She said, “Please” and “No, thank you.” What more do you want. LOL Of course, @Dutchess_III. Isn’t that the point of having boundaries, setting rules and teaching your children? You want to give them a good foundation for the rest of their lives. But, please, even with your grandchildren, don’t ever forget to let them be young and small too. None of us has a promise of tomorrow, so enjoy them today for what they are and that is children.

I did. I tried to model behavior I thought they should eventually take on. They are both kind and thoughtful of others. Both are excellent cooks and enjoy food. They reason before acting. They have good senses of humor and are reasonably practical.
The little girl in the car was repeating what she heard when she criticized her older sister for something e.g. “Don’t worry about her, just take care of yourself.” She’s young and hasn’t learned the nuances of language or when and when NOT to be sassy.

@bkcunningham you can’t say “of course.” I mean, for you personally, yes, of course, but this was a question to 65 billion people! (I hope no one steals it!)

@Sunny2 Right…but from the looks of the tape she isn’t GOING to learn what is acceptable and what isn’t. But…he may have addressed it after he turned it off.

Oh, of course, @Dutchess_III. You are right. ~

Of course! :)

It is hard to comprehend that there are people who have children and they don’t have the best of intentions, isn’t it? I mean, even if their intentions aren’t what you or I would do, it is nice to imagine that everyone is raising their children with good motives, not evil intent or with no intent. My mom would say, “those children weren’t raised, they were jerked up.”

It is. At its mildest, they just don’t think about it. They just react because “whatever” pisses them off, not because “whatever” isn’t in the best interests of the child. And if the behavior doesn’t piss them off they just ignore it.
At its worst…I just don’t even want to think about it.

I’m happy to know you are a good grandmother or Second Mommy. Very glad.

We did. And with our first, I think we actually made it more difficult for him because we treated him in a more adult fashion from an early age. I believe he came to resent it when others treated him like a child.
With our second, I think we actually achieved better balance.

Well, they like me @bkcunningham, if that means anything! :)

Yeah, soooo idealistic with the first borns, aren’t we. @rojo. After that we learn to relax a little.

Idealism give way grudgingly to reality, but yes.

Yes, yes I do. From the very beginning all I could think of is that want to do right by these kids and of all the things that will have a life long impact. I think because I feel like I am still working on shedding some of the enormous baggage that was gifted to me by my own parents, I am very conscious of how easy it is to screw a kid up for life.

Yeah…I always viewed it as a precious responsibility.

The scariest part is even when you do your absolute best and think you’ve not made that many mistakes, your kids can still be screwed up adults. Thank God for perfect grandchildren.

Yeah, for about the first five minutes.

I have definitely raised them with an eye toward their eventual adulthood. I sort of feel like it’s my purpose in life to raise my girls to be good people/successful adults.

That said, I have different parameters for “respectful behavior” than some other people (mostly older people, I think) do. In that video, I didn’t see the little girl’s behavior as disrespectful at all, really. I took it as playful banter between a parent and child, and thought she maintained politeness pretty well for her age level (remembering to say “please” and “no thank you”). She has a strong will, but I don’t think she was being disrespectful.

My husband is 9 years older than I am, and he perceives some things my girls say to me as “disrespectful”, when I don’t feel disrespected in the slightest by those things. In some cases, the girls and I are just playing around – all in good fun. In other cases, they are questioning me or voicing displeasure…both of which are perfectly fine with me, so long as they do so in an appropriate manner. They know where the line is, and very seldom do they cross it. I think it’s a generational thing, and perhaps a liberal/conservative difference, too. He knows how I feel about it, so he doesn’t step in, thank goodness.

My oldest tended to overlook things that I didn’t think she should.
The other two, though, have pretty much the same expectations as I did.
My son’s daughter Onnah is SO cute, 15 months old. She’s trying to talking but it is rarely understandable. She was walking around for a week chirping “Debbie? Debbie?” It took my son that long to realize she was saying “Daddy?”
At our land the other day (picture above) she had crawled up in a camp chair and indicated she wanted a drink. Dad gave her a sippy cup. She drank it. Then, as she was climbing out of the chair, clear as a bell, she said, “Thank you Debbie!” She’s a little pistol. It’s a good thing she has a daddy who REALLY cares and isn’t afraid to raise his voice! (I wish I’d had that kind of voice when my kids were little.)

I’m with @augustlan here. I certainly think about future implications. That’s why I raised my son to be independent and respectfully present his case if he didn’t agree with an adult I might have gone a little overboard there. I think partly because I was so young as a parent and partly because I wanted to be approachable, I allow interactions with my son that others deem disrespectful. But guess what – I know what he’s doing and what he’s done and what he wants to do. The good and the bad. And I don’t mind that he calls me by my first name. All-in-all, I think he’ll be a good adult… and a great boyfriend/husband/father.

Your son calls you by your name, @Cupcake, and not mom or dad? If so, I’m curious how that started and at what age?

My son went through the phase of calling me by my name and not dad (but didn’t do it with his mom, hmmmm…). I didn’t make a big deal of it, just gently corrected him each time until he got bored with it.
Thinking back, this could have been a signal that I did not pick up on that should have warned me problems were in the making.

I am very conscientious about the fact that my daughter is a proto adult. She’s not a miniature adult, however. I adjust my expectations of her based on what she is cognitively capable of. Toddlers get frustrated easily. I try to accommodate for that. I wish I could explain it better.

Here is an example of what happened this morning: My daughter was angry because I gave her a saltine cracker instead of a graham cracker. She shouted NO! And threw the cracker on the floor. She was about to step on it, but I stopped her and made her throw the cracker in the trash can. I didn’t punish her for shouting or throwing the cracker, but I made sure she didn’t make a deliberate act of destruction and that she cleaned up her mess.

If she were 5 years old or older, I would have ripped her one for shouting and throwing a fit over getting the wrong cracker. But at 2, that’s not a battle worth picking.

@bkcunningham It started around 13. I thought it was a phase and would pass if I ignored it. It didn’t.

It was around the same time that he got a step-father and found out that his biological father was a rapist. I figured it wasn’t that important in the grand scheme of things.

Oh shit, @Cupcake. Wow….the rapist part, I mean. Have you guys ever talked about that?

@Dutchess_III Yeah – whenever he wants. Or whenever the guy or his family show up in our lives… like now (on facebook).

Like I said… we’re very open.

How does he feel about it? Also, may I ask how old he is? I learned something about my dad a few years ago….that after he and Mom were newly married they lived in Seattle where my mom’s extended family is. Apparently my dad hit on one of the 16 year old cousins. :( :( :( I sure could have gone the rest of my life without knowing that, but it didn’t hit me the way it would have if I’d been 13 or, generally, <20 and learned about it.

I don’t think it is that important in the grand scheme of things either, @Cupcake. Thirteen is such a tough age anyway without having that crap handed to you to deal with. Poor kid.