Respect is not learned by being told to "behave" but by being given respect. From day one on.

Yes! This!

This is my uncle in a nutshell.

I am sure I have as many parental failings as anyone else (possibly more) but I've never understood this one, even if a parent does stick to not being angry. I've always said to my kids that if they've wronged someone, by accident or on purpose, then that person has a right to be angry. Of course they also have a responsibility about how they behave, just because you let someone down or scratched their car or whatever doesn't mean they can now hit you or pour personal insults on you. But yes, they have a right to express how they feel and you have to accept that. It doesn't mean you're less of a person, it means you're taking it on the chin as you should. I then talk about how these things will come out somehow and that person will always end up angry at some point, and it's a million times better to be upfront and in control and deal with it as soon as possible, than for them to find out you've lied and hidden it from then. Boy, then they're really going to be furious.

Failure is a great teacher. Frankly so is pain. To a point, if you don’t let them fail, they will freak out when they do, and they will.

OH MY GOD THANK YOU

It's one thing to put a kid in someone else's shoes to show them shaming someone for being different isn't cool. But what this one means is it's toxic to actually cause traumatic humiliation and embarrassment for something like soiling the bed at night, or publicly shaming them just because they did something wrong at home.

It will also lead to children learning very quick how to hide stuff and lie.

EXACTLY. I remember being hit by a boy in kindergarten, and the teacher told him he couldn't hit me because I was a girl. I was FURIOUS. 'I've got a right to be hit! I WANT TO BE HIT!' Long story short, my parents got called in along with the parents of the boy and there was a whole thing about it.

"Stop f*****g crying or I will slap you" one or my dads greatest hits

That said, you have to allow that parents do know their children and they do know when a child 'isn't hungry' because they have a standard main course and can't be bothered, but half an hour later are going to be whining in the kitchen because they're hungry and can they just have some biscuits or crisps. There's a balancing act, this is why parenting is harding than it looks on the surface.

I have an acquaintance whose son's answer to being told "no" is "I love you", like that should change the answer to yes.

I refused to be like my brother in school simply for that reason. My parents always used that line on me and I HATED it. Not just because my brother was a huge d**k head and a bully.

Isn’t it crazy how some parents have this mentality? It never even crossed my mind when I had my kids, did everything I was supposed to do, especially the essentials.

Yes! My parents always yell at me together. It's a team job. But it does have the effect of alienating neither of them. And I get my own back when it's my turn to lay the table--I give them sporks instead of forks.

I was chastised because I was teaching my younger brother how to wash clothes and prepare meals after our mom died. He was only twelve, but I was ten years older. I felt like he deserved a boost to be able to fend for himself and clean up after himself.

There is a small step before explaining EVERYTHING about your decisions - sometimes you have to make a decision because otherwise your electricity will be cut off, and telling the truth will unnecessarily cause your child to worry about the household finances when they are much too young to grasp every nuance or be able to do a damn thing about it and becomes one of those people who watches every single penny well into adulthood even though they have a good job and a comfortable life. Sometimes "because" is the right answer to protect a child.

wait what do people even do this??? I was only told to change if I was in PJ's!

Happened in another way to my brother and me too. We inherited from an aunt each 2000 €. Parents never gave even a cent and spent all on debts them had run up. My brother was 15, I was 18.

If a kid doesn't want to hugged by someone they should be able to say "No thank you, I don't want to hug." And the adults can deal with their own offence/embarassment/ discomfort/ rejection. The burden of managing the feelings and reactions of adults should not be placed on the shoulders of a socially anxious ten year old.

My son used to throw huge tantrums when he was little. I always did the same thing: looked into his eyes, told him I loved him very much, stand next to him and let him cry. I never caved. I never yelled at him. I just let him have his feelings and when he was done, we'd do whatever it was we were doing. Worked like a charm.

The worst thing of this type is probably mocking a kid for being forgetful. It's not like someone deliberately chooses to forget things, it's usually beyond our control. Mockery just makes it worse.

THIS. Mental illnesses aren't just 'being sad' and 'being happy' isn't some kind of internal switch you can flick. See a therapist who knows what they're doing and take their advice. Also, eat chocolate. It encourages the production of endorphins. Also chocolate.

You mean like telling them that people working in the fastfood industry do not deserve to earn a livable wage and they are some sort of lower species that doesn't deserve any respect at all.

This should be higher.

Another side to it: the older sibling by 7 years gets her first record player. 5 year old sister gets exact same record player because "you have to be fair".

