Venting Not socializing your child should be considered some form of child neglect

[DesperateOne]

If you let your kid isolate himself from the rest of the world, you've gotta do something. If he has no friends and his only way of interacting with the world is through a computer screen, you've gotta do something. If he is not running around with his other peers in childhood/teenage years you are doing something extremely wrong.

If you miss all of these indicators and then your child grows up to be an unsociable friendless weirdo you don't get the right to question him why he is the way that he is. If he can't maintain a job you especially don't have the right to blame him for it. If you don't socialize your child it should be treated almost the same way as abuse.

You are creating a person that doesn't have the brains to get along with other people at all... He will always be a weirdo and be will always feel like something is deeply wrong with him. The chances of him finding deep close friendship or a relationship with the opposite sex is next to zero. The child will always be playing a catch up game never content with his life. You are essetially setting him up for a life that is not worth living.

 

[Doemu]

I wanted to jump over the window when i was 11, cause i was isolated. I felt to much alone. So YES.

 

[leavingthesoultrap]

What would you do as a parent? Would you force the child to go and make friends with random children? Would you take away their pc/phone?
I am genuinely interested.
I am asking this because I was antisocial since forever while other kids my age weren't and they had similar upbringing.

 

[UKscotty]

It is neglect.

 

[DesperateOne]

What would you do as a parent? Would you force the child to go and make friends with random children? Would you take away their pc/phone?
I am genuinely interested.
I am asking this because I was antisocial since forever while other kids my age weren't and they had similar upbringing.

I got this from JP, but essentially if your parents don't socialize you properly by the time you are 4 you are basically looking for a life filled with rejection and suffering. If you don't learn those very foundational human communication behaviours that get you accepted by your peers you will either always be weirdo or be straight up fucked depending on how bad the parenting was. If you isolate yourself as a child/teenager for months or even years then your peers just outgrow you in every single regard.

I was always wondering why I am the way that I am... Why is it that every time I talk to someone it feels like pulling teeth? Why am I getting weird looks, awkward silences and everyone ignoring me? Why does everyone just use me as a laughing stock and then leave me as soon as somebody better comes along? Why does my social anxiety never get better? Why do I shutdown in almost every social situation?

Well, it turns out that giving an already weird 10 year old a phone, allowing him to isolate himself and get addicted is not such a good strategy after all...

What would I do? If you see that your kid can't get along with other kids and is alone/closed off, get him help asap... Maybe he is just in a wrong school or wrong group that doesn't match his personality. If you figure that's not the case, get him professional help. Also, limit/control screen time and allow full autonomy over screens at like 15 years old.

My parents missed the indicators since I think they were too busy with themselves, work and overall just didn't realize the damage isolation/screens can do. On top of that my mom also severely lacks social skills and came from an abusive household. My dad was an alcoholic (he quit a couple of years back) and grew up without a father + a helicopter mom. I empathize with them and they are soldiers, but yeah... raising a kid with so much weight on you is probably not such a good idea.

 

[Shrike]

It's pretty universally recognized as neglect as far as I know. It's why a lot of people oppose homeschooling, as well. I think people are actually a bit too obsessed about it, they think it's magic.

I wouldn't paint it as that fatal, either, or the issue as that simplistic. Having a neurodivergency seems a bigger problem than neglect if you're normal. There have been people who were trapped in basements for decades and they could come out and then live a relatively normal life. Many people with a kink or two, they correct that kink, and everything just falls into place, like a fish in water.

The neurodivergent, when socializing, often just encounter a lot of bullying. I had a fairly "healthy" upbringing socialization wise growing up, in terms of level of exposure to other children, was outside a lot, etc., but I never lost the "weirdo" marker. Internet socialization was actually highly important because I could meet some people like me. Modern "app" socialization is cancer, though, because it has the same markers as normal socialization but with no stoppers.

It's important to not just have socialization, but good socialization. The current idea of socialization is just throw every child to the wolves and watch them sink or swim. It's equivalent to saying "the normals should just beat up the weirdos, and the weirdos should be OK with it because we're doing them a favor!" No wonder some children want no part of it and parents don't know what to do.

