I've seen so many bratty kids with great parents and so many great kids with meh to terrible parents, to the point that I now believe that the quality of parenting a child receives isn't necessarily correlated with their behaviour. Some kids have a natural tendency towards feeling overwhelmed by emotions, aggression, defiance, and havoc. Other kids have a natural tendency towards harmony, reason, and compliance. Sometimes with siblings who were raised with the same rules, expectations and nurturing, you have one kid who is super challenging and one kid who is super easy.

I experienced this myself with my son. He is a great kid that has no behavioral problems. It has been years since he did anything remotely worthy of discipline. He's an adept communicator, helpful, tactful and sensitive towards the feelings of others. He is an excellent student and friend. His father and I are often praised for his behavior, but the truth is we're very okay-ish parents. Some things I am really proud of, like my ability to parent without getting angry or upset, and the level of respect and dignity I give to his feelings and personhood.

But this is in many ways a response to parenting the kind of person he is. He's always been responsive to communication and logic, even as a really small kid, so I never felt like I had to yell or lay down the law. In many other ways I'm extremely lazy. I let him game all day on the weekends if he wants to and seldom check his homework. We eat fast food 1-3x a week. During the winter we barely go outside. I don't encourage him to read or exercise as much as I should. (I am working on these things a bit at a time.) His abilities have almost nothing to do with me.

I will say that I think the right parenting strategy can bring out the best in a kid and the wrong parenting strategy can bring out the worst in a kid. But what the 'best' and 'worst' means is highly dependent on a kid's natural temperament. If a kid has an explosive temper that's not something even the best parent can remedy overnight. It might take years of coaxing them through different strategies of keeping their temper in check before the kid manages to get it somewhat under control.

It bugs the crap out of me when people claim that bratty kids are the victims of bad parenting. I just don't think it's true and even scientific data says I'm correct, but it's such a prevalent fallacy in our society.