The true consequences of having a child will true be evident when they get to their teens. If you did a good job they will be unpleasant to deal with, if you did not you will have a miserable, awful experience with scars that will last for the rest of your life. There will be emotional outbursts along the way, that need handling.
Conventional wisdom:
Ignore them, maybe they will see that you are not “taking the bait” and hopefully will calm down, maybe they will try something different other than yelling at you, maybe they will see that being calm and quiet will do something different.
The truth:
Most likely they will see this as a sign of weakness. You shutting up gives them more time to yell at you and bitch about how they never get anything, you never give them anything and what a worthless human being you are.
Conventional reasoning:
Beat the crap out of them. Meet all disrespect with corporal punishment so vicious your child will sooner run away from home than face your temper. You should do this while truly angry so that they know that you are not in control and literally fear for their lives.
The truth:
First of all there is a high likelihood that you will be hauled off by the state and your children will be put into foster-care. If you live out in the country where people still believe in that kind of parenting you are setting the stage for your kids to wind up like every other adult out there. Apart from that it means that your kid will likely have the same uncontrollable temper and taste for violence that you do. Basically, you are raising the kind of person that you do not want taking care of you when you get old.
Conventional reasoning:
Try to reason with them as you would with an adult. Explain the situation and why they should not act the way they do, and give them an example of how to deal with their emotions rationally, more responsibly.
The truth:
Teenagers are emotional partly because of hormones, trying to use logic is like trying to negotiate with somebody on crack. You will get nowhere. They won’t get your analogies, and they won’t care about getting whatever it is you want to teach them.
The workable solution
This is a war, make no bones about it. Your job here is to go for the neck. You use whatever advantages you have and you use them against your opponent’s weaknesses. Your strengths are as follows:
1) You know more about them than anybody on the planet. You have been there for it all, anything that can embarrass them, hurt their feelings, break them down, you know it. Will purposefully humiliating your child solve future problems? Yes, if you plan well, yes. Give them a warning, let them know that they are not going to like what you say or do.
2) You, presumably, have a job, you make money, they do not, or if they do have a job, they do not make as much as you. This instantly makes them the Third World country and you, the military superpower. Threaten them with your economic might. Sanctions, invasions, little needling threats in peace-time, and aid if they play their cards right.
3) You know more. Hopefully you do. Anyway, you know more about how the world works, and what is like to be both a teenager and an adult. You can use this to show them how ignorant they are with the questions. Instead of actually fighting, start asking them questions that you know they have no clue how to answer. Make their ignorance the subject of the discussion instead of whatever they were bitching about.
Their weaknesses:
1) Emotional frailty. They are needy but mercurial. Clingy and insecure and borderline hysterical much of the time. This is an opportunity to mess with their heads.
2) Ignorance of how the world beyond their high school works. Of course, they get a template for it in high-school, but they won’t learn that it’s a template until much later, if ever. Being naive opens up holes to be exploited.
3) They are dependent. Being dependent on any level is an awful thing, but they don’t know that, because in any stable, loving household they have been protected from the threat of potential deprivation. They feel secure in the knowledge, at least, that they will be taken care of, provided for.
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