comments on parenting

I think we should write a book...you know if you are part of the we...the title...
"Good Advice Your Kids Could Use, Since Mine Just Ignore It"

Let's start with some of the things I have learned over the years.
First there are three levels of intelligence.
1. Stupid, you don't learn from your mistakes
2. Average, you learn from your mistakes.
3. Smart, you learn from other's mistakes

Of course level 2 breaks down into sub-levels A and B.
A. You generalize what you learn, i.e. "Hey, I put my hand on the burner,
it was hot, maybe the other burner could be hot too"
B. You only learn the specific lesson at hand, i.e. I put my hand on the
burner, it was hot. I put my hand on the other burner, it was hot, and in
the case of our stove, there are four burners, so the lesson is learned
four times.

I suspect my oldest son is in category 2B. I'm not sure, but I also suspect
that a lot of other 18 year olds keep him company in that particular
category.

One of the reasons I believe many kids fall into the 2B category, no matter
how many times their parents are proven right, the teenagers continue to
1. think we're stupid, and therefore
2. ignore our advice.
This proves that they are not in category 3, Lord knows we've made heaps
of mistakes, but the kids sure don't seem to want to learn from them.
I think it also proves that the kids aren't in category 2A, you'd think they
would see, "hey my parents were right about that, maybe they are right
about this..." In fact, it might be more accurate to say, "hey my parents
were right about these 10 things, maybe they are right about this thing
here". Nope. I guess they think we're just lucky...EVERY DAMN TIME!
If I was that lucky kid, I'd be buying lottery tickets!

I'll get to the actual advice in another blog...