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How would you parent yourself, if you were the parent of a child like you?

Weemie

MyPTSD Pro
It seems silly to say basic things like "I wouldn't hit my kid for eating garbage off the ground because I failed to feed them," but y'know. I wouldn't. This seems like an interesting exercise. As not necessarily what you think your parents could have done better, but what you would do, if faced with a child like yourself. For me, I internalized quite early on that I was a bad kid who deserved to be mistreated.

But when thinking of it in these more rational scenarios, it becomes clear that in reality I would advocate for such a child to be treated with compassion and care. That the focus should be on rehabilitation, reintegration, socialization, play, allowing their physical and developmental needs to be met, working on fostering a healthy sense of attachment, focusing on teaching empathy and modeling empathy and all of that stuff.

My therapist gets so focused on the things that happened from like 0-6, even though I frequently dismiss them due to not having many negative feelings about it. But she calls what happened "extreme" and in our very first session she brought up RAD by name before I'd even spoken about it (her words were, "it sounds like there was some attachment..." and I was like "yup," lmao.) So it's interesting to me that this stuff is some of the worst for her even though I've talked about being forced to cut off someone's fingers as a kid.

The most compounding part of it is that the person who did this (the 0-6 shit, not the spoilered stuff) to me, is someone I still maintain a positive relationship with && have forgiven. Yet, ignoring its effects on me has not been beneficial. && thinking about it like this, in terms of how I would do things differently if I had a child like me? Even presuming I got the kid at age 6, who already had ADHD, RAD and the beginnings of structural dissociation? (I didn't get the PTSD until 16, it was very delayed-onset.)

Even if I did get the Beth Thomas kid, I'd still work on developing a rapport based in compassion and rehabilitation. Instead of what did happen, which was seeing professional after professional who concluded I was just "oppositional-defiant" and "a bad kid." The last therapy session she brought up Romanian orphanages completely unprompted and then told me I should consider if I read a news article about a 4 year old being locked in a room and starved, how I would feel. And because I don't lie to her I had to say well, I probably would not feel anything, but I would say that is an egregious case of child abuse.

Anyway, this was something posited on a Reddit thread in the ASPD subreddit that I thought might be an interesting exercise to reproduce here. On that subreddit the focus was on how you would parent a child who had significant conduct and behavioral issues, but in this space I would expand that to a much more general criteria. What were you like as a kid, and how would you reflect on a child who was brought into your care (not even that you were necessarily your own biological parent) that was similar in many ways to what you were?

It's been intriguing to realize that even if I was looking after a stereotypically "bad" child, I would not blame them or accuse them of being bad, I would work as hard as I could to help them socially rehabilitate and develop age-appropriate emotional and empathetic responses. && I know this because my younger sister N, struggled with ADHD and ODD, and I never mistreated her or accused her of being bad. I worked as hard as I could to model behavior for her and engage with her and help her mother obtain assessments for her and educated her mom on various treatments for both that didn't result in her being an over-medicated zombie child who blamed herself and lashed out at others.

Now she's a volunteer firefighter. M, my other sister, never had the same issues, she internalized, but she still talks to me and trusts me because I didn't yell at her as a kid and I protected her from my dad. So I know that is what I would do because I did it. Which means that if I were faced with a kid like me, who was frankly a "special needs" kid, I would try to do the same thing && would be moved even further to assist them because I know exactly what it's like to be in those shoes.

How 'bout that, eh? 😖
 
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Sending you love. I can't articulate what I want to say right now but this really resonates with me. The part about how you made life better for others even though you were so badly abused. I'll try again later.
 
From where I am now, there was nothing wrong with me as a child. The only thing "wrong" was the trauma my mother inflicted upon me, and that made me feel "not good enough" so I did everything I could to overcome those feelings. I would have raised me as I raised my own children, but I would have never married my first husband. However, I am looking back after reaching a point of great healing. I have to say, I am a better parent know than I was and now I feel "good enough" most of the time.
 
even if I was looking after a stereotypically "bad" child,
I'm not even going to TRY to answer your actual question. I'm totally sure I'm not up to the task of being a parent and I've avoided it because I'm THAT sure.

