Some hard facts about child rearing

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It is not the responsibility of parents to make sure that a child enters adulthood problem-free. That is, in fact, an impossible dream, yet it seems many parents believe it is their job.

This was brought to mind by a conversation I had recently with the mother of a 15-year-old girl. The child was moody, negative and pessimistic and seemed to believe she could not do anything right. Nevertheless, she made reasonably good grades, had a reasonable number of steady friends and was viewed reasonably well by adults.

I pointed out that the girl seemed to be doing OK. That fell on deaf ears. Mom wanted me to give her some formula for changing the girl's attitude. It's worth mentioning that the attitude in question was not some adolescent hormone thing; rather, it seemed to the mother that her daughter had been this way since she was very young.

"Is this a discipline issue?" Mom asked, to which I replied that she was describing a personality, not a behavior problem, and personalities do not respond to traditional discipline.

"On the other hand," I said, "if your daughter's negativity produces anti-social behaviors -- offensive manners, for example -- you can discipline those, but attempts on your part to change her personality are doomed. In fact, such attempts are very likely to make matters worse."

Mom admitted that both she and her husband talked to -- lectured, most likely -- their daughter on a fairly regular basis about her attitude. I pointed out that one cannot talk a child out of one personality and into another. Could their parents have talked them out of their personality defects? No. Has any parent ever succeeded at this? No. Does everyone attain adulthood with defects? Yes.

Whose responsibility is it, pray tell, to deal with these defects? It is the child's -- now an adult -- responsibility. Reality is the great therapist, but even reality is not omnipotent. Some adult children come to grips with their defects and resolve to correct them; others deny they have any defects and spend their less-than-happy lives blaming others for every problem they pull down upon themselves. As the late, great George Harrison put it, "And that's the way things go."

Many of today's parents think they have failed if their children have problems. They think this because they believe in psychological determinism -- specifically, that parenting produces the child. This is absurd. Parenting is an influence. It is not the be-all, end-all influence. The other influences include peers, genes, diet, teachers, siblings and accidents -- things over which no one has any control.

The greatest influence of all is the child's own free will, the decisions he makes, many of which have nothing to do with anything his parents, teachers or peers have done and nothing to do with anything he has inherited or eaten.

This is why everyone knows of a child who grew up in a "good" home but went astray as a teen or young adult and seems hopelessly lost, much to his or her parents' dismay. It also is why everyone knows of a child who grew up under highly disadvantageous circumstances -- with abusive, alcoholic parents who moved from one hovel to another to stay ahead of the rent collectors, for example -- who has made a spectacular life for him- or herself as an adult. That's the way things go.

Accepting that there are things about your child that you cannot change will make for a parenthood that is significantly less stressful, ridden with guilt and frustrating -- a much happier parenthood, in other words. It's as simple as accepting that you are not a supreme being.

Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents' questions on his Web site (www.rosemond.com).