Parents with adult kids: what would you do differently if you were raising them today? (baby, weight)
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I often wonder what I would do differently if I had it to do over again? We are lucky, we have 3 pretty good kids, all are middle aged and none seem to have any real issues, but I do have one huge regret: I wish we had not moved them around so much. Growing up, we moved from So. Ca. to No. CA, back to So. Ca, then a few years later we moved to a different school district to give them a better education. From there we moved to Sac, Ca and from there to Eureka and back to So. Cal. Eventually we moved to another school district and just before our youngest started his senior Year in high school we moved to No. VA.
I have a 20 year old and an 18 year old so they are adults but still quite young as far as adults go. I also have a 15 year old but he is not an adult.
They are good kids. Neither has had any run ins with the law. One is starting his junior year of college, the other starting his freshman year of college. Both have jobs in the summer and nice girl friends. I don't have any big regrets with how they were raised.
The one thing I would do differently is that I would have waited an additional year for my 18 year old to start K. He has a summer birthday. Growing up he was always the youngest in his grade. He is an OK student but I think he would have benefited socially if he had been one of the older kids instead of one of the younger ones. I made the mistake of valuing academic challenge more than being able to fit in socially. At age 18 he fits in just fine with his peers but I think the early school years (K-5) would have been easier for him if I had waited a year for him to start school. I also think middle school would have been easier on him had he been a year older.
That's a great question. Mine are all in their 20's, and I'm pretty happy with the way they've turned out, but with the benefit of hindsight. I would have changed a few things:
I would have kept up the baby books/records. My oldest called recently to see how his 20 month old compared to him in height, weight, milestones, etc. I had none of that written down (but fortunately had a record of some of it from the pediatrician).
I would have worked harder as they got older to find family activities that everybody enjoyed. With a 6 yr age difference between oldest and youngest, there was a lot of ferrying the younger two to watch their big brother play sports, who was then too involved in his own pursuits to be a spectator when the others were older.
I would have refused the recommendation to medicate the one boy who had a chronic tic disorder. He outgrew it in a few years, and the meds made him a bit of a zombie until I put a stop to them.
We also moved several times. That part, I don't regret. I think the kids handled the moves pretty well.
For the longest time I thought I should have started them picking up after themselves at an earlier stage in their development. But it turns out they've become neat and well-organized adults without my help. So that's no longer an issue for me.
One thing I observe in myself is how much better a parent I would make at this time in my life than then. There was so much about life I still had to learn. But I think that's true of most parents. I've often thought I've learned as much from my children and the experiences having them put me in as they ever learned from me!
I wish we would have taken more family vacations. I also agree about the baby books. I have a bunch of stuff somewhere but I wasn't good about keeping it all written down in one place. I wish I would have spent less time worrying about things that were not important.
I don't regret keeping my late summer birthday son back a year. I don't regret making the choice to not move once they started school (I was the kid that frequently moved). I don't regret adapting my job and work schedule so that I could enjoy being a parent.
I'm sure there's other stuff. All things considered though, I'd agree with those who've said they're pretty happy with how their kids turned out. Mine are 24 and 21 and I enjoy both of them immensely.
I have a 20 year old and an 18 year old so they are adults but still quite young as far as adults go. I also have a 15 year old but he is not an adult.
They are good kids. Neither has had any run ins with the law. One is starting his junior year of college, the other starting his freshman year of college. Both have jobs in the summer and nice girl friends. I don't have any big regrets with how they were raised.
The one thing I would do differently is that I would have waited an additional year for my 18 year old to start K. He has a summer birthday. Growing up he was always the youngest in his grade. He is an OK student but I think he would have benefited socially if he had been one of the older kids instead of one of the younger ones. I made the mistake of valuing academic challenge more than being able to fit in socially. At age 18 he fits in just fine with his peers but I think the early school years (K-5) would have been easier for him if I had waited a year for him to start school. I also think middle school would have been easier on him had he been a year older.
our son was also one of the youngest: his BD is August. I think I too would have waited. We thought about it, but he knew he was supposed to start school a year after his sister. I guess we just never realized it could make a huge difference. All of our kids physically developed late, another reason we might have done things a little differently.
I don't think you should kick yourself about the age thing.
Our valedictorian was the youngest person in our class.
Our salutatorian was the next youngest.
I was barely older than they were and I started school when I was 4.
(two girls and a guy)
We all did fine and I actually took advantage of the fact to spend an extra year in college.
Don't beat yourself up about it. I think most kids will do fine with that.
Thank you guys for posting here... I will listen and learn from your experiences.
My son has an October birthday. In NYC the cut-off is December 31 so he was only 4 when he started kindergarten. I know people in similar situations who held their kids back but it worked out fine for my son. He did not learn to read early but he caught up eventually. Finished college, has a good job and reads and writes just fine! With him, the key was that he was (is) very social and gravitated to older kids, even at that young age, so I figured he would be OK.
What I would have done differently concerns my daughter. She is four years younger than my son and graduated with a liberal arts degree. I wish I would have pushed her to get college internships like I did with my son and encouraged her to major in something practical. I didn't expect the s**t to hit the fan in 2008. When I was young, it was easy to get a job, no matter what your degree was in (or even if you didn't have a degree). I was not prepared for how the world has changed and I'm kicking myself for that.
I was a single mom (no physical help from dad, just monetary) and I regret yelling too much. I also regret not putting them in sports or the equivalent. I see that most kids in sports have higher self esteem and get into less trouble than those who don't. My kids are now 24 and 21, both college grads and very successful and happy, for the most part. I also regret wanting them to grow up. Wishing I could do it all over again.
I don't think you should kick yourself about the age thing.
Our valedictorian was the youngest person in our class.
Our salutatorian was the next youngest.
I was barely older than they were and I started school when I was 4.
(two girls and a guy)
We all did fine and I actually took advantage of the fact to spend an extra year in college.
Don't beat yourself up about it. I think most kids will do fine with that.
Thank you guys for posting here... I will listen and learn from your experiences.
Well of course there are kids who are successful despite being young for their grades, but that doesn't mean it's right for every child. Not sure what the fact that the valedictorian and salutatorian were young at your HS has to do with Momma_Bear's experience...
I express the same regret. My now-college aged daughter has a very late summer birthday and went sent her to K just days after she turned 5. She turned out just fine - has friends, got into the colleges she wanted to, and so on - but I do think that extra year might have provided that maturity/social boost that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
On another note, I read something the other day along the lines of "Why, as parents, do we view it as our job to instill in our kids that the world is a dark place and they better be prepared for it? Shouldn't we, as parents, view it as our job to prepare our kids to go out an make the world a little less dark than it was before?" and I totally agree with it. I wish when my kids were little (though my youngest is only 10 so I still have a ways to go) I would have focused less on stuff like bedtimes and limits on screen time and homework and sports and just enjoyed them as the awesome people they are and realized that it's less important that my kids are in bed by 8:30 each night and only have 30 minutes of screen time on the weekend and get As in every class and more important to see that they are good, kind people.
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