Why Do Parents LOOOOOVE To LECTURE???

[Placebo]

I'm not talking about giving your kid advice, which they should do, but I'm talking about the reactive, boring, repetitive leeeeeectures that they say again and Again and AGAIN until you want to beat your fucking brains out with a hammer rather than listen to it a minute longer!!! :argh:

Standard talking points for my father:

1. "You don't know the value of a dollar."
2. "When I was your age, I had already been working since I was 13 and didn't have to ask my parents for a thing."
3. "You procrastinate and you will never change."
4. In Timeline Form > "You will fail that class; you will not graduate; you will not get into college; you will not figure out a way to pay for college; you will drop out within a year; you aren't going to change in college." (ALL of those I HAVE done)

:grr:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. what's funny

is that parents know that lectures like this don't help at all. They more or less simply allow a venting of frustration.

My favorite rant by my mother was "You will never find a man if you: 1)don't lose weight 2)keep your house neat and clean 3)act like one of those 'liberated women'. I've been married 15 years to a man I adore, and no, I didn't do any of the items listed!

[Placebo]

2. lol that's great

[Shoeempress]

3. Oh my god, we had the same MOM!, Only mine was no man will

love you if you air your views so openly. I too am married, coming up on 21 years to the love of my life. We share the same views only I'm pushier and he's funier when expresing them.

[KT2000]

8. Oh - that's great!

my Mom told me I "needed to find a man to take some of that sass out of me!"
Oh well - still single!

[Shoeempress]

14. Keep the Sass, who wants to live your life pretending to be

what you are not.

[cindyw]

4. As a parent, and a young one at that, lectures are for our benefit.

Children drive you crazy that they never ever listen and you have to tell them things for the 1,000th time! If I'm goin down to insanity from my child's insistence on doing something wrong or stupid for the millionth time, my kids are coming with me. So listen to your parents or the mother's curse will get you too. You too will have kids who don't f'in listen.

[Placebo]

10. your benefit but it drives your kids to MADNESS!

lol I think parents need to 'take a chill pill' to resurrect a forgotten cliche.

[cindyw]

16. You may not realize it, but as you grow older the "lecturing" starts to

get through. There are so many things my parents lectured on that I didn't "hear" at the time, but now I seeing that they were right in so many ways. I am sure there are ways to "lecture" that do not drone on, but for the most part what you are thinking of as "lectures" are just "talking".

P.S. I am going mad, they can go with me! Haha

[cindyw]

17. Let me also add that no parent should tell their kids they cannot do

something. Your father is wrong for not being encouraging. I applaud you for doing the things in #4 after you were not given support. I don't know your situation, but I suspect your father loves you and believes in you more than you think. Most parents do.

[DianeG5385]

5. Because they have a captive audience!

Who else would listen to their pontifications? Besides they have our best interests at heart!

[jeff30997]

6. Hi The Nation !!!

Well, knowing that you're 19 ,I understand you a 100% !!! (I was 19 once too).
Let me tell you that:

I hated my father until i was about 25.
Then i painstakingly became to know the bastard by living with him in the last 5 years.Believe me it wasn't a Joyride in the begining...

But i discovered that under that fascist facade there was a little boy who craved affection...

The guy loves you, believe me...

Damn ! I should write a book about this...

[MichiganVote]

7. Because it makes them feel better

[miss_kitty]

9. i am glad you rose above #4

that is the most counterproductive talk a parent (or anyone) can lay on a child (or anyone for that matter)
you have to work so much harder to not allow that to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy...congrats and good on you!

"i heard you the Third time" is a good way to point out the repetitive nature of a statement.

[wolfgirl]

11. Once you become a parent...

you will understand so much about your own parents.

However, you are expected to learn NOT to repeat their mistakes...but you will to some degree. As a Mom of twin teenage boys...trust me, I've heard my Mom's words leaping from my mouth on more than one occasion. But with one huge difference, the words of love & understanding I express both verbal & nonverbal drown out the lectures. A day does not start without my tellng them how much I love them and a day never ends without their knowing how proud of them we are. Oh yeah...some days I don't LIKE them very much and we do have our share of battles. That is expected and a sign of their growing up, becoming young men with ideas and dreams of their own.

I never dreamed I would amount to anything - based on the lectures I received - and I seldom heard words of forgiveness or affection. I vowed that with my children, they would have no doubts as to how much they were loved and supported.

So...don't fret. This will pass and you will one day be a parent echoing so many of those well-worn lectures to which you were subjected. And you will understand just a bit more of the pyche of your Mom and/or Dad.

[barb162]

12. why not?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

13. Because that's what their parents did to them.

So they figure it's part of being a good parent...

But check out my sig line quote. :hi:

[pacalo]

15. He cares for you, he really does.

A lot of parents are guilty of saying those same things. Maybe it's because there's not enough communication going on between parent & son/daughter. The parent says these things because he doesn't know if you're as concerned as you ought to be about the important things & he says these things to get some feedback to assure him that you're on the right track.

As a parent, what could I do to encourage one of my sons who isn't on the right track? I'd appreciate any advice you could give me, since you're probably around his age (he's 19, will be 20 next May).