64 Things People Learned From Their Parents That They Think Is A Brilliant Way Of Parenting

When I would ask my parents to buy me something, they would sometimes tell me that we couldn't afford it this month. It was a pretty powerful message, you don't spend money that you don't have. And it has stuck with me decades later.

I earned my first pay check, working as clerk in law firm at age of 20- 21, excitedly I handed over the cheque to my mom, being super excited.

She cooly handed me back the cheque to me saying “ Good so now that you have started earning learn to manage Ur own expenses ,from now on u are going to manage all ur expenses on Ur own and ask for pocket money only in case if need .”

This was a big shock for me ,who was brought up in a upper middle class family , having affluent parents meeting all my demands .

It was a struggle to get my first cheque encashed ,then started the struggle to calculate exact amount of money required for day to day expenses and with draw the same from bank ( it was late 90s and ATM and cards were not common).

Then came the realisation that my meger pay was barely sufficient to meet my day to day needs ,like transportation, hotels, shopping hanging out with friends etc ( this did not include things like food, medicines, college fees ,clothes and other basic necessities as same was taken care by my parents).

I was too hurt and angry to ask for money from my parents and first few months were a real struggle resulting in drastic change in my life style,like preferring street food over hotel food, use of public transport etc.

I learnt to manage my expenses,held on to the job ,look for better job and save money for emergencies and special occasions.

This act of my parents taught me value of money and also taught me to live within means and not splurge money,which is proving valuable till date and I am eternally grateful to my parents for bitter yet valuable life lesson.

Later , when I was working with a big corporate I faced the issue of filing Income tax returns and I sought help from my father,an accountant by profession . He flatly refused and asked me to figure it out on my own. I vouched to learn all about savings , taxes,tax saving instruments etc on my own and was able to self learn quite a bit with help of internet and as on date posses better knowledge on subject than my father ,a retired accountant

Other day he sheepily, admitted that he purposely refuse to help me with my first tax filing as he didn't want me to be like many working woman who solely rely on their husbands to manage their money,adding to another important life lesson.

The most important lessons taught by my parents are Value of Money and Money management which I appreciate and will continue to appreciate till end of my days!

My dad hired me to edit things for his alumni newsletter when I was 11 or so, $10/hr, style guide provided - my allowance was $4/week so it was *really* good money. He paid me to learn grammar (sneakily) and honestly, with a style guide, a bookish 11-year-old was editing pretty well.

We also played poker with the spare change jar - my buy-in was waived, but I could keep what I won. I play a pretty decent hand of poker now.

When my sister's and i were little were fighting in the car and my mom needed a break, she would get us kiddy frostys but only let us use the straw. It gave her able 10- 15 minutes of pure silence and we tried in vain to get that chocolate goodness


Also we were allowed to stay home sick from school anytime we said we were not feeling well. The catch is that some you were sick, you had to stay in bed. This was before cell phones. No TV, no radio, no getting up to play, just in bed with a book. She would go so far as to bring lunch to you in bed. Now, if we were verifiable sick- fevers, strep throat, pneumonia, chicken pox, vomiting, etc we could lay on the couch and watch tv. But because it was so boring to stay home when you didn't feel sick, none of us faked sick but a few times.

Listens politely to a problem, then “what’s your plan to do about it”.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that the "music truck" in fact, sold ice cream.

My parents implemented odd and even days between my sister and me to keep us from arguing over everything. One year, I would be assigned odd days of the month and my sister even days. The following year, our assigned day would swap. It applied to everything when my sister and I were given a choice. Where we wanted to eat, what movie to watch that night, what seat we wanted in the car, etc. It also applied to chores. We had to clean the kitchen and vacuum the house every night. Whoever's day it was got to choose their chore. Of course, there are more odd days than even days in the year which is why we would swap assigned days at the beginning of the year to try and make it fair.

My parents kept this up FOR YEARS and still swear it saved their sanity.

I was rather little and saw older kids ‘giving the finger’. Unsure what it meant, I showed it to my mother, who told me how it was a little bit rude but there was no real harm in doing it because THIS FINGER – THE PINKY FINGER. Oh dear god, you NEVER stick your pinky finger up at someone. It’s unspoken of! Those older kids were flashing their middle finger because they didn’t even know there was a worse finger to wave around!

Needless to say, I spent the next few years thinking I was tough with my rebellious pinky finger. Showed all the kids at school :).

My dad drove carpool every day. He wouldn’t turn on the radio or say anything. He would just sit and listen to me and my friends talk about everything happening at school. HE KNEW EVERYTHING. Sometimes he would have me hang back a minute before walking into school to give me advice. As I got older and began driving myself to school, it felt so easy and natural to tell my parents everything that was happening in my life and get their advice. It was a genius way to establish open communication and it shaped our relationship even 30 years later.

This is a story my Dad always tells me when I am posed with a difficult situation.