 

[Silent Raindrops]

What if your parents did what they could to socialize you with other kids, and you chose not to interact with them? That was me.

What if your parents took you to counseling to see why you weren't a social kid, and that counseling didn't help? That was me.

I was born in 1970, we didn't have Nintendo, cell phones, or computers then, and my parents didn't abuse me, or fail to pay attention to me. They saw the red flags that I was not one to be social. They did what they could to keep me happy and content, and I will say I had a decent childhood. I had good Christmases, birthdays, and other holidays, and so on.

So, I respectfully disagree, that all parents should be held to this "child neglect" you speak of if your child is not one who likes to be social.

What if your parents did what they could to socialize you with other kids, and you chose not to interact with them? That was me.

What if your parents took you to counseling to see why you weren't a social kid, and that counseling didn't help? That was me.

I was born in 1970, we didn't have Nintendo, cell phones, or computers then, and my parents didn't abuse me, or fail to pay attention to me. They saw the red flags that I was not one to be social. They did what they could to keep me happy and content, and I will say I had a decent childhood. I had good Christmases, birthdays, and other holidays, and so on.

So, I respectfully disagree, that all parents should be held to this "child neglect" you speak of if your child is not one who likes to be social.

I guess I should add that yes, computers and cellphones have caused a lot more kids to just hide in their bedrooms and communicate that way.

 

[DesperateOne]

The neurodivergent, when socializing, often just encounter a lot of bullying. I had a fairly "healthy" upbringing socialization wise growing up, in terms of level of exposure to other children, was outside a lot, etc., but I never lost the "weirdo" marker. Internet socialization was actually highly important because I could meet some people like me. Modern "app" socialization is cancer, though, because it has the same markers as normal socialization but with no stoppers.

I agree with everything that you've said, but I disagree about that internet part. If you are a 10 year old kid and get into the internet, two things can happen. Either you have enough self control + self awareness to limit your time online automatically or you get completely absorbed by it, using it like an endless dopamine machine. Well I was the latter... I was suffering physically and mentally yet I still spent majority of my days alone, online for 12 hours per day and getting no sleep. I knew I was destroying my mind, but I just couldn't stop.

I cannot overstate the impact that did on my development. I was super impressionable and fell for all sorts of shit and it ended up shaping me into a cold antisocial narcissist that is completely disconnected with the real world and normal people.

Don't get me wrong, internet for a child can be an amazing thing. Like you've said, a lot of people have escaped onto it to find people who are similar to them and to push away the truma. I'm probably just a part of the small group of kids who went off the deep end.

 

[Unknown21]

I agree with everything you said. Not mingling creates a person who is unable to integrate into society. I suffer from this condition, especially in any job. I cannot stay in a job for more than 5 months. Most people see me as an eccentric.

 

[DesperateOne]

I agree with everything you said. Not mingling creates a person who is unable to integrate into society. I suffer from this condition, especially in any job. I cannot stay in a job for more than 5 months. Most people see me as an eccentric.

I feel like this as well. We are social creatures and our minds exist in this social space. You can't get away from that and expect to have a normal life. If you can't integrate into society, have friends and a eventually a relationship then what is the point exactly? You can work, do hobbies alone, watch shows, browse the web, but that can only work for so long.

 

[Unknown21]

Exactly, I also started to notice some strange things about me, such as my voice becoming strange because I almost never talk to anyone, so I don't hear them when I speak. I feel like my voice is really strange to me. Also, my mental abilities are constantly declining.
Like memory, quick wit, and especially short-term memory, I always cannot find the right words to say in the right situations...etc.

 

[allthatimsaying]

What if your parents did what they could to socialize you with other kids, and you chose not to interact with them? That was me.

What if your parents took you to counseling to see why you weren't a social kid, and that counseling didn't help? That was me.

Sorry, but I think what OP meant is that, if your parents in fact made all possible decisions to socialize their children with other kids, they tried and should not be punished.

Otherwise, they should be charged.

 

[thinvy]

not socializing you kid is neglect! yes!!!
I think I would've had a chance in life if I had just been allowed and able to have the opportunity to be around kids my age!!! obviously this is harder in super rural areas, but like. I didn't know a single other kid my age (aside from my neighbor from 1-3 miraculously) until I was like 5.

