Thread: When Do You Give Up On A Child?

As parents, when do we throw in the towel and just stop trying to help a problem child? A friend has a daughter, 24, who gives her so much grief and lately it is affecting her health.



The girl doesn't pay rent, parties every night and doesn't help around the house. I think my friend should stop helping her daughter and put her out of the house. My friend says she will never give up on her child. What do you guys think about this?

What im going to say about this is it all depends on the situation at hand and its that simple. Theres no other words to explain it. Sometimes a parent should never give up on there child and sometimes the best thing to do would be to use tough love. However, its like playing russian roullete and it can back fire either way. The bottom line is a lot of thought/effort needs to be put into it and the situation needs to be examined before anything. A parent should always help there child as much as they can, but theres times when they are left with no other choice. Though, I dont believe a parent should just go to the tough love stage right away and should at least put some time/effort in trying to help the child first before going this route. From experience this can be bad.

Anyway, I was a long time heroin user and so was my little brother. Unfortunately drugs took his life at the age 21. Looking back at this time, my parents backed us both and not once ever gave up on either of us. This worked out in my favor and i am clean today, but it didnt work for my brother. See me and my brother were different and he used this to his advantage in the negative way. He knew they couldnt say no to him and this is how he got through life at the time. Now the question is what if they would of said no or took a differnt route? Would he still be alive today? Maybe and i cant say for sure, but u never know. Its a good possibility though and its something i dealt with and blame nobody for.

My point is a parent needs to understand there child and all angles about the situation before doing anything. They need to know that there actions will cause reactions. Sometimes in order to help a child the best thing would be not to help them at all. This is a fact and something i do believe. Parents need to be strong in these times and need to control the situation and not let it control them. I know its easier said then done, but if its causing them grief & affecting health then obviously its been going on too long and something else needs to be done. The bottom line is, im a parent and i understand how hard it would be to give up on my daughter, but i can 100% tell u, i would do whatever it takes to get her better and if that means cutting her off then so be it.

Let me preface this by saying I'm not a parent. But 24?! WTF! It's a little late to be parenting when they get that ripe, no? That's an adult, not a child. Time to party by their own means. Especially if it's affecting your friends health.

I'm not sure how others feel, but personally by the time I hit 14 or so, I was done listening to my parents. If you don't ingrain some desirable traits before then, I don't think you ever will. Now if a child is trying and needs some help sure, but forget about influencing any major changes at 24. That's not to say they can't make a turn around later in life, but that can only come from within them. I guess my point is that your friend isn't likely to get anywhere with her daughter in the situation you've described. It doesn't make any sense to enable a child's poor choices, simply because you don't want to go through the 'empty nest' thing. I'm of the opinion that it's better to force them into making a decision, as opposed to letting them idle around in limbo (which is exactly what that girl is doing).

But what do I know.

I don't really have any real life experience in 'training a child' or 'training an adult' for that matter. But seriously, it would really suck for the parent to experience such horrible pain to want to help but not being able to. Like s2cuts, it is kind of difficult to make somebody realize something when they are old.

I've heard from other trainers in this field that if you want to train somebody, start them early, otherwise, once they hit teens like say 18...? It becomes that much harder to 'train' them... so uh, start young if you get me.

So to go back to the original situation, I think a semi-professional would say, 'go seek professional help'. Because for one thing, the parent can't really control this person, not before, not now, not ever... and this should hold true since, you if u can't handle it, let the pro's do it, let the police do it. This is probably a good place to have professional help if you are stuck. If you think it costs too much, look how much it costs already? ur health, lots of money, lots of time, energy, relationship... ect.

So, if i'm wrong, correct me but this is how what i learned in situations like this... and like MikeD said, it is situational, each person is different, we cannot draw conclusions based on somebody else alone.

If it`s YOUR child... than NEVER is the word. No matter what he/she`ll do, he/she`s your child, flesh from your flesh, blood from your blood. PERIOD

You brought a person into this life, how they turn out is on YOU.
If you do a crappy job then you don't have the right to give up on them.
Either way, giving up on your own flesh and blood like Veritas said, is uncool.

Originally Posted by konVILEuted

You brought a person into this life, how they turn out is on YOU.
If you do a crappy job then you don't have the right to give up on them.
Either way, giving up on your own flesh and blood like Veritas said, is uncool.

