Is It Wrong For A Stepparent To Flip Off Their 15-Year-Old Stepson?
I was asked this question on Quora. Quora is a question-and-answer website where visitors ask questions and get answers. Answers can be factual or in the form of opinions.
My Answer
Yes, it’s wrong for a stepparent to flip off their 15-year old stepson. I can’t think of a single instance where it would be appropriate to display such behavior.
Stepparents, like their biological counterparts, are responsible for setting an example for the children under their care. Flipping off your stepchild sets a disgraceful and harmful example. This type of behavior can potentially damage a youth’s self-esteem and contribute to possible depression.
Like most negative behaviors, I do believe this is recoverable. The stepparent can start by making a heartfelt apology to their stepson and demonstrating behavior they would be proud to have his stepson follow.
As parents, our goal is to develop our children into emotionally and mentally healthy, responsible, and positively contributing adults. To achieve that goal, it’s essential to know what behaviors are harmful and what responses are helpful. Therefore, it’s necessary to be careful about the things we communicate with our kids.
Other Stuff Parents do to Damage their Kids
Here are some other behaviors we must avoid while parenting our kids.
Being your Kid’s Friend
It’s natural to want to be close to your children; however, when the lines between being a parent and being your child’s friend become blurred, problems can come up.
Never share all your worries, concerns, and relationship problems with your child or ask for their advice. If you act helpless and defeated to your children, they will have difficulties respecting you and will treat you as an equal or worst as an inferior because you have used them for your therapy.
When you start to assert your authority, your child may become resentful, leading to more disciplinary issues. It’s essential to set your boundaries early.
Keep it real, have your emotions, but don’t burden your children. If your child is well-adjusted, they will have plenty of friends. Your children need a parent and not another friend.
Comparing Kids with their Siblings or Other Kids
It can be easy to compare your child with their siblings who might be performing better than how your kid is doing. If you’re engaging in such a habit, then it’s time to put it in check.
These comparisons might negatively affect your child’s mental health. These types of comparisons may lead to feelings of inability, a sense of inadequacy, or resentment for some kids. It may also affect their adult lives.
Overprotecting
Life is a compilation of experiences, both bad and good. We are at our best when we learn to handle both effectively.
Our children expect life to be more comfortable than it is. They want everything done for them no matter how they behave. They then become depressed and confused when they don’t get what they believe they deserve.
Lying to your Child
For example, telling your kids the stork delivers babies is an excellent example of this common mistake parents make. While our motivation isn’t malicious, it avoids our responsibility of sharing a truthful, age-appropriate explanation.
We may be unsure of how to respond to these difficult situations, or just hoping to avoid the issue. Making things up or lying to protect your child from pain backfires because it distorts reality, which is unnecessary and potentially damaging.
A very young child does not need a detailed explanation of conception and childbirth.
This parenting mistake also includes “distorting feelings,” which may involve “telling children they feel something they’re not feeling or, more frequently, telling them they’re not feeling what they are feeling.” In other words, creating a discrepancy between what your child is experiencing and what you’re telling them they feel creates unnecessary distress.
Telling your Kids, they’re Perfect
Most of the time, parents encourage their kids by saying they’re perfect the way they are. If you say this to your kid, you are making a dire mistake.
You need to be careful regarding how you are using these words. The meaning of this statement is pure and innocent. But, sometimes, it can lead to stress.
It might encourage your kid to figure out his or her perception of perfection, based on what they gather from you. Later, they might face predicament when someone points out flaws in them. It might lead them towards identity crises.
Expecting Your Child to Be the Best in Everything
Most often, it’s seen that parents want their kids to be the best in whatever they learn or deal with. However, no one can be the best in everything.
It’s not necessary to push your child to prove their full potential in every field, such as in school, sports, hobby, or other activities they do. Parents need to encourage their children to reach their full potential in a particular area in which they are genuinely engaged.
Only then, they can put in their best efforts.
Treating your Childlike an Adult
Children can be conscious in several ways. But sometimes, parents forget they are still kids and start treating their kids like adults. It’s called childhood for a reason.
Our kids desperately need us to provide the structure, balance, accountability, and authoritative discipline. Tragically, American parents have become obsessed with being their kid’s friend, with keeping their kid happy and pushing their kid to achieve specific, often narrow goals.
If you’re expecting too much from your children, then it may damage their development.
Making your Kid Afraid of Failure
Failing in any field is a bad thing, but kids might have to experience this feeling from time to time.
However, if you keep scolding your kids for their failures, it’s not going to help boost up their confidence level.
Ignoring your Bad Behavior
Children are great copycats. It’s likely for kids to grow up with similar habits seen in their parents.
Being a parent means being intentional towards working on your bad behavior. You can’t teach your child about anger management when they see you yelling at your spouse.
Children raised in a toxic environment may always feel worthless and develop behavioral disorders. They’ll have no control over a toxic relationship and might struggle to get out of one as an adult.
So, it’s essential to work on your bad behavior or habits as a parent and help your kids grow into well-rounded adults.
Threatening to Leave Your Kids Behind
We’ve all been there: It’s time to leave the park, and your kids just won’t go. They run, hide, or refuse. And you become more and more frustrated and angry. It’s tempting to take this tack when your kids just won’t get on board with what you’re trying to do.
If they’re throwing a full-fledged tantrum, the threat of abandonment – it doesn’t matter whether you would never act on it – is deeply damaging to children.
So next time you’re tempted to respond to refusals or tantrums with “I’m leaving,” don’t. Try explaining the situation to your child in simple terms—or, at least, waiting out the tears with him (they will pass), and then proceeding on. If it’s about time to leave the park (and your child is old enough), prepare him for the transition, since transitions are notoriously difficult for kids.
Try saying something like, “Oliver, it’s getting to be dinnertime, so we’re going to start packing up in five minutes.” Then alert him at the four-, three-, two-, and one-minute marks, so he’s aware of what’s coming.
The same type of negotiating can work if your child is screaming in the grocery cart because he’s sick of doing errands: Counting down the number of items you still need before “Mommy time” is over and it’s the park, or playtime can be an excellent way to help your child feel involved and aware of the plan. For younger children, distraction (“Look at that big dog/red truck out there!”) is likely your best defense. As a parent, you should find different ways to manage your roles.
Those are just a few things parents can do to damage their kids. Do you know of others? Please share them in the comments. Thank you.
