Ruben Zandstra

I'd recommend reading "Parent Effectiveness Training" by Thomas Gordon. Additionally, you could check out if there's a course on the subjectmatter in your region, check out http://www.gordontraining.com/parent-programs/parent-effectiveness-training-p-e-t/

I'm very sorry this is what you have to make do with, Alexandru. Your parents appear to be a bunch of retarded assholes from the picture you paint. So you tried to connect with them, shared some of your life's difficulties with them, for which they failed to prepare you, for which they've evidently shown no concern on their own accord. If any reaction at all they laughed at you. How does this make you feel?

Did your father sleep around? Or was he so disconnected that there's no way to tell or find out?

Gotta make the appointment yourself though

Good luck. Without any specifics to go on, this might be of interest:

podcast 2269 and some episodes upwards might help: The Fascists That Surround You series, episode 2 ( podcast 2269) is about sociopathy. http://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/2269/the-fascists-that-surround-you-part-2-sociopaths

Yeah I have that quite a lot actually. We have two daughters (and an eldest son). Both girls are drawn to playing with boys, and quite often I identify strongly with their guests. I remember having girlfriends when I was very young, and even if I can't remember much perhaps they helped me pull through more than I am aware. About school: In the Netherlands school attendance is required by law from the age of five. Non compliance will get you into a lot of trouble ( though in some cases you get a clearance when you're religious and / or file objections before the child reaches the age of five). Once your child is registered in school there's really no way out, unless you are willing to get a criminal record, seek legal help, face court and be under a lot of permanent stress. After gaining the insights / empathy we now have concerning public school some years ago we've seriously considered taking them out, but also given the fact that our children themselves want to keep attending school, we've decided against it. We did take them to one that's less awful than the initial one.

Hi Jelle, just curious: did you get a lot of responses that were dissatisfying .. or little response overall?

Thanks Patrick. I felt strong emotions when after I had told her of my anger and concern about how she treats her son, and told her how she is the deficient one and not her child, at some point she started to cry and talk about her childhood, how her parents were out of her life, and how she did not want to be the mother that she herself had had. I mentioned how she reminded me of my own mother, who is now long dead and how her death has been like a ton of bricks falling from my back, except that she is still in my head. That's what you're creating for your son. I guess we both felt each others deep sorrow for a moment. I told her how I had been in her position to some degree, and that I understand. And that there's things you can actually do, and stop doing, and how I've done a lot of that. How much it makes things better, and that it can be done. I told her that therapy might help, how I've spent years in talk-therapy, and how it's affected my life.

Tough questions, they fill me with some anxiety. Where we live, I am forced to take her to public school. I guess that's the essential rabbit hole. The school we picked is the smallest and least troubling one we could find, with teachers that I interviewed before we enrolled. Still, you're right: I'm leaving her in the hands of people who are essentially strangers all the time. I ask them about their experiences with these people every day, and it is a concern that continues to trouble me. I was not planning to cut my daughter off from her friend completely. It's just that the play-overs would have to be at our house. She already has been sad and frustrated about my rule of mutual play-overs, instead of her going over to the friends house each time whenever invited. If I now change the rule to play-overs only at our house, I imagine she will be even more sad and frustrated, and confused about these changing rules concerning who and where she is allowed to spend time with. As to the boy, I imagine that he is experiencing hell on a daily basis, and has resigned to not feeling most of it, except for the evident rage and defiance towards his mother. I imagine he feels rejected, lonely, scared and alienated. I try to chat with him whenever I can, and it keeps amazing me how agreeable his company is, if a little distant, and how he seems at ease as long as his mother is not around. The mother struck me as attractive when I first encountered her, she vaguely reminds me of my own mother, especially once the emotional abuse became apparent. At which point I became actively repulsed, even when physically attracted to some degree. I really despise women that give no second thought to spilling their crazy and violence around, because, well, who is going to fight against pretty. When I had the conversation with her the other day I was quite surprised with how she was not simply dismissing me or lighting up in anger, but started crying and seemed willing to hear me out. I've been avoiding her as much as possible until now, and would have actually much preferred to keep on doing so. To be honest I have no expectations of her becoming less abusive except out in the open, out of shame and social pressure. And she might want to play the situation, and play me. Thanks for your concern Steve. If my answers bring up more please let me know. The playground is actually a good idea, thanks. For now, I'm going to keep things cool as you mentioned, and not discuss this with my daughter.