There are many situations where parents did the best anyone could given the circumstances and still have bad apples. I think it is easy to try to point blame but it accomplishes nothing. I'm a believer of the tough love approach, especially with adults. Tough love isn't "giving up", it is forcing a situation in which the person must mature from, either willingly or forcefully. Enabling bad behavior is uncool too. I think you may be confusing tough love with complete abandonment. There is a large difference.

I am with s2cuts, I really only listened to my parents after 13 or so when I already agreed with them or was actually looking for an opinion and not having one forced on me. There isn't a whole lot you can do to directly change a situation like that. There are small things, like start charging rent and having her help out around the house. If that doesn't happen, give the boot. If you are serious about following through and can communicate it in a clear way, sometimes that is enough to get the ball rolling. At some point you can't have someone leeching off of you forever. Even if it is the parent's fault. Yes kicking someone out can lead them down a dark path, but not doing something strong is more likely to.

I also believe that there are some people that just cannot be helped. I am not sure if the person of interest in this case is to that point. Partying with friends isn't as destructive as some other issues can be.

Monet,
I am really sorry for your friend mate and I hope that the girl will change her behaviour and find her path in life,cause we all like to party and have fun,but that's not what we should strive for.And the main thing in my opinion is that when we are old and living the last minutes of your life here on Earth,we should remember how many people we have helped and made them happy even for a single second,cause that's what really counts - not what we are inside,but what we do!!! (this is all general talk and i don't know you Monet,your friend or her daughter,so excuse me if I offended some of you guys with the above statement).

Now to the point - I happen to know a girl,which is now 15 years old.She is my father's best friend daughter.I started a real friendship with her when she was 12 and I can say I know her very well by now(maybe even better than her parents,cause it's well known most teenagers don't show their real face or what's troubling them in from of their parents).

She was a very nice girl but wanted to be like the older girls and party every night,go out on dates with 18+(even 25+) boys and at 13 she had sex for the first time.From that point on,there was no stopping her back -drug and alcohol abuse,sex only with 18+ persons(one of them happened to be my best friend,who seems not to care much about that fact,but I think he needs professional help too),which led to total degradation.Now this girl is 15 and was recently sent to a school for bad children(I don't know how these schools are called in the USA,but you get the idea) and she's finally paying attention at school,has good relationship with her mother and father now,which makes me happy too.

The point is - we are responsible for our kids and to abbandon them is unthinkable.So all the mothers,who leave their child shortly after it has been borned must have troubled childhood and are actually these exact kids/adults,who we are talking about now,who can't take responsibility for their own actions and life,not to think taking care of a baby.This is how the circle closes and all the people that know the girl A for example suffer and that's a tragedy.

We have to give our best to be good parents in the sense of reading some books concerning this matter( psychology books might be the start),spend enough time with them,not the grandmas,our children need their mother and father more than everything.If we show them how much we love them,they'll never need to search for it and try to have numerous relationship with other people just to feel happy,the best place in the world will be home.That doesn't mean not to have an interesting life outside home,but we should never forget where we come from and who we really are.

But as MikeD said it all depends on the situation at hand and if no matter all your efforts your child decides to go the "suicide way"(meaning - leave her/his true identity hidden and suppressed and try to be like everybody else just to fit in),so he/she is risking to loose sense of what is right and wrong and get comfortable with the current situation he/she is deep into.There are people,who think,that the moral and our principles can be changed if the situation requires that(meaning if we have interest in a certain thing and this is against our principles we can forget about them this time).No,definitely no.But this is a very long discussion,which will be hopefully discussed at another occasion.:)

The bottom line is we should never leave someone in help,no matter if we are the parents,relatives,normal friends,etc....I think,that like all the other guys mentioned already a professional help will come in handy,so that the parents of this girl know how to proceed and how they can really help their daughter.People,who doesn't listen to what their parents say(they actually do sometimes,but never admit it),need to see what life is really about in order to realize the true beauty of it and that our parents only want the best for us!

Jekata out!

As a mother myself i could never turn my back on my child, but as a mother you have to learn when to draw a line in the sand. Its easy for people to blame the parents and say they were to soft or spoiled the children, sometimes your best is never enough im afraid you don't get a hand book on how to be the prefect parent when you have children you just do what you can.

Most kids will hate the way their parents raised them and rebel thats the way of the world and it will not change.

as long as you know as parent you have done your best for them then you can hold your head up high and face the world