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I definitely also did things as a teenager that were dangerous, unnecessary, etc. And my parents were good parents, were involved in my life, had open communic
by technothrasher 5y ago
I definitely also did things as a teenager that were dangerous, unnecessary, etc. And my parents were good parents, were involved in my life, had open communication with me, and tried hard to teach me the right things. But I was a teenager; I did it anyway. And I suspect that if I were being monitored like the kids today seem to be, I would just learn how to hide my activities more.
> How do you approach that, without heavy surveillance? Did you just get lucky with good kids?
I think partly I got lucky that my son is somewhat risk averse, which rules out a lot of bad stuff he could do. But I also am not fooling myself into thinking he isn't doing dumb things and not telling me about it. I certainly understand the desire to heavily surveil your kids to protect them, but it just doesn't sit right with me. I think it sends the wrong message that he doesn't have to take responsibility and can always just rely on me to bail him out. So I'm willing to take the risk in order to give him a sense of personal responsibility. I don't know that I'm making the right choice, parenting seems to be mostly doing the best you can and having your kids usually turn out ok in spite of you.