They're both five years old.

I agree, good suggestion. Practical problems though: For some time I've been upholding the rule that it should be one play-over at their place, the next one at our place. Previously, since the boy much prefers playing at his own house, my daughter would ask me again and again if she could play with him at his house, until I got too uneasy about the mother. After I got adamant about it, they did not play for some time at all because the boy would not come over to our place. Which was quite hard to understand for my daughter. I ( and she) tried to find out why he would not come over and we got no real specific answers. I guess it's some variety of Stockholm syndrome. Whenever the boy finally comes over we always have lots of fun and I sense no anxiety or whatever. The woman really likes my daughter, in a sugarcoated fashion, adding to my uneasiness. I do not want my daughter to be treated like a little princess by a woman who treats her own son like shit at the same time. This morning I made it quite clear that the halfway-rule I've been upholding is not based on any courtesy. It is based on my uneasiness of exposing my daughter to her behavior. By now I think I should probably have a talk with my daughter about the conversation I had with the mother, and explain to her how playing at the boy's house is not an option anymore. Which is going to be hard for her to understand even more. I should probably have done it right the first time I guess.

I'm sorry, maybe I wrote it down in a convoluted way. I'm usually trying to be precise and articulate in what I submit here, and then I tend to get my thoughts all tangled up In the analogy the abusive parent is addicted. When an abuser notices "short term positive effects", that can only be because he does not bond with the child emotionally, and is addicted to the method of force. Which, when applied for the first time is a sickening experience to anyone who is not a sociopath or destructive in some fundamental way. It's like a first cigarette. Similarly, if a parent who strikes is still bonded with the child, it feels horrible, devastating, and the intended "result" is empty and meaningless. There is no positive short term result. I am very sorry about your terrible father and the abuse you suffered.

I just did a full on intervention with an abuser. She's the mother of one of my youngest daughter's classmates. For a while I've been wary of letting my daughter play over at her house, because on several occasions I've seen her acting in a punitive and heartless way towards her son, who is "rebellious" and "not listening". The other day the boy ( who is a great little guy) was playing at our place. When his mother came picking him up he was mad and dissappointed because she came by car instead of on bike as she had promised earlier. He was angry, and after dismissing this fact offhandedly she told him to thank me for the play-over. He kept being angry (rightly so), and then she grabbed him, pulled him to the other side of her car where -out of sight- she had a one-on-one with him. Then she picked him up, stashed him in the car and while driving off the boy frantically yelled "Thank you for the play-over", crying. Today, entering the school, I told her that I had been shocked by the event; the pulling, the shoving, the obvious threats, the force involved. I asked her what her own thoughts were, and she rejected the idea of having hurt the boy. I kissed my girls goodbye and walked outside, and then she followed me outside. We had a talk for about five minutes, and nearing the end we were both crying. I could write the conversation down, but with the emotions shown I guess you could say I 've gotten through to her at least in the moment. Even so, I'm a bit wary right now. Like her, I'll be visiting this school for another six years. If this continues to be a terrible mother I'm in for some trouble from now on, just like the kids. And I wonder how she will act the next time we come across. I also wonder what I'll tell my daughter who wants to go and play over there next week, because I made it quite clear to the mother that her behavior is not something that I want to expose my daughter to.

I may be wrong, but still I'd like to disagree that there are short-term benefits to spanking. When you say there are benefits I think it's an observations made looking at it from an abuse-addicted paradigm. I think it's similar to saying that smoking gives good results in the short term, and bad ones only in the long term. Which may be true for addicts, but it's not universal: smoking tastes really foul for quite some time, until eventually you acquire "the taste", and are in fact addicted. Similarly, hitting a child only gives "good results" in the short term when it's been your habit to do so for some time, and the parent-child bond has been long broken. The bad results are not somewhere in the future. They are the very thing that makes an abuser want to strike out again.