I had no clue how to "be a kid." it didn't help that I was clearly autistic either, so I never got to learn how to play "normally". I didn't know that what I was doing was "weird" and not how other kids played. I wasn't doing anything wrong, per say, but by the time I started going to school, I didn't know how to make friends. I didn't know how to deal with bullying. I didn't know how to deal with being left out. I only played with my older sibling occasionally, and my neighbor and I played outside. We couldn't run in class. I was also educationally advanced because I had nothing better to do, so when I got bored, my mom made me practice spelling and reading on my own. I wasn't even really smarter than my classmates, I just liked learning and started early, so I couldn't relate to them struggling through classwork.

I have always felt like an outcast. I moved a whole lot as a kid, which ruined any chances I had of building relationships, which meant starting over year after year, while my classmates had mostly known one another since kindergarten. I only really knew how to get along with adults, because the only stable presences in my life were my adult relatives, and all my many younger cousins who I and the like 3 older relatives were practically constantly responsible for.

I was so busy as a child trying to be the "good child" and the "easy kid" for years and years because the only people I knew how to please were adults, and they loved me (while I was small at least), which compounded the issue, because adults can't really usually teach kids how to be a kid.

I can count on two hands how many times I went to a public park NOT for a cousin's birthday just to hang out and be a kid before I turned 10. and that's kind of fucking sad. with all the moving I went through as well, I think I maybe had at most 12 friends across 5 schools by 5th grade. Only 5 of those I considered close friends. I don't think that's normal considering I knew hundreds of kids my age by then that I saw for 2/3s of a year.

now like yeah obviously by the time your kid is like 13, not much you can do to make them make friends, but I think OP is talking about situations like mine. I never got the chance to be a sociable kid

 

[26mmmm]

If you let your kid isolate himself from the rest of the world, you've gotta do something. If he has no friends and his only way of interacting with the world is through a computer screen, you've gotta do something. If he is not running around with his other peers in childhood/teenage years you are doing something extremely wrong.

If you miss all of these indicators and then your child grows up to be an unsociable friendless weirdo you don't get the right to question him why he is the way that he is. If he can't maintain a job you especially don't have the right to blame him for it. If you don't socialize your child it should be treated almost the same way as abuse.

You are creating a person that doesn't have the brains to get along with other people at all... He will always be a weirdo and be will always feel like something is deeply wrong with him. The chances of him finding deep close friendship or a relationship with the opposite sex is next to zero. The child will always be playing a catch up game never content with his life. You are essetially setting him up for a life that is not

worth living.

TLDR - Isolation can break people, especially young people, and set them back heavily. I definitely consider it abuse.

-

I relate with you alot, except my parents weren't necessarily abused themselves - all their siblings turned out just fine - and they do actually understand how harmful prolonged screen usage is yet all they ever did about it was complain, they never set any boundaries with me past a certain young age.

I wouldn't say I was weird as a kid but I definitely remember having some minor issues related to my self esteem and with socializing too, even before starting to spend lots of time isolated with screens.

However later on, at around the age of 13, I began spending way more time with screens and as a result was getting more and more isolated.
I had pretty awful social anxiety at the time, which could have been due to the isolation but even if it wasn't, the isolation probably made it alot worse.
I had a few friends at the time, but looking back there was no real friendship between us, I was never outgoing and barely did anything with anyone.

Later on, at around the age of 15, I managed to develop body dysmorphia and as a result depression. I had some suicidal ideations at the time but I would have never really considered it.

During that time I got even more isolated, to the point where I just stopped showing up to school for months on end.
All I did was be Infront of screens, and
by spending all day on the internet I eventually found out about gore and began binging it, which probably affected me in some way too.

Since then I've slowly started realizing how miserable I am, I have tried to fix my life in different ways but failed entirely, because I just wasn't equipped to do so.

Fast forward to today, at 18 years old, I have awful social anxiety, body dysmorphia, zero self esteem, no life, no friends, no love and no life experience.

I am also physically fucked from years of being sedentary and that's on top of being neglected physically in other ways and having pretty bad genetics.

