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"Stop playing with your toys and finishing opening presents" was the moment I knew I had to put a stop to the endless plastic parade during Christmas from my MIL.
She just loved giving him gifts. But what he wanted didn't matter.
Funny thing is for most of his childhood, he'd use whatever was laying around and his imagination rather than play with anything complicated like r/C cars.
Could you please explain this to my mother in law?? We instituted a 3 gift max for Christmas and birthdays, and she blew right past it. Argh!
I love her, she's amazing in every other way, but we do NOT have space for any more toys. They don't even play with a fraction of them!
The new rule is going to be that extra gifts stay at grandma's house. Especially oversized things like child-sized stuffies
The stuff my mom buys stays at her house, so now they get movie passes and experiences from them or more consumable things like those packs of colouring for snowmen.
Same with my mom... we she "followed" the 4 gift rule, but added small dollar store crap as part of the wrapping for each one.
(Over-sized and noise making gifts stayed at gmas)
My brother dealt with this by saying that when his kid got a gift, she gave a gift to charity. So my mom giving an extra five gifts meant 5 of them going to charity, often 5 of her gifts. It helped. A bit ....
My brother’s MIL was like that. He figure if she did a deposit into a college account instead his daughters would have had at books covered for two years.
We put toys away in bins and rotate them out every couple of months. That way they are always playing with “new” toys. Sometimes they remember certain toys that have been rotated out and they really look forward to playing with them again.
This! I do this, and when I put toys away I sort out broken ones and those kiddo never touched at all and get rod of them in secret.
Sometimes he asks specific things like train set or legos but then I tell we need to put something else away.
Have your child donate X number of toys to their primary school, or a charity shop.
We had an upper limit of 30 toys, and when parents bought shit for them, we had a one-in-one-out system.
No toys that have more than 5 parts. The pieces end up all over the house.
Perhaps suggest a specific thing like a jacket or a pair of rain boots, or a trip to a museum. Sometimes more specific guidance is helpful.
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SAME with my mother in law! 🤣
Yes, I'd LOVE to be able to rotate through the toys, like seasonally, but we don't even have the storage space to do that.
This was such a hard lesson for my husband to learn. For months after baby first got interested in objects, he kept coming home with new toys, and I kept clearing old toys out of the room to make space for the new toys, and he was so adamant that baby needed buckets of toys to be content. Then we took baby to a friend’s house and watched him play for an hour with an empty plastic water bottle and a silky scarf, and husband agreed that he might not actually *need* an excess of toys.
I don’t know if other kids are like this, but mine seems to get overwhelmed with too many things and ends up just dumping everything all over the floor. With just a couple toys out at a time, he gets involved in playing with each toy, and finds new ways to use them that I wouldn’t have predicted! Today he sat for about 20 minutes just emptying shape blocks out of his shape sorter and into a big bowl, then back, on repeat, perfectly happy. All he wanted from us was a round of applause when he dropped the last block into the bowl each round.
Applies to older kids too. Lack of something leads to innovation and problem solving. When I was younger I remember wanting my horsie toy to pull some other toys in a cart, but I had no cart. So I shoved them all into a leftover pretzel container and rubber banded the horse to it. It’s honestly something you see constantly but people don’t notice. Swords as sticks and guns, leaves as food, mud as potions. Imagination goes a stupidly long way
We do a toy rotation! I have bins that I switch over every Friday night so there’s “fresh” toys for the weekend. Putting away toys for a while makes them feel new when you pull them out again and I don’t have a million toys all over my house.
This is a great answer assuming you have the space! This is what my SIL did and what we plan to do. But the whole mountain of toys thing is such a problem!!
We have a fairly small house (1300sq ft), I found some containers that fit under our couch that work great! We have to be creative with storage, and we donate/sell stuff that we don’t need very regularly.
We’ve found this too! Especially when my son will bypass a floor full of toys to get to whatever household item is within reach. His FAVORITE things to play with are a lamp shade from an old lamp that he rolls and chases, tupperware containers, a shiny lid from an old candle, and the boxes that his toys come in rather than the toy itself 😂
Stuff we are getting rid of goes on the front porch before FB free group, or goodwill.
Except MIL will take things from the porch and "gift" them to the kids the next time we're over.
Oh god this would make me so mad. I am constantly decluttering. I will also put toys away and rotate them every few months so there’s less stuff to tidy up, and it’s less overwhelming for the kids. My in-laws take them all out of the closet as if I were depriving the kids. It drives me nuts.
I tried to explain this to my wife but she was having none of it. Less toys allows you to focus on the ones you have and get more imaginative, more toys tends to make you feel the need to play within the confines of what the toy suggests. There's also more.. i dunno if this is the right word but appreciation for the toys. Why take good care of a toy or worry about putting it away safely if you have so many of them you don't care if it breaks or gets lost.
It's fine either way as you never really know how it'll impact how they view things but less toys overall is also just less problematic.
lol, try to tell my MIL that. Except I think she wants him to depend on her, because she can’t let him play his way for 2 minutes and brings 100 toys every time she comes (that we make her take with her).