I understand about it being uncomfortable at times and how it may wreck your nights sleep. We've certainly been there with three children. I usually weigh my options like this: Is it close to get-up time then no problem; I'll move over and we'll all snooze along. If it's in the middle of the night and some limited action of mine will probably help out ( close her window, remove a cat) I'll do that and tuck her in again in her own bed. If the night is still long, and there's general unrest / anxiety / desire for closeness then I'll roll out the guest bed and place it next or near to her own bed. That way we can all sleep and get what we want.

I remember similar things, it happened quite a few times. One that stands out is where my Dad not only told me cordially that my audio-set was confiscated until further notice, but that I was to take it up to the attic myself. This little conversation ended with mutual smiles and some rolling of eyes, which is a creepy thing to remember. I guess I was walking a thin line most of the time, knowing that accepting and showing false sentiments is preferable over being shouted at or worse. In this case, another sick detail is that I had recently bought the audio-set myself, on my own as usual, with money that he had (let my mother) pay me for working in and around the farmhouse for weeks on end for a couple of bucks a day. Which was a previous punishment: I had to spend an entire summer being his slave. It's really incredible thinking about how I've been gladly keeping my Dad in my life for thirty years after that, up until a couple of years ago.

Parenting is about preparing a child for independence. In my opinion good parenting also includes appreciating feedback from your child as a matter of course, all the time. You mention that the email you've prepared for your parents fills you with anxiety. You fear that it will "have great impact" on your attempts to become independent. Providing your parents with feedback evidently comes at the expense of your becoming independent, they seem to be mutually exclusive, or at least to be coming at each others expense. Most children who are bullied are primarily being bullied at home and lack safe attachments with their primal caregivers. Following from this general theory ( which is quite well established), your parents are causal to your dreadful experience at the IHOP. How did they react to your problems at work?

I'm sorry about your situation Alexandru. What is your main concern at this moment? Is it getting a message across to your parents, or is it becoming independent from them? Ideally, the two should not be mutually exclusive. If they are mutually exclusive, or fill you with anxiety, then obviously your parents are not parenting you. Just curious, why did you quit your job?

Hi Bennbo, welcome "When the state attempts to achieve more slavery/death/genocide through force, it is typically successful." I see your point. I'm curious though if you have any actual examples of states openly advocating goals such as "genocide" and "slavery". To my knowledge it's all usually heavily shrouded in ideological language and propaganda( keeping the race "pure", cleansing, taking what belongs to our deity, saving souls, equality etc ) Only in history, as documented by the eventual conqueror, will the propaganda be exposed, and replaced with propaganda of it's own ( state X was *really* all about more slavery/ death / genocide, that's why we enslaved and sent your grandparents to their deaths in order to conquer them). So the goals as defined by the violent state itself is what has to be looked at in my opinion. On a personal level I think your refinement fails If I use violence to prevent a rape ( which is morally good), I might fail. But it's hard to conceive how I would achieve the opposite of my stated goal.

I don't recall Steff advocating any policies. I might be wrong, please point me in the right direction.

Thanks for sharing your experience! It was great meeting you Stoyan, thank you for all the wonderful conversation. Hope to meetup again!

Least complicated way would be to send Michael some BTC! I'll be getting my refund from him. Anyway, do you guys have any particular plans / preferences for spending friday / saturday morning? On friday I was thinking of at least paying a visit to http://www.museumvanloon.nl/ There's an exposition of childrens portraits through the ages that I find interesting: http://www.iamsterdam.com/en-GB/Ndtrc/400%20jaar%20kinderportretten Will also be a fine opportunity to see one of the fancier golden-age canal houses from the inside. I'm arriving the 24th, probably late in the afternoon. I managed to find an affordable place to sleep at airbnb. Have a great trip!

It's 169 euro and it's paid for. I'll be getting a BTC refund from Michael; this location allows for some privacy and quality recording, I heard mention of someone who might be documenting Stef's trip. People who are going to be there for more than just the day: you might want to consider renting a bike. It'll be a fun way to get around town, and particularly on Saturday it's going to be the most reliable way to get anywhere. http://www.iamsterdam.com/en-GB/Experience/Plan%20your%20trip/Getting%20Around/rental/bike%20hire