A Good amount of my issues are simply in my head but alot aren't. I wish it would just be my mindset and past memories that were holding me back but that just isn't the case.

I am not completely isolated now but my only form of socializing now is school, but the school I go to now is small, and we learn at really small groups.

My parents broke me. They've set me back so much.
They've turned me into a sociopath.
Up until not long ago I was so full of hate I would just fantasize about killing anyone I didn't like, even if they had done me nothing wrong and I barely knew them.
I hated everything so deeply, my country, my school, my teachers, my past self, myself, my old friends etc. It was awful.

I have grown to resent my parents and that's an understatement.
Up until lately I was absolutely ready to do unspeakable things to them. I cant stand them, it is torture for me to be around them.
Whenever they enter my room I open the windows and leave for some time before coming back because I don't even want to smell them. When im around them I try to always have my headphones on because just hearing them from the other side of the house, without even understanding what they are saying, puts me in a shitty mood. And when I can hear what they are saying I just get mad. Everything that comes out of their mouths just further proves to me how awful they are as people and as parents. All they ever do is try and justify their worthlessness.


I have learnt alot lately, and have grown past the hate, atleast towards those that have done me nothing wrong. I still despise my parents but I try to ignore them the best I can.
I have finally accepted suicide as an option because I've realized I might just be too broken to fix.
It has brought me some peace but ultimately I would much rather live.

So, I want to improve myself to compensate for all the neglect so id be able to live a happy life, but I might not even be able to do that, everything sounds good on paper but practically its very different.

Even if I could start fixing myself, at the best case scenario ill probably be stuck with my parents till around the age of 30, because I have so much to work on before ill ever be capable of financially supporting myself, occupying myself with education and a career, moving out or anything like that.

So yes, isolation is horrible, especially when combined with bad parenting.


I wish I was exaggerating about my situation but the truth is that there's probably so much more that I could write about, however, im still in the process of realizing what I've been through and im not really good at writing or expressing myself so its tough to put my experience into words.

Just want to add that my parents were awful in other ways too, so isolation definitely hurt me more than it would hurt some others.

 

[mymarbles]

If you let your kid isolate himself from the rest of the world, you've gotta do something. If he has no friends and his only way of interacting with the world is through a computer screen, you've gotta do something. If he is not running around with his other peers in childhood/teenage years you are doing something extremely wrong.

If you miss all of these indicators and then your child grows up to be an unsociable friendless weirdo you don't get the right to question him why he is the way that he is. If he can't maintain a job you especially don't have the right to blame him for it. If you don't socialize your child it should be treated almost the same way as abuse.

You are creating a person that doesn't have the brains to get along with other people at all... He will always be a weirdo and be will always feel like something is deeply wrong with him. The chances of him finding deep close friendship or a relationship with the opposite sex is next to zero. The child will always be playing a catch up game never content with his life. You are essetially setting him up for a life that is not worth living.

no seriously

i have always been left home alone since starting grade school, completely left to myself often until dark, because wtf is guardianship. my mom refused entirely to spend time with me growing up, i felt like i just coexisted because my mom didn't didn't care to exchange words with me growing up i remember how often she would wrap her fingers around my neck and threaten to strangled to death. like, i'm a native english speaker but i often feel like english is my second or third language it's insanely debilitating. even if i had a sibling or if my mom let me see friends as a younger child, i feel like it could be different. it's just resulted in my isolating myself more and more as i got older

 

[ilovemydog]

If you let your kid isolate himself from the rest of the world, you've gotta do something. If he has no friends and his only way of interacting with the world is through a computer screen, you've gotta do something. If he is not running around with his other peers in childhood/teenage years you are doing something extremely wrong.

If you miss all of these indicators and then your child grows up to be an unsociable friendless weirdo you don't get the right to question him why he is the way that he is. If he can't maintain a job you especially don't have the right to blame him for it. If you don't socialize your child it should be treated almost the same way as abuse.

You are creating a person that doesn't have the brains to get along with other people at all... He will always be a weirdo and be will always feel like something is deeply wrong with him. The chances of him finding deep close friendship or a relationship with the opposite sex is next to zero. The child will always be playing a catch up game never content with his life. You are essetially setting him up for a life that is not worth living.

