How "creative" were your parents in teaching, disciplining and protecting you when you were a kid?

My father didn’t fool around.He was very direct.
My mother put my panties on our Scottish Terrier when I didn’t pick them up. XD

Mom had a creative streak. The older sister and I would get into arguments and yell at the other to shut up. She finally said that she would fine us a certain amount out of our weekly allowance whenever we said it. I once blew a whole week’s allowance in one tirade. It was worth it.

She also threatened to take away any clothes she found on the floor of my room. Her reasoning was that she paid for them and did the laundry, and it was my responsibility to keep my room tidy. And then she followed through with the threat. I didn’t do it again.

Not very creative in the disciplining and protecting I don’t think. In terms of teaching, I think they made really good choices to let us be aware of how they made financial decisions, have our own savings accounts. They included us in conversation, and you learned just by observing the adults, where I find that some people tend to separate the children from the adults. I guess that is not very creative though?

My folks were polar opposites. My mom had a belt hanging off of a door knob in every room….with 5 rambunctious kids she seemed to need that arsenal. Taught me to hate belts and door knobs.

My dad lead by example. He never yelled or spanked us and always took the time to explain the importance of better choices and the value of better behavior. He restored my faith in hairbrushes and bars of soap.

@cruiser damn, you should be on the recent corporal punishment Q if you were not already.

My mother would tie a fish from the light fitting directly above the dining table. We’d then take it in turn to point our bread at said fish hoping in vain to catch some of the flavour. This was to teach us, well….....that bread & point was a bloody silly thing to do.

Not so much for punishment but to keep me from running to their bed at night, my dad use to tuck me in and tell me there was goblins waiting under my bed to grab my ankles if I stepped off the bed.
That really backfired. I would get nightmares and when I woke i would jump off the bed as far as I could and then run and jump into bed on my fathers side of the bed, startling him awake.
I was afraid their was goblins under his bed as well. I would try not to wake my mother. She could easily become a goblin if you woke her.

I was an only child of very self centered and busy parents. I basically raised myself and I was pretty much captain of my own ship from about age 8 onward. haha

I went to bed when I wanted, just sort of announced how it was gonna be and they gave up trying to tame my free spiritedness at an early age.

I think I did a damn fine job raising myself and it has certainly led to a heightened creativity and non-conformist, ever questioning outlook.

I am proud of who I am for having little guidance and I am also very pleased at how I raised MY daughter. She’s a chip off the old rampart, another tenacious and bright little meteor!
A long line of onlies of onlies..we’re a breed apart no doubt lol :-D

My parents didn’t have to do that .. I had grandparents who reminded [ in a way of speaking ] about the war and how things were for them after the war ..[ this regarding complaining about food and what’s to eat ] . We had problems those days because even if one had money there weren’t a lot of things to buy .. crap

When there’s a big family and all have to eat people stop complaining and start SHARING . Not to mention that were 5 people can eat the 6th can come and eat a bit too not to be hungry .

They were not so creative but I had my friends outside and I saw a lot of awkward things .. [ wich I won’t share because when I look back now they are not that funny but cruel ] .

Not very. It was the belt and the hand.

@JLeslie ; That’s awesome. My father in law was a very successful business man, but never discussed finances with my husband or mentored him. My husband has done pretty well for himself, but I can only imagine if his father had been open and honest and tried to mentor his son as much as he did his employees, how much better off my husband would be both financially and emotionally.

@Judi Sometimes I think very large families tend to separate the children at events and holidays, if you are referring to being included in adult conversation. More of a practical thing if everyone is not fitting at one table. But, my parents did it in general anyway, purposely taught us about handling money, how much things cost, interesting businesses, etc.

My father was never there to discipline me and hang around as a father and daughter.

My mother on the other hand did a very great job and I truly love her and appreciate her for that. And not forgetting my grandparents on my mother’s side. They did an amazing job as well.

