[gitmo]

It's easy to be a good parent to a great kid. It is MUCH harder to be a good parent to a kid with difficulties.

I agree. Sometimes parents have to honestly admit there was nothing they could have done. Sometimes in the Nature vs Nurture battle, Nature wins.

[Quix]

I could, to a point, say yes,

IN THEORY.

I've just NEVER seen it.

And,

on the other hand, were that to be as true as some make it out to be, then The Bible would be lying when it says . . . train up a child in the way that child should go, [taking into account that child's nature, bent, personality, preferences, skills, abilities, deficits etc] AND when he is old, he WILL NOT DEPART FROM IT.

I have seen abundant evidence of that.

Now, true, many parents have done above average jobs. Yet, if one super sensitive, super needy, demanding or 'cross-ways with self/life/earth/and society type kid doesn't get

SUFFICIENT

whatever it takes from the parents, then there will be trouble.

But I have always found that persistently such kids HAVE BEEN unnecessarily and persistently provoked to wrath and usually also hoplessness in a LIST of ways--even by way above average parents.