Make this number 1, please. My sister (and only sibling) was 5 years older. I was 2 when she started. I couldn't make a sentence; she could write words. What was I supposed to do? And the pattern never stopped as we got older. "Get along!" was what I was told. "Get along! Why can't you get along!"...TLDR : If your kid is bullying your other kid.... look in a mirror to answer WHY. Squabbling isn't the same as bullying, and bullying is not squabbling. The end.

This is too relatable for me. I had to wait until I was 11 to finally get a phone (I’m 12 now lol) and then my mom decided, well since I have a phone it’s only fair to give your sister one (my sister is 3 years younger than me) I was being bullied at school and I was begging for months to get a phone and I was thrilled to get an iPhone 12. Then my sister asks like once “mommy can I have a phone too?” And my mom just hands her an iPhone 5. I mean yeah her phone is old, but she can’t just be handed something to make everything fair. Because life isn’t supposed to be fair all the time, and doing this makes them think that it should be fair, when it really shouldn’t. Thank you for reading my long rant.

My thing was... again... totally flipped. I'm the older one - and my younger sibling was FIRMLY raised to believe that I am a worthless imbecile. An irresponsible drain on the family, etc. etc... That I was just this spoiled, ungrateful demon... And they'd scold me daily for "not being active in raising" my younger sibling I'm the one who wore nothing but second-hand/hand-me-downs until I got my own job in Highschool wasn't allowed to get my license My younger sibling was the one who'd get the "you have to be fair" stuff... so whatever I DID end up getting... he'd get it too despite the fact that he didn't even want it. Not the other way though. He could ALWAYS get something and I was "older, so you should be more mature about this."

For me, it was the opposite. My younger brother who was much stronger and faster than me (he played soccer and did a whole s**t ton more than me) and my brother got away with anything, and then I got blamed for whatever he did. He hid my da's wallet TWICE, and I got blamed both times for it and now I still have severe depression and self esteem issues.

My younger sibling was the bully. Everything they wanted they got, usually at my expense. If I complained I just had even more taken from me.

or when younger sibling is constantly provoking and the older one already tried everything possible and now doesnt know how to handle it anymore and comes complaining to parents. they just say you are the older one, solve it you should be smarter than him/her. or even worse they punish bothnof tgem when only one is constantly provoking

6 years difference here and my mom always said that she'd just let us fight and we should figure it out on our own... my brother was ALWAYS super tall and heavy and the fights didn't go well for me ( and i'm a girl... much smaller and much younger..didn't have fun "playing fights"..)

omg my step mother said I get a phone when I'm 15 she gave me mine this year on Easter a and my birthday is in July and ill be 16 but i know she already has one for her 10 yr old who will be 11 this yr. at Christmas time last yr me(15) and my 2 stepbrothers(10 and 9) had to share a phone and there was 2 hrs a day for us all to share we also had a kid messenger and they would read my messages to my bf and joke about it. She didn't care but when they did it to each other she told them to respect each others space.

My brother always laughs when I cry and as if it wasn't bad enough, my mom never said objected and actually laughed along.

When we were kids, my almost 4 year older bro wouldn’t have to start doing specific chores until I did. Make the bed: me-7, him-11. Clean room: Me-8, him-12. The only two subjects I ever got below a B+ in all through school was penmanship and AP Trig. Trig was made into a B because of the weighted scale, and they quit grading for penmanship by third grade. My bro? C’s and Ds for the most part that I remember, but somehow the prodigy child graduated a semester early. *I* graduated with a 3.89 GPA I think. I’ve never bother to ask his, but it’s obviously more impressive than mine, since he’s doing good to keep the same job as laborer-truck driver-heavy equipment operator fir a year at a time before he gets bored or pissed and changes jobs. But me being at the same job, working my way into management, for 10 years before I became disabled was a disappointment. Sigh. Whatever. I give up.

Gotta be nice to your siblings. No one else is going to help you move!

For me it's when they don't let us work anything out. Like me and my sis will be arguing and my mom or dad will intervene and tell us to just shut up and stop and that's the end of it. Well that's great but how are we ever supposed to work out our problems?

I feel this. One of my friends has severe depression and at one point she and I were travelling on a bus together. She was crying over her phone because her teacher had given her back an assignment she spent ages on and she'd got a terrible grade. I was comforting her, and this old guy yelled at us 'I don't believe your generation! No one here cares if you broke up with your boyfriend! Quit inflicting your noise on the rest of us!' So I yelled back at him, which only made my friend cry harder. We got off the bus a stop early and walked the rest of the way home.

Downplaying issues and treating them as just a "phase" - oh, what could possibly go wrong?

ikr, like when i was a kid and my parents used to do this a lot, I just never thought of it as a punishment anymore because i knew it wouldnt happen.