Not much. They figured between my grandparents and school that I’d get all I needed. My parents were kind of parents in formality only, they fed and sheltered me but most of my needs were seen to by my grandparents who basically gave me back to my mother after a few years when she remarried and looked to be able to be responsible at last. My parents raised me as their “responsibility” but not because they wanted to be parents. I’m lucky I did eventually get into a fantastic private school that covered more than the three R’s.

My dad used to describe his war experiences fighting the Germans and the Japanese. He may have exaggerated but we admired him so much we would do whatever he asked and would never annoy him.

Not much, if at all. I wish they did. I don’t usually refer to how they raised me as parenting. I think I parented myself in the true sense of the word.

Not very for two Art Majors.

My mom was far too creative for my fun and games. She had to be, to deal with my trouble making streak the size of Texas. I really think she enjoyed out-witting me. I was pretty good at outwitting her outwitting, though, so we were always coming up with new ways to get the other person to do what we wanted.

It’s not that my dad was super creative, rather than upfront as shit. He didn’t get creative because he wanted me to know shit for what it was. He was always telling me about the woes of the world, lending me magazines to read with nasty articles in them.
I read about this thing I think it was in Kosovo. Some soldier went into a house, pointed a gun at a little girl’s head, and ordered the father to rape her. He cried and pleaded but the soldier would have none of it. He wasn’t fucking around. So, to save his daughter’s life, he did the deed. Goddamn. Example. Again, not creative, but after I read that, I knew this stuff happened.

My dad was a bit annoying with this at times, but I’m glad he did this, because I learned a whole lot of stuff. Nasty stuff, but shit people need to know. But he never gave me, or exposed me to disturbing material and just left me with it. He’d explain it all to me, and tried to make me understand the contents of what he was showing me, or what I saw around the place. He wasn’t militant about it though. My dad was a goof, and always acted like a clown, so when something affected me too much, he’d use humour to relieve me. Some of it was crude, but it did the job. A lot of people may not appreciate his type of humour, but eh.
He taught me a lot about people and emotions. Some of it were his theories only, and sometimes they went a bit far. But he did his best, on something he was passionate about.
He did the same with things going on around us, or at least tried to offer a perspective. Why people made fun of me at school because my clothes were all old and used up, or why my friend Amanda was getting hit in the face with a belt if she came home 20 minutes late.

He was this big hippy guy, and even in my early twenties when I went to bum money off of him, he’d still have newspaper photos stuck everywhere in the kitchen. Human cruelty and shit was something he really felt deeply about, it wasn’t all just for me.
He did indeed want to teach me to be grateful for living where I was, and having what I had. But he also wanted me to know this stuff was going on. He didn’t want me to lead a sheltered life, and he pretty much let me have my experiences without telling me how wrong or bad they were. That sounds bad, but it’s not like he let me do whatever I wanted. He gave me strict but reasonable rules, and always did his best to make me understand things. I really love that he gave me so much freedom, and didn’t censor anything from me. He never, or at least barely, grounded me, either. If I did something wrong, again, he’d sit down with me and explain why what I did sucked and everything. His biggest aim was to teach me things as I went along. He’s dead now though, and now I’m all missing him lol.
But yeah, not the most creative guy, but I appreciate how he did things. Newspaper photos, helping me with my homework by replacing the words for my grammar assignments with cusswords to keep me interested, (he did his best, the rest was up to me, not his fault I suck) or reading me articles about ghosts or aliens as bedtime stories, since he knew I was really into that.
Most people think that’s horrible and that he was the shittiest dad, but trust me, without him I’d be a lot worse than I am now.

My mom wasn’t like that though. She told me that gay people are complete evil and their blood is black, that everyone who speaks English is an asshole, that if I don’t do what God says, I’ll burn in Hell forever.
And of course, when my parents divorced, dad was the Devil himself. Haha. I think her intents were actually genuine, but she’s mad as all Hell. I was way too young back then to really understand what my mom was saying though, and again my dad cleared stuff up for me when I told him some of what she told me, before I went off to live with him.
Yeah I’m not really answering anything at this point, just sayin’, my dad rules lol.