General Discussion

My daughter was an IUGR baby, and she had special problems associated with being growth retarded, specifically emotional and behavioral issues. This was before ADHD and ADD were recognized by doctors. I made connections from watching patterns of her behavior prior to and after her spending a weekend with her father (my ex). I kept her to a fairly strict low sugar diet, etc., for example and her behavior would improve during the two weeks she was with me. Immediately after spending time with my ex, her behavior would be off the scales again... so much so, she kept getting kicked out of schools... as in, kicked out of preschool... kicked out kindergarten, etc, etc., etc. It never really improved much. She was as narcissistic as trump, and tried to manipulate everyone around her, even to the most stupidest degree. For example, she was wrote on the school hallway billboard, "Aunt Lori is a bitch." (And Lori was, of course, my sister... her aunt). When confronted with this, she adamantly denied it, even when asked who else had an "Aunt Lori" at the school!

Anyway, I'd been trying for decades to get her to see the correspondence between actions and consequences, with little to no affect. I especially had no help from school authorities, mental health, or physicians in this. She dropped out of high school but I did manage to get her to enroll in GED classes and she passed them with such a high score she was offered a scholarship at the nearby Junior College. But she turned it down and seemed content to sit on her butt watching soap operas all day. I finally laid down the law once she turned 18 and told her she either had to get a job and pay half of the monthly bills, plus any she racked up on her own, if she wanted to continue living in our apartment, or she had to move out. Cause and effect. Action and Consequences. We talked over employment and school options for quite a while until I told her she should go talk to an Army Recruiter. While I went into the military straight out of high school, I was already plenty structured and had a handle on what I wanted to do with my life. Still, I thought the structure would provide her what obviously I'd not been able to give her as she grew up.

She talked to the Recruiter more than a few times and actually signed up. I was thrilled, thinking maybe she was going to be able to find a path that would work for her. Little did I know! I guess things were different because I signed up for the AF during the Viet Nam war. But when her time came to ship off, she flew the coup while I was being treated for a really bad case of flu that Dec. Never said "goodbye"; never said she'd made any other arrangements. I got up to run to the bathroom to throw up once again, and discovered she was just "gone"... Took me a few weeks to track her down but, thanks to being a Fido-Net BBS sysop who was somewhat well known, word got around and it was reported back to me where she'd gone. I figured there'd be a warrant or at least an AWOL slip with her name on it at the recruiting station, so I went to see. That's when the Recruiter told me they'd just "X'd" out her name on the contract. She reneged on a signed legal contract with the US Army and they just blew it off. I was flabbergasted, and I let the recruiter know how I felt about it. I'd spent 18 years trying to get her to understand there were always consequences to her actions and here he was, letting her walk on a legal contract like it was no big deal. SMDH! To this day, she's totally transactional to the core of her nature and is only concerned about others as far as they are of use to her. I'm now old, retired, on a very fixed income and can provide her with nothing she "needs", so I rarely ever see her... even tho she lives a mere 2 miles from my house. SMDH. I know I can lay a lot of this at the feet of the bad start she got in utero, but still... one would think (sigh). Consequences to her are what happen to anyone who happens to cross her or not live up to what she thinks she deserves. As a result, I have one grandchild living with me, one ran away from home a few years ago and is a mess, and the youngest is trying to move to the PNW; she'd kicked all of them out of the house because they were interfering with her new "love" interest.

There are a lot of things that could be taught through school that one ordinarily wouldn't think of in the form of curriculum, and I think critical thinking, especially as in surrounding actions and consequences... would go a lot farther than learning a bible verse each day!

/rant off.... sorry, but I had this in mind when I wrote that reply and some things just won't let you go! Actions/Consequences!