But, a "bad kid"? I figure humans are pretty much like any other mammal. I'm not sure I've ever met a bad puppy. I've met plenty of puppies who did things I didn't want them to do, but it wasn't because they were bad, it was because they were puppies. I've known a lot of young horses in my life. I can think of one foal who may have been "bad". By the time she was a couple months old, if she didn't get fed first and as fast as she wanted, she'd start trying to kick people. She also tried to bully her mother and the other older horses. Not at all sure what her deal was. I raised a couple full siblings to her and they were fine, as were her half siblings. Her mother was a nice horse and seemed to be a good mother. IDK. I kind of wondered if she was an equine psychopath. (Not kidding!) I raised her to sell and sold her as a yearling, then lost track of her. I've always wondered how she turned out. That first year of her life, we worked a lot on boundaries because I wanted her to learn that life was easier if you're nice to people.

People? My T used to say that he thought psychopaths were born, not made. There seems to be some evidence for that. Then again, there are at least a few people who score high enough on the tests to get the psychopath label and yet they are productive members of society. My personal guess is that they learn, some how, early on that it's in their own best interest to play nice with others. I guess I'd only apply the word "bad" to that small percentage of humans who actually ENJOY inflicting pain on others. I don't mean people who've learned that the best defense is a good offense. I mean the people you enjoy the suffering of others and see no reason not to. A pretty small group I think (hope?)

The kind of stuff that gets labeled as "bad" a lot of times is like that puppy who chewed the rocker on the rocking chair. (Her name was Winnie. LOL) She wasn't being bad, she was being a puppy. It was something to chew on and, at the time, she didn't know some things are ok to chew on and somethings aren't. I think it's the same with kids. They don't do unwanted stuff because they're bad, they do it because it's all they know how to do at the time.
 
People? My T used to say that he thought psychopaths were born, not made.

There is some solid fMRI data that those identified with psychopathic traits (this is distinct from anti-social PD, which is solely diagnosed based on behaviors and is not relative to neurodivergence or even lack of affective empathy) actually have reduced activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (most specifically the ventromedial && anterior cingulate gyrus [caudal & rostral]). These all play roles in decision-making particularly as relevant to the dorsal part of the ACC and its role in cognitive-attentive symptoms (impulsivity).

There's a huge inverse risk between cortical thickness and psychopathology in general, in fact. Because of reduced activity in the MPC, people with psychopathy generally do not experience baseline anxiety, which results in a lot of the risk-taking and reward-seeking behaviors we see. There's also a fun little overlap between ASPD and ADHD, that plays a role. One of the primary diagnostic criteria of ASPD is "chronic boredom," which funny enough is a huge symptom of ADHD -> this is related to dopamine deficiency.

Increase dopamine, decrease boredom. There's also a higher than average incidence of ADHD kids being diagnosed as ODD and CD (I was dx as ODD as well, and ADHD was my first diagnosis. I had "run into traffic because I saw a piece of trash across the street"-style ADHD, so that was fun.) Not to say that people with ADHD are inherently antisocial or lacking empathy, but dopamine and ACC activity play huge roles in our executive functioning.

But the rest of it absolutely comes down to learning and formative development. Affective empathy is not required to take compassionate actions, and if you have a solid foundation as a child, you can learn to engage in harmonious group behaviors by understanding the group's importance to your overall wellbeing. These are the people who can blend-in, mask, and for the most part only struggle in their very close personal relationships.
 
how you would parent a child who had significant conduct and behavioral issues
Although not a parent myself, I have an advanced professional degree helping families do just this…I spent over a decade in this type of work (although I have not been in practice for a couple years now since, well…having PTSD and a dissociative disorder is debilitating).

One of the first things I used share with parents is that we are not born knowing what to do…and even now the science is young. Behavior is complex and evolving, but every child (no matter their diagnosis or disability) has the capacity to learn and grow, they just need to be given the tools and for their instruction to be tailored to the ways in which they learn best…oh, and it helps if it’s also fun, duh!

It's been intriguing to realize that even if I was looking after a stereotypically "bad" child, I would not blame them or accuse them of being bad,
You are right, there are no bad kids. And many well meaning parents just become so overwhelmed…our society is not very nice to parents with challenging children…even when at the end of the day they are trying their best and when the child’s issues are sincerely not their fault (like when the child has autism, for instance)…society looks down on those parents, labels them, and it makes things even harder. Parents most often don’t have the right tools either and their incorrect responses (at no fault of their own) to their child’s behavior can become a vicious cycle that wears everyone out.

