It's hard to think back that far now. I'm sure there were, but there were just SO many rules, I was basically not allowed to do anything so it's hard to say what was good and what wasn't. I can say that from the strictness, it worked very much against them.
Me and both my siblings went through difficult periods with drugs and making friends. Because we were never really allowed to have friends outside of school growing up (it's hard to make friends when you can't go to anyone's house or invite anyone over, and being in trouble for everything all the time does awful things to your confidence), we didn't really learn social skills at the same speed as our peers. By the time high school came around, we were very easily pressured in to many things. Now we're adults, and we've all had very difficult experiences keeping long term relationships, maintaining jobs, none of us finished college, making and working towards goals, and overall just trusting others.
I guess the best advice I can give is don't go nuts with rules. Your kids need space to grow and develop. I think the best thing that came out of that environment for myself anyway, is that now I'm very strict with myself. If I decide I'm going to do something, I do it. When I wake up on Saturday morning, I have no problem instantly just cleaning for 2 hours before having a shower then spending the day doing errands. I am extremely responsible, to the point of feeling heavy guilt if I don't do what I'm "supposed" to do.
Thanks for taking the time to answer my question. It's pretty difficult to determine what and how many rules to maintain while you're right in the situation of raising a kid. Lots of it is just plain improvising. But you're absolutely right that space to grow and develop are very important, and too many rules will definitely not help there. Thanks for sharing.
It's hard to think back that far now. I'm sure there were, but there were just SO many rules, I was basically not allowed to do anything so it's hard to say what was good and what wasn't. I can say that from the strictness, it worked very much against them.
Me and both my siblings went through difficult periods with drugs and making friends. Because we were never really allowed to have friends outside of school growing up (it's hard to make friends when you can't go to anyone's house or invite anyone over, and being in trouble for everything all the time does awful things to your confidence), we didn't really learn social skills at the same speed as our peers. By the time high school came around, we were very easily pressured in to many things. Now we're adults, and we've all had very difficult experiences keeping long term relationships, maintaining jobs, none of us finished college, making and working towards goals, and overall just trusting others.
I guess the best advice I can give is don't go nuts with rules. Your kids need space to grow and develop. I think the best thing that came out of that environment for myself anyway, is that now I'm very strict with myself. If I decide I'm going to do something, I do it. When I wake up on Saturday morning, I have no problem instantly just cleaning for 2 hours before having a shower then spending the day doing errands. I am extremely responsible, to the point of feeling heavy guilt if I don't do what I'm "supposed" to do.
Thanks for taking the time to answer my question. It's pretty difficult to determine what and how many rules to maintain while you're right in the situation of raising a kid. Lots of it is just plain improvising. But you're absolutely right that space to grow and develop are very important, and too many rules will definitely not help there. Thanks for sharing.