My daughter wants to HTFU and I said No

My daughter sprained her ankle pretty badly at volleyball practice last night. Swollen and painful. Took care of it as best we could last night and this morning. Still swollen and painful. Took her to school with ankle wrapped up and on crutches.

She has a game today, in fact it’s in half an hour. She just called me to ask again if she could play. It’s also the first thing she asked me this morning. I again told her “No.” She’s not happy with me. She even said, “I could just play in the back row.” I love that kid, but she’s not playing today.

Excellent!

Parenting skills in action.

Kids are stupid. If they were smart, they’d already be working, living in their own place and not sponging off their parents!

It is our job as parents to A) protect them from harm and B) prepare them for adult life.

Protecting them includes protecting them from their own stupidity. Preparing them for life, includes teaching them to take care of their bodies. That body will carry them through to old age if they are lucky.

You are a good parent, keep up the good work!

Kids are stupid.

Wow…feel sorry for your kids.

Kids are stupid.

Wow…feel sorry for your kids.

Think back to when you were a kid and think about yourself now. Perhaps “stupid” isn’t the right word, but only a moron wouldn’t get the point he was making.

Are you Tridork’s official translater? And if you are planning in correcting him, what is the right word?

Kids are stupid.

Wow…feel sorry for your kids.

Think back to when you were a kid and think about yourself now. Perhaps “stupid” isn’t the right word, but only a moron wouldn’t get the point he was making.

Stupid is appropriate! Not that I don’t do stupid stuff now, but not nearly with the same volume/ intensity as when I was a teenager. They obviously are wonderful and capable of moments of brilliance, but overall they need structure, guidance and “no” when appropriate. Why? Because they’re stupid.

One of my favorite sayings is “the older I get, the smarter my father becomes”

Are you Tridork’s official translater? And if you are planning in correcting him, what is the right word?

Are you angry that you were the one person who did not get the gist of his post?

Are you Tridork’s official translater? And if you are planning in correcting him, what is the right word?

hehehe

Seriously tho, parents tell me how smart little johnny is…and he’s still in diapers. Not a rocket surgeon (yet) for sure. Even my dog knows to shit outside but Johhny craps his diaper. Not that smart.

Teenagers a generally smarter than infants (but not necessarily), but they tend to have what intelligence they do have, clouded by hormones and peer pressure.

I am actually cursed. Both my kids are bright. (with suitable testing to prove it). Bright kids ar VERY challenging to have, let me tell you. Even though they are now both adults, they still do dumb shit regularly! Hell, “I” still do stupid shit all the time!

What I was really saying (and it appears to have got lost in translation) was that teenagers might not think they need us, but they do. They are NOT at their smartest at that age. While I applaud the girl for WANTING to keep playing for the team, I applaud the parent MORE for not letting her. Letting her play would have been a recipie for disaster, both short term and long term.

Many parents these days are too soft with their kids, and try to be their friends. I feel as a parent, your job is not to be their friend, your job is to train them to be a useful, responsible, contributing, caring adults. You can like them along the way, and great if you can be their friend too, but if you try to be their friend first, it generally comes at the expense of good parenting and good training to be a good adult.

The parent in this thread did a great job, but was probably unpopular with the daughter (and daughters are GREAT as showing their disgust and displeasure with decisions they don’t like)

Just got a report from my wife, who went to the match. My daughter’s team lost, and I’m sure she’ll feel responsible in part. I love that she wanted to compete (opponent was a rival) and that she didn’t want to let her teammates down. She’s a HS sophomore and over the years has dealt with various injuries, fortunately nothing too traumatic, knock on wood. So she mostly knows when she should sit and when she can play.

Now we just have to wait and see for her two club soccer games this weekend. Personally, I’d love not to have to drive the 110 miles each way to her Saturday game! She might still go even if she can’t play, but her mom and I would just pitch her in a teammate’s car for the day.

Why do you think I am angry?

Your daughter is special. You’re correct to keep her from the game. But, she sounds amazing! I like her passion.

That’s a good clarification, so thanks.

To a number of posters on this thread who use the word stupid when talking about their children, is this confined to a faceless public forum, or would you also choose to use this language face to face with your children?

Dude crutches ??? Why not get her a Power scooter. Your health care provider will probably pay for it.

To a number of posters on this thread who use the word stupid when talking about their children, is this confined to a faceless public forum, or would you also choose to use this language face to face with your children?

Dude, come on.

I am a pedant.

I use (do and did) use the word stupid, around my kids (who are now grown)

I wouldn’t say *they *were stupid for example (in an insulting way) but rather, I’d say the thing they did was a stupid thing to do.

When they were young, they’d say I was mean. I’d say it was only mean if it wasn’t true. To make a long story short, I explained to them that if they didn’t want me to say they did stupid stuff, either they could keep doing stupid stuff and I could stop saying it, or they could stop doing it! For example, my daughter would always run down our street, watching her feet hit the ground, rather than looking where she was running. She would trip and fall, often scraping her knee. I would explain what she’d done wrong, explain a better way and tell her to do that. That happened many many times. Then I stopped giving her sympathy for falling and hurting herself. I’d mildly chastise her and say the way she would run, was stupid. Frustratingly slowly, she learned that her way of running ended up with pain and admonishment. Listening to dad, and running a smarter way, resulted in less pain, and more time doing fun stuff with dad and getting congratulations for doing a good job.

My philosophy is to be fair and honest with my kids. Not to speak down to them but to treat them with respect and honesty. Too many parents are too soft and molly coddling with their kids. With that approach, kids get praised for everything they do, but eventually praise means nothing. If my kids performed well, they’d get told they did well. If they didn’t do well, they would get praised for trying etc, but also told they didn’t do as well as they could. This way failure hurts so to speak, and praise feels great. Kids quickly KNOW when they have done poorly or well. If they get praised for failing, they learn that praise is worthless and so is winning or doing well.

That said, I would say what needed to be said in a nice way, and not belittle them or kick them while they were down. Based on my kids now (son 26 daughter 23), who they have become, and my incredible wonderful relationship with both of them, I proudly say that my approach has been vindicated and has been a huge success. While neither of them has reached their potential (yet) how many of us ever reach ours? They are great people, hopefully at least partly due to me and the way I raised them, and they still have some room to grow and improve and become even greater successes.

Bill Cosby used to joke that kids were worse than stupid. I knew exactly what Tridork meant.

I think dad needs to HTFU. I had a severe ankle sprain in college. The trainers had to supinate and pronate tape the the ankle twice a day so I could fake a kick in practice and walk on crutches to classes. Good thing I swam fly cause my flip turns sucked with one leg pushing off. Swam 3 duel meets taped up, that was no fun at all.

Kids are stupid.

Wow…feel sorry for your kids.

I’m still a kid, and I’m still as stupid as ever.

I feel stupider at 19 than I did at 18…