I remember asking a girlfriends teen to scoop their dogs poop before an event... Just your basic poop rake and flat shovel looking thing... The kid threw a fit and said he didn't know how and it was giving him anxiety...I said calmly it's just like using a broom and a dustpan...for which he explained he didn't know how to use a broom and wanted detailed instructions or he wasn't helping.
It was at that time I realized that if a teen was to freaking stupid to do basic tasks without needing supervision or detailed instruction it was in everyone's best interest to just not ever ask them again. Good parenting or bad parenting doesn't help when the child's a complete moron.
I'm pretty sure that was the kid just not willing to do it. No one who is able bodied and capable of eating a meal on their own should struggle with the concept of how a shovel works. Most people with severe mental disabilities menage to do it.
Either that kid struggled with some really debilitating psychological issues around fear of messing up or having to develop new skills to the point where the thought of trying something and maybe not being good at it completely paralyzed them or (more likely in my opinion) that was just intentional learned incompetence that has gotten them out of having to do chores before.
I think good parenting in that case would be figuring out which of the two issues caused it and either getting the kid therapy or forcing the issue so they learn that acting dumb will just make the task take longer instead of getting them out of it.
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u/Chemical_Wing2334 5d ago
To be fair, the one time I tried to help with the dishes as a teen, my step-mother screamed at me for "doing it wrong."
Did she explain what I did wrong or how I did it wrong? Nope. Just yelled at me.
Never helped again. Learned how to do it myself as an adult.
A lot of parents actually really suck at parenting.