I think each child mirrors their "role model" parent. So if your child is isolating on their own, the parents need to reflect on their own social lives

 

[Cheesecake]

I was set up for failure. i only met people in kindergarden where i hid under play equipment for 3 recesses (3 days) before someone pitied me enough to talk to me. i talk 2 much, cant pick up on a SINGLE social cue and cant tell when some1 hates me bc they hang around bc they think im sped. i sit at my computer from when my day starts till when it ends and i have never had a single real friend. im an only child and neither of my parents have/had friends. it was joever from the start

 

[hibikikyuxx]

Majority of humanity shouldn't be parents and this is one of the many reasons. Most parents only want children for the sake of having control over someone who can't defend themself. There are so many orphans out there with no parents, but people would rather want to have mini versions of themselves, and make the planet even more overpopulated than it already is.

 

[kavina]

If you let your kid isolate himself from the rest of the world, you've gotta do something. If he has no friends and his only way of interacting with the world is through a computer screen, you've gotta do something. If he is not running around with his other peers in childhood/teenage years you are doing something extremely wrong.

If you miss all of these indicators and then your child grows up to be an unsociable friendless weirdo you don't get the right to question him why he is the way that he is. If he can't maintain a job you especially don't have the right to blame him for it. If you don't socialize your child it should be treated almost the same way as abuse.

You are creating a person that doesn't have the brains to get along with other people at all... He will always be a weirdo and be will always feel like something is deeply wrong with him. The chances of him finding deep close friendship or a relationship with the opposite sex is next to zero. The child will always be playing a catch up game never content with his life. You are essetially setting him up for a life that is not worth living.

My sister was socialized as extrovert attention seeker and she took drugs and drank, had sex and stayed out ran away and made everyone miserable for all her socializing then came home pregnant and we spent years raising her kid so she could keep up that crap and have more kids and never get a job, yay for socializing. I'd rather be the introvert. I stayed away from all that and was the adult in a child's body. socializing is way overrated. Extroverts are desperate for it every minute but introverts are not abnormal or unhealthy for not needing or wanting it constantly. Silence is a beautiful thing and the landscape of your own mind is vast. I never had a friend who didn't let me down anyway. We do not need friends.
im old. This all happened in the 80s. There were no computers and apps and cell phones. I read a million library books and loved them. I was a quiet kid and the weirdo but anyone will get that if they're intellectual and cerebral and not a sanguine. My iq was 140 at 12 and I was tested and in 98th percentile for reading. Socializing was not interesting to me as I was busy trying to learn. Other kids were distracting.i preferred adult company. I went to regular school and it was hell.

 

[FlyingFR]

If you let your kid isolate himself from the rest of the world, you've gotta do something. If he has no friends and his only way of interacting with the world is through a computer screen, you've gotta do something. If he is not running around with his other peers in childhood/teenage years you are doing something extremely wrong.

If you miss all of these indicators and then your child grows up to be an unsociable friendless weirdo you don't get the right to question him why he is the way that he is. If he can't maintain a job you especially don't have the right to blame him for it. If you don't socialize your child it should be treated almost the same way as abuse.

You are creating a person that doesn't have the brains to get along with other people at all... He will always be a weirdo and be will always feel like something is deeply wrong with him. The chances of him finding deep close friendship or a relationship with the opposite sex is next to zero. The child will always be playing a catch up game never content with his life. You are essetially setting him up for a life that is not worth living.

you just described my life

 

[DesperateOne]

I was set up for failure. i only met people in kindergarden where i hid under play equipment for 3 recesses (3 days) before someone pitied me enough to talk to me. i talk 2 much, cant pick up on a SINGLE social cue and cant tell when some1 hates me bc they hang around bc they think im sped. i sit at my computer from when my day starts till when it ends and i have never had a single real friend. im an only child and neither of my parents have/had friends. it was joever from the start

Very similar over here... I had everything I wanted materially, except the two things that matter the most, a non neglectful parents and a social life. They tried some things, but I feel like after a while they just gave up lol...

I guess they were so in their own heads/traumas and undersocialized that they didn't notice the extremely obvious warning signs of their kid. I wish I could've actually had a parental figure and the chance to be a real person.

