Reader comments: MormonTimes.com: Parenting can influence youths later, but no guarantees

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Anonymous | 11:09 a.m. Aug. 24, 2008
In a typical week, a typical child (between the ages of 5-18) spends at least 40-60 hours under the influence of teachers, friends, coaches, and others besides the parents. Add to that the time spent under the influence of the television (perhaps another 20 hours per week), and more than half of a child's waking hours are spent under the influence of somebody other than the parents.

Parents cannot be blamed for their children's successes or failures. They play only a small role in how a child develops.

From seeing some of the people I meet at Church, even that small role is too much! The kids would be better off being raised by the TV!
Anonymous | 1:39 p.m. Aug. 25, 2008
Does this tell us anything we didn't already know? How has the "truth of the Restored Gospel" given us anything that we didn't already know here?
R Fletcher | 7:27 a.m. Sept. 18, 2008
Sort of negative comment. Rebellion is not what it is being portrayed as… Rebellion against what.. when ? Kids need to make choices..

Some parents don’t allow kids to make choices.. some parents are overly controlling.. some are mind controlling.. always knowing everything their child does. And they have robot children who are not making independent choices…

Everything parents do has a big impact… parents are the big support.. money.. being valued and supported emotionally.. Teenager friends, teachers.. aren’t there tomorrow, they need to be not their parents… to exist.

Parenting style shows that two types of parents are way too controlling of their kids and two types are totally not controlling but the opposite.. one doesn’t care and one chooses to not be too close to stop agency.

The best example I can give is a single celled animal that surrounds another single celled animal and takes over the others mind functioning and the other becomes not single, but a part of the other; it stops existing . .. or there is one single cell that divides and then there are two.
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