30 Parents Who Don't Really Like Their Own Children Explain Why

Parenting blogger Samantha, from 'Walking Outside in Slippers,' explained that there's no one-size-fits-all approach to parenting. Every family, every situation is unique.

"'Bad behavior' has become very subjective for me when it comes to kids. I have a son with ADHD, and he can't always control his outbursts. Those outbursts can include cursing or kicking a wall. There was a time when I would have wondered why parents with a kid like that weren't doing their job. But punishment isn't effective with my son," mom Samantha was very candid about some of the challenges that she has to face as a parent.

"Screaming and yelling back only add fuel to the fire. He does better with rewards and consistency. I believe it's important for parents to customize their parenting and consequences for undesirable behavior to what works best for their child. There's no one-size-fits-all punishment for all kids," she said.

Bored Panda was interested to understand how parents might deal with their kids lying. "When I catch my kids lying, I try to get to the root of why. And I let them know that lying is a worse offense than whatever they're lying to cover up," blogger Samantha explained how she approaches this with her own kids.

"I believe in setting high expectations for kids as far as expecting them to be good, honest people who are kind to others. And I often communicate the importance of this to my kids."

Samantha agrees that we tend to become more empathetic towards others as we grow up. "I know I have become much more sensitive to the plight of others. Maybe this is due to having kids myself, and feeling a little bit like everyone's mom. Or just an increased awareness of mortality and people's differing life circumstances. But empathy is a good thing. Most of us could probably use a little more of it," she said.

Very recently, Bored Panda spoke about kids’ capacity for empathy and (the lack of) kindness with psychologist, author, and mom-of-four, Eileen Kennedy-Moore, Ph.D.

"Children learn from observation of what others do, but also through explicit teaching and explanations, and through experience and observation of how others respond to certain actions," Dr. Kennedy-Moore explained to us, adding that we tend to develop more empathy for other people as we grow and mature.

"In general, we become more empathic at 19 than we were when we were at age 9, and that continues, so we're more empathic at 29 than 19, at 39 than 29, simply because we've experienced more of life, so it's easier for us to put ourselves in someone else's shoes," the psychologist said.

The psychologist explained that kids need 3 ‘ingredients’ in order to respond to others in a caring way. First, they need to be able to imagine how others think and feel. “The ability to imagine accurately someone else's perspective generally begins around age 4 and grows with age and experience.”

Second of all, children need to learn to manage their distress. In short, when they’re feeling overwhelmed, they tend to not have the ability to be overly kind. "Kids don't have the bandwidth to respond kindly to someone else if they are overwhelmed by their own feelings."

Lastly, children need to firmly believe that they are capable of helping others. "If they don't think they can help or don't know how, they're likely to freeze or avoid situations where someone is upset,” Dr. Kennedy-Moore said.

"Parents can help by talking about people's thoughts and feelings as they come up in books, movies, or real life. This gives children a window into people's internal life that helps with perspective-taking. Parents can help children manage their own emotions by naming those feelings as well as teaching specific coping strategies such as distraction, deep breathing, counting to ten, or using words to ask for what they want," she told Bored Panda.

"Parents can guide children toward seeing themselves as helpers by talking about how children's kind actions impact others. For instance, they might say, 'That was kind of you to help your brother with his block tower. He was sad when it fell down, and he felt happier when you helped him build it up again.' Or, 'Thank you for helping me put away the groceries. I'm happy that we got the job done quickly.'"

According to the psychologist, everyone makes mistakes and ends up doing something that isn’t kind. It’s inevitable that everyone will mess up at some point in their lives. That’s why parents shouldn’t jump to conclusions: they shouldn’t assume that a single mistake is an indication of “terrible things ahead.”

"Instead, acknowledge good intentions, describe the other person's feelings, and focus on moving forward. For instance, you could say, 'I know you're excited about going on the swings, but your sister also wants to swing, and she's sad that she hasn't had a turn yet.' Then, to move forward, you could ask, 'What can you do to help her feel better?' or 'What would be fair to everyone?'"