 

[cold_severance]

i actually was thinking about children who were raised in the basement too. in comparison to my own family like how much of a monster you're, if your worse than that?

 

[Unsure and Useless]

I think some responsibility falls onto the parent to help their child find a place where they can fit in.

My parents did try to socialize me when I was younger for a brief period in time, but I feel like it was because they were trying to make me fit in with a bunch of kids that I didn't really mesh well with that I also became reluctant to interact with others. I was the stereotypical "weird kid" even during when my parents pushed me to interact with others because not many kids my age shared my hobbies in addition to the possibility that I was—and, if this is the case, still am—neurodivergent. After that, my parents just gave up on me and let me do my own thing.

Socializing your kid is important, yes, but it's even more important to make sure that you help them find their "place" in a community. (I don't know how to put it into words.) Otherwise, forcing them to adhere to every single societal standard will either teach them to mask their true self in order to fit in or to resent society.

Although, I agree with you on everything else. Nowadays, I'm a hermit due to my social ineptitude. Whenever I have to leave my home, I always have my earphones in because I can't stand the sound of other people communicating with each other since it reminds me of what I'm incapable of doing. In conversation with other people, I am unable to pick up social cues, and since my own reflection was my only source of communicating with another entity, which has plenty of problems, I grew up into a self-absorbed, resentful, and rude piece of shit. Fortunately, I have friends, but I can count the number of them on one hand and the friends of those friends don't like me that much, not that I blame them.

Sometimes, I wish that I was normal. I would be able to make friends and deal with my emotions normally. Maybe in that world, I wouldn't be on this site.

I feel like one of my friends put it best as to why nobody likes me: "No one likes because you only talk about your own problems, and you don't care about anyone else."

Hell, even typing all of this makes me feel socially inept and self-absorbed.

 

[undesirednlazy]

fully agree, i honestly hate how much i can be considered a good obedient child when i dont have any friends i can meet in person and hangout with. I wish i had the experience of sneaking out in the middle of the night to spray paint with friends. evryone else i know who is not doing as well academically has friends and a personhood thwy can fully embody that i dont have

 

[returntothevoid]

I got this from JP, but essentially if your parents don't socialize you properly by the time you are 4 you are basically looking for a life filled with rejection and suffering. If you don't learn those very foundational human communication behaviours that get you accepted by your peers you will either always be weirdo or be straight up fucked depending on how bad the parenting was. If you isolate yourself as a child/teenager for months or even years then your peers just outgrow you in every single regard.

I was always wondering why I am the way that I am... Why is it that every time I talk to someone it feels like pulling teeth? Why am I getting weird looks, awkward silences and everyone ignoring me? Why does everyone just use me as a laughing stock and then leave me as soon as somebody better comes along? Why does my social anxiety never get better? Why do I shutdown in almost every social situation?

Well, it turns out that giving an already weird 10 year old a phone, allowing him to isolate himself and get addicted is not such a good strategy after all...

What would I do? If you see that your kid can't get along with other kids and is alone/closed off, get him help asap... Maybe he is just in a wrong school or wrong group that doesn't match his personality. If you figure that's not the case, get him professional help. Also, limit/control screen time and allow full autonomy over screens at like 15 years old.

My parents missed the indicators since I think they were too busy with themselves, work and overall just didn't realize the damage isolation/screens can do. On top of that my mom also severely lacks social skills and came from an abusive household. My dad was an alcoholic (he quit a couple of years back) and grew up without a father + a helicopter mom. I empathize with them and they are soldiers, but yeah... raising a kid with so much weight on you is probably not such a good idea.

Sorry, I don't know you, but have you ever possibly tried to get an autism spectrum diagnosis? Or even just looked into high functioning Aspergers ? Apparently the suicide rate for people on the spectrum is remarkably high, for this exact reason, because they cannot socialize properly and feel isolated and disconnected from others their whole lives. Girls especially do not get diagnosed a lot of the time because it presents differently and high functioning ones tend be very good at masking symptoms, but it is still very stressful for them to do so.

 

[timeless001]

I think parents are only responsible in preschool years. Kids naturally start to form their own groups when they are in school. You can't really blame your parents for being a shut-in during your teenage years.

