possible that these same children would have turned out the same way 100 years ago. We need to keep on loving them, believing in them, hoping in them, and waiting for them much as the father of the prodigal son did.
Back to work ..................

Oh dmw, that is a loaded question! If you met my ED on the street, and she told you about her life, you would think she was raised by monkeys in the jungle without food or water, and her horrible mother actually expected her to attend church! Of all things!! How did she survive such torment? I also did absolutely nothing for her, and didn't give her enough of the things she demanded of me.......lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

My ED and sil have taken my two grandchildren, and moved them away from every family member. They don't see that at all as cruel to their own children. My daughter knows in her heart that she tells horrible mistruths about how she was raised, and about me as a mother, and isn't concerned about robbing her children of their grandmother. They are playing a distorted game of control and punishment. Very sad.....

After reading all of these posts about how children were raised differently , but still respected their parents, I started thinking back to my childhood and discovered, my parents would have been arrested for child abuse according to today's standards! LOL. Anyone ever hear the saying, " A child should be seen not heard?" WOW, that was placed in the archives long time ago!
I didn't think I was treated fairly MANY times, but THEY never changed the rules. Now, I am so thankful for having such wonderful parents. They taught me , It isn't all about ME! I miss them both now and would give anything just to have them back for just one more day! My brothers and I never turned our backs on them. We did all we could do to make their lives comfortable not just because we wanted to, but the fact they were our parents and you don't turn your backs on the ones that brought you into this world and helped make you the person you are mentally, physically, & spiritually.

This is so true of our ED. She plays the victim with lies and false accusations. She believes we have not been unconditionally loving to her although my DH and those who know is see it differently. I believe our ED and all of our EC are lacking gratitude.

Faith - I was raised by a loving family but, like you mention, my parents might have been arrested also. I was raised on a farm. Dad took a willow tree branch to the back of our legs when we misbehaved. After a few times of that sharp pain, he laid it on top of the refrigerator and every time mom would tell him we wouldn't do something, all he had to do was look at the willow tree stick on top of the refrigerator and we would jump to do whatever mom needed us to do, like the dishes, dusting furniture, feed the cats, etc.

Different world but I think I am a better person for it. And when we were little and we talked curing church, we were taken outside for a spanking. Now they have "crying rooms" for th ekids to run around in.

OMG - I am dating myself!!!!

Norski, it is okay to "date yourself". I am so much more comfortable with myself as I grow older (except for these wrinkles-lol) Like others who replied to this post, my parents would have been arrested also. My mom had the wooden spoon and my dad had a belt but never used the buckle and only hit me on my butt and never continuously. I had lots of opportunities to avoid that discipline but I "talked back" and that was my downfall. None of those memories make me "hate" my parents and I would be talking to them if they were alive today.

For years, I questioned the mistakes I made in my own parenting but finally came to the point where I realized those mistakes are part of life, inexperience and every generation makes them. I did ask God (and my es) for forgiveness for anything I did that was truly wrong. I do understand that some members may have experienced actual child abuse and that is totally different. But for the rest of us, did your parents ever apologize to you for their parenting or did you expect it?

I am with lindajoan.....I feel our kids lack gratitude and although I taught mine respect (as I am sure all of you did), they are pretty disrespectful and totally selfish. I always felt when they had children and were parents, themselves, they would understand but it hasn't happened and my grands are in their teens. I will go to my grave puzzled by all of this. But I am looking forward to the total love and peace we will have when we are with Jesus. I pray our kids and grands are with us, in spite of all of this.

I am preacher's kid! I remember, while in church, my brother and I started misbehaving. My Father actually stopped the services, walked off the platform, grabbed my brother and me up and took us outside. Off went the belt, end of story. He made us walk back in the church, up the aisle and sat us on the front pew. He returned to the pulpit , apologized for having to discipline his children, and finished his sermon. I guarantee we never misbehaved again in that manner!!! LOL Can you imagine that happening today? The press would have a field day, people picketing our house, not to mention us being put in a foster home till at least the court case ended.
LOL

When we were little we never had affection either, never a hug,kiss hello or goodbye never said i love you i look back now and that is so strange,but at that time i guess it was normal. But now when i see,use to see,talk on phone i always say i love you,and give hugs and my sisters have taken on the habit to,