BUT it is a parent’s responsibility to identify the help their child needs and work hard to put it in place. I hope that that one day the necessary help becomes more available to EVERYONE who needs it, because most people don’t even know what kind of help is out there, low-income families may not be able to afford it and the waitlists for services are sometimes years out. If neurofeedback and EMDR and ABA and a whole host of mental health services were readily available to all children in need…I just can’t imagine what an impact that would have on the world.

What were you like as a kid, and how would you reflect on a child who was brought into your care (not even that you were necessarily your own biological parent) that was similar in many ways to what you were?
My parents said I was a loving and quiet child. I was obedient and a hard worker. I was a pretty easy kid…yet I ended up with PTSD and a dissociative disorder…I had nice parents who tried their best, but where my parents failed was not allowing me a safe place to really be myself, placing responsibilities on me that were way outside my developmental level, moving to a new state/town almost every single year of my life, and not creating an environment where it was safe to share hard things.

I stuffed all the bad things that happened to me and had to solve all my own problems throughout my entire childhood. Add in some pretty severe abuse and sexual exploitation as a teen…and here we are today.

My parents still have no idea about the things that happened to me.

If I had a kid like me, I’d try very hard to provide them a stable home environment, teach them the importance of communication and advocating for themselves, and I would want them to know that there was never anything they couldn’t talk to me about…EVER. I would always want to be a safe place to land. Nothing they could ever do would change the way I love them.
 

Just want to point out that ABA is universally considered harmful by the wider autistic community, && has resulted in cases of PTSD in autistic children. I haven't been subjected to ABA but I was subjected to "attachment-style" therapy like holding therapy and "forced social skills" that were similar to whatever cobbled-together version of ABA existed in the 90s, && it was wildly unsuccessful. Check out some studies here && here.

Doesn’t one question undo the other? For me it does. I wouldn’t exist as the me I am if I’d been parented the way I would.

Not necessarily you being your own biological parent, but rather what would you do if you received care of a child that was behaviorally identical to you or at least very similar, is the primary gist. 😌
 
Not necessarily you being your own biological parent, but rather what would you do if you received care of a child that was behaviorally identical to you or at least very similar, is the primary gist. 😌
As a kid I was easy. Too easy, so as a parent I’d notice the maturity level and instead of thinking how nice that is I’d question what caused it. I’d spend more time with me and know some of my easiness were red flags for signs of abuse then I’d find ways to get me talking until I finally told and it could be taken care of before it got so far.
 
I agree with the others but I'm not sure (considering context and personalities of everyone, both factors which are huge) if my parents could have done much different. So I could say what I would do, but without context and reality Idk if it would be better (it's definitely easier) on paper than in the actual reality of life. I know what I would do in many ways, but it is also with what is now my knowledge, healing, intellect and experiences by this age, which would be many years in to parenthood, and not even being sure how or if I've changed. (It's hard to remember how one thought exactly in the past, when it was normalized for the circumstances and the day). I know I have been surprised on a couple of occasions that circumstances could alter my thinking in ways I didn't think were possible for me to choose as options, but context was the key, and it had to be real-lived-experience. (Sort of like the pandemic: people thought they'd know what to do, it would be manageable, and they would recover back to their regular baseline quickly. But I think instead there are a slew of problems,). Most of us know what should occur, but applying it within the nuances of real life is more delicate, one part art and science. And a great deal of heart is necessary, I think. Connection, attachment, kindness, empathy, education, understanding, compassion, humour, protection, standing up for your child, listening, support, stability, patience, good boundaries and perseverance. Lots of trial and error and capitalizing on strengths, the joys and what is good. Enjoying and embracing the uniqueness of your (the) child. Tenderness.
 
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So I could say what I would do, but without context and reality Idk if it would be better (it's definitely easier) on paper than in the actual reality of life.

Yeh, I agree for sure. For me the purpose of this was less of the realities of the situation and more the awareness that:

Most of us know what should occur, but applying it within the nuances of real life is more delicate, one part art and science. And a great deal of heart is necessary, I think. Connection, attachment, kindness, empathy, education, understanding, compassion, humour, protection, standing up for your child, listening, support, stability, patience, good boundaries and perseverance.

Because for me, having spent so much time thinking of myself as being a difficult child who deserved abuse, it's interesting to note that if I were faced with a child who was similarly difficult, (&& I was, though N was not nearly as difficult as me, she was a handful), I would not behave the way my parents & teachers did. Probably, I deserved the same amount of compassion I would have shown another kid in similar circumstances. & likewise for you all!
 
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