What are some good interactive parenting forums?
Asked by
DaphneT (
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March 8th, 2012
I’m looking for forums where parents can reach out for help by describing their parenting scenarios and get feedback in a non-judgemental environment. It is very important that judgmental responses not be allowed as these parents need help and really do want to improve their skills, so they need to be allowed to describe what happened, no matter how heinous other might think it. They are regularly told they can’t do anything right, so they simply want to be able to discuss technically how certain situations, behaviours and scenarios might be handled and what techniques they can use to help them remember to apply the positive building techniques. They are both up against their personal tendencies to repeat their own parents styles, which has lead to ignominious results.
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3 Answers
This is a big time call for help isn’t it?
I don’t have children myself, so I’m not qualified to guide these two on their journey. So here’s what we’re up against.
Last fall my nephew married a woman with two, a boy and a girl now ages 6 and 4. My nephew has taken parenting classes, his wife is a recovered addict, with some brain trauma issues from an accident that has impaired her retention and reasoning skills and they are trying to leave the difficult lifestyle behind. They have an alcoholic-ex who is the children’s father. As recently as this past November his neglect put his daughter into the burn unit with bacon grease burns. They are in the midst of terminating fatherly visitation rights, etc. etc. I don’t have all the details, but I from the little I do know, marriage to my nephew should have put those kids into a better life.
Key word is should. The parents seem to be hyper-sensitive to all the little misdemeanors and I think they are over-correcting. My nephew doesn’t seem to be drawing on the positives of his childhood, he seems to be drawing on the negatives. He believes that his family are judgmental and consequently doesn’t listen to us. Both parents got on the kids’ cases for playing with toys, being curious, saying their hungry when they were visiting last week. These kids were pulled out of school, spent the night in a strange place, had a very distracted mommy because she was concerned about a friend who was hemorrhaging after childbirth. I thought the kids were normal for the situation and their ages, but every little thing got them yelled at. This isn’t any better than what their father offers, the kids are still being traumatized, just a more insidious method. I really believe they want to be good parents, they just don’t know how.
So my thought is to suggest on-line forums of just parents where the anonymity gives them a sense of, well something. But if something like that doesn’t exist, I’ll have to think of something else.
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