 

[26mmmm]

I think parents are only responsible in preschool years. Kids naturally start to form their own groups when they are in school. You can't really blame your parents for being a shut-in during your teenage years.

I personally disagree.
As a child I was socialized just fine, but since my early teenage years my parents just sat me Infront of screens for the majority of the day.
I didn't know any better and couldn't really make good decisions for myself. I was addicted. Why would I want to socialize if I could just play video games all day long?
I wasn't the most social in the first place and had some self esteem related issues too, so that really messed me up.
You could say that past a certain age I could have started making better decisions for myself, but I really couldn't. The isolation ruined me. I had awful social anxiety and zero self esteem, so I just kept isolating. Its an awful rabbit hole.
Might be different for others but that's just my case. Some people might prefer to be isolated but I just couldn't socialize, so I had to.

 

[timeless001]

My parents probably shouldn't have allowed a computer with internet access in my room without monitoring my activity or using any kind of filter. But I also knew kids who also had this freedom and didn't become shut-ins. I think it's only an issue for kids who tend to be more introverted and have untreated trauma.

 

[26mmmm]

My parent probably shouldn't have allowed a computer with internet access in my room without monitoring my activity or using any kind of filter. But I also knew kids who also had this freedom and didn't become shut-ins. I think it's only an issue for kids who tend to be more introverted and are have untreated trauma.

Yeah, my parents were bad outside of just the isolation, I've had some mild social anxiety and like I said self esteem issues beforehand too.

 

[DesperateOne]

I personally disagree.
As a child I was socialized just fine, but since my early teenage years my parents just sat me Infront of screens for the majority of the day.
I didn't know any better and couldn't really make good decisions for myself. I was addicted. Why would I want to socialize if I could just play video games all day long?
I wasn't the most social in the first place and had some self esteem related issues too, so that really messed me up.
You could say that past a certain age I could have started making better decisions for myself, but I really couldn't. The isolation ruined me. I had awful social anxiety and zero self esteem, so I just kept isolating. Its an awful rabbit hole.
Might be different for others but that's just my case. Some people might prefer to be isolated but I just couldn't socialize, so I had to.

No, you are completely right... Parents are suppose to be there for you from the moment you were born to the time you reach 18. If they can't do that, they shouldn't even have a child to begin with... Parenting is NOT just "oh let's socialize and monitor our kid until he reaches school age, then we can say fuck it and zone out". It's a subtle monitoring all the way through to 18. If you see rapid changes in behavior, isolation tendencies, socialization issues, addiction, you immediately step in *HARD* and fix that problem before it gets worse or even unrecoverable. That is literally their job, they are the grown ups!!

Much like you, I started isolating in my early teen years (I was around 11). My parents sat me in front of the TV, gave me PSP, bought me a PC with unrestricted internet access and guess what happened? I got VERY addicted (my fathers addiction genes probably didn't help here). In school my brains were fried from too much screen use and lack of sleep, so I couldn't really talk with anyone, because I was in my own world and totally disconnected. I tried forming connections, but I was just that weirdo kid that everyone ignored. The development of the "self" or any kind of proper mental functioning got completely halted...

Besides a few cord pulls and yelling, nothing concrete was ever really done, so I ended up figuring that nobody can or really wants to stop me. This just made me keep zoning out in school and plugging myself back into the online world the moment I got home. My social kick came out of Twitch streamers and Youtubers which was apparently enough for me...

Since I got that social interaction from the online world I fell down some pretty weird paths, ideologies, content creators and other stuff, which ended up with me attaching myself to antisocial loser streamers who were making clowns out of themselves for views. I was a young, stupid and impressionable kid, so I decided to mirror those personalities and adopt them in real life. That's how I went through my entire elementary and high school days. I genuinely thought that was the way to act...

It's fucking wild now that I think about it... I literally copied weirdo online people and applied their personalities to myself. Unsurprisingly that didn't mesh at all with normal folks, but since that was the only socialization that I had I didn't think much of it... My personality through out my growing up period moved according to what I watched online. I'm literally a definition of a hollow husk that got grown in a pod full of screens. A life completely wasted. Fuck this shit...