Among the many trees in the forest there is a tall coconut tree with a strong trunk which is well rooted into the ground and beside it is a shrub with very flexible and tender branches, a day comes when the trees are subjected to a wind storm and all the trees in the forest begin to uproot the coconut tree standing in all majesty tries to resist the forces of the wind and eventually gets uprooted too while the shrub sways along with the direction of the wind adapting itself to the roars of the storm and the shrub survives the storm. Just like the above story when you are subjected to high stress and difficult situations in life instead of resisting,cajoling and fighting against it learn to accept the situation ,experience it and let go of it , to summarise it go with the flow of life and eventually in no time you will be out of the mess . Learn to let go of the illusion of control:)

We were offered $50 each to not attend the annual show. This was like a state fair, with overpriced rides, food and show bags. We always took the $50 (because it seemed like a huge amount). Now I know what it costs to attend, parent probably saved a few hundred by not going.

I lived a 45 minute bike ride from school. I'm the summer cycling was default, but in the winter, my parents had a deal: if you bike through the winter months, you get half the cost of the monthly bus fare as pocket money. Everybody won, I got money and exercise, parents saved on bus fare.

My poppy used to collect rusty old washers in an old coffee can and when my little brother or I were being too chaotic he would set us up in the garage with the can, an ancient table vice and sheets of sandpaper of various grit and ask us to do him the favor of sanding his washers clean so he could use them for x or y project. We actually loved it, and it wasnt until I was an adult talking with my dad about how poppy used to recycle his washers that my dad pointed out to me that my poppy used to collect our meticulously polished shiny washers, chuck them back in the can, leave them out in the rain and have us polish them again. Their sole purpose was to keep us busy lol.

I was under ten when I asked my grandma what her cigarette was.

She made me have a puff.

I never was tempted to smoke again.

They both gave me a great work ethic, which doesn’t seem to exist today. There seems to be a lot of entitlement being expected as well as respect. I keep hearing about not getting respect, what they don’t understand is you don’t GET it, you have to earn it. How can I respect someone I don’t even know? Respect your elders because they’ve earned it. I’ll treat you with good manners & common consideration but don’t treat me like crap & expect my respect in return. That’s not how it works.

I learned that 'my' advice wasn't something that my kids wanted to hear. So the advice I gave them always came from someone else, mostly 'my' grandfather...

Dad would take me to little family events, birthday parties, or backyard barbecues and leave. He has to earn money from his contracted jobs so he works when he needs to. But I'm alone with family right? Yeah well when one of your aunts doesn't approve of out of wedlock chilldren, and the other one believes you are an excuse you get the idea. But I could hang out with my cousins. They had video games, and laptops, and just all sorts of cool stuff dad couldn't afford to get me. We got along great regardless of the adult supervision. Later when we get older I, the youngest by the way, gets drafted. We lost grandma, grandpa stops communication, cousins send me. Uncle had a disagreement with a car situation, they call me to mediate. Two brothers, one being my dad, have an argument they communicate through me. What, why me? And my cousins tell me I remind them of grandma. OMG, I get light headed and dizzy…I…me…how do I remind anyone of grandma. They tell me I spent the most time with her, she taught me how to dress, talk, dictate, and all of the men in my family respected grandma. I sound and behave just like her. Even the preacher at her church confided to me that when I sing on Sundays attendance goes up if he tells people I'm singing next week. Because my dad made me attend family events alone I had to stand up for myself against family. And the one person that could get respect from anyone was my beautiful grandma. Thanks dad.

Best hack I’ve ever heard was my best friend. Her family had always gone to the boardwalk like 6 hours away as a group for a week. The year she had to drive down with just her and her young kids (maybe 4 and 6?) she had the best plan.

They always spent time at the arcade together. She had a few rolls of quarters dedicated to this. So she gave them each a little bag. All the way down she bribed them with THE QUARTERS THEY WERE ALREADY GETTING 🤣

Who can be quiet the longest? If you can keep your hands to yourself for 5 minutes you get a quarter. Great job helping your sister with that - here’s a quarter for the arcade. Whining kids don’t go to the arcade…(two minutes later) great job playing calmly, here’s a quarter.

Absolute genius!

My dad told us that if a bird gets sprinkled with salt they freeze and you can pet them. We’d be out in the yard running around with salt shakers trying to catch the birds. It didn’t hit me until I was in my 20’s.

I’m not sure if my parents intended for it to work the way they did, but it would be genius parenting if they did.

My dad refused for years to buy a color TV set because it was too expensive. I didn’t watch all that much TV as a kid at least partly for that reason and was an enthusiastic reader. My dad got a deal from a friend when I was off at college and finally got the color TV. I was surprised to learn later that color TV rolled out in the mid 1960s—we could have been enjoying it for years.

My parents are both deceased now, so I can’t ask them if this was a complex long-term plan to make TV unappealing so my sister and I would read more!

This exact strategy is not available now due to the unavailability of black & white TV sets. Perhaps it can be adapted in some way by parents in the twenty-first century.