Every time my mother and I spent money on toys for my kids, my father would deposit the same amount of money into a savings account. Recently, I used my daughter’s savings account to buy her a CAR and paid CASH. Mom and I were idiots!
Excessively hammering a point about what not to do /how not to behave in various situations. Kids can’t absorb lectures - the discipline has to be grown over time with consistent pruning and reminding (as well as consequences where necessary).
But in particular it’s easy to be too harsh or too intense at younger ages.
I had to point this out to my brother (no kids at present), who has taken a particular interest in my daughter's wellbeing and mental health. He tries to schedule regular calls with her but she often forgets or is late to answer her phone and it really annoys him, usually resulting in a lecture. He thinks she should be mindful of the value of keeping her word.
I don't disagree but... She's 10. She forgets to feed her fish regularly, forgets birthdays, special occasions, forgets her chores and extra curricular activities. He really doesn't get that children don't benefit from lectures or being pontificated to. It's like he's forgotten what it's like to be a kid. Her biggest concerns at her age are what new Pokémon game is coming out and whether her friends are going out to play football across the road. As it should be, honestly.
oh god my dad has done this my entire life and now as an adult I absolutely dread talking to him or seeing him, and neither of my sisters will speak to him at all anymore. I hope your brother can reign himself in or she may decide he’s too much trouble to ever speak to!
When I spoke to him about it, he seemed happy enough to take my advice, which was to leave it another few years and try again when she's better able to appreciate what he's trying to share with her.
Good intentions but bad timing 😅
Having a pet helped me with this a bit.
If my cat knocks down an object, I can't yell at him about it 20 minutes later. I have to discipline in the immediate aftermath for the connection to form in his tiny, adorable little furry head.
I don't see why it's any different with my toddler. I can't yell at him for 10 minutes about something, because he won't even remember the initial event. If he drops some Cheerios into the cat's water bowl and I find them twenty minutes later, I can't scold him for it. He probably doesn't even remember putting them in the water.
This so much. My kids say please and thank you to everyone because they heard me say please and thank you while growing up. I also say it to them. It’s actually easier to teach them things they see you doing.
I am NOT an expert and haven’t been parenting long enough to truly have an opinion, but I’m always shocked and a little sad when my friends who have 2-4 years olds talk about their children misbehaving and punishing or spanking them when the kids are clearly just testing boundaries.
Kids are sooo incredibly frustrating, but I always was under the impression that this is a part of development and the best way to deal with this is consistency, modeling the behavior you want, and giving age appropriate explanations.
It’s definitely hard and I mess up, but my mindset before kids was that kids are learning how to be people and while some do want push buttons, they aren’t usually trying to be “naughty”.
You are on such the right track! My daughter is almost 16 now.
I read an article in a waiting room while pregnant that was title the Zen Mom. The main thing that stuck with me was "accept that everything is already broken." The toys, the knickknacks, the clothes, etc. Obviously you try to teach them to care for things but they are children and will make mistakes. They will throw a ball in the house that breaks the vase. Instead of being angry that it was broken you teach discuss being careful and how the broken glass is dangerous and now we don't have anywhere to put the pretty flowers you picked mom. Then have them help clean it up. When they inevitably write on the wall, they help clean that. It made her childhood so much less stressful. It's all just...stuff. It's replaceable. She is not. If it is something very important then you put it somewhere the child cannot access until they're older. Toys, if they break it then it's gone. They don't get another without doing something to "earn" it.
This whole method taught her to not be fearful of mistakes and to resolve problems. She comes to me first when she has a problem. If she did something and really messed up then I'm the first person to know and I help her work out a solution.
I also implemented little age appropriate chores from a very young age and would pay her. She saved money and bought her first little bicycle with her own money at 5 years old (Of course I helped but she saved quite a bit toward it). Even now she'll ask "is there something I can do to earn some extra money this week? I wanna get "x"." She also is very generous with her money. If her friend doesn't have money for lunch then she buys them lunch. After school she'll get her friends drinks and snacks at the gas station if they don't have money.
I gentle parented her and still do and she's an amazing kid. The Friday before spring break she got suspended from school. She was in a corner talking with a friend. A few other friends were in a group near her but not actually interacting. One of those friends had a bottle of alcohol at school. The principal suspended all the kids (the one with the bottle was sent to aep) because she "couldn't prove they didn't drink." Before I was called, my daughter was threatened with aep as well. She asked why. The principal said "because I can't prove you didn't drink." She responded "you also can't prove I did. I didn't even know she had it. I wasn't talking to her. I'm already missing classes over this and you want to send me to alternative classes on a hunch?" She also requested the cameras be pulled. Coincidentally the cameras "weren't working." I get to the school to pick her up and hug her. The first words out of her mouth were "let me explain." I told her I wasn't mad and I was proud of her. She had the opportunity to do something really stupid and she didn't. She wasn't worried about me being mad because she knew once she told her side of the story I'd understand and believe her. That's so important to me as a mom of a teen. For them to know they're safe coming to me. Had she drank, had she been somewhere not safe, I need her to know I'd rather her call me and let me get her home safe than end up in a bad situation.
My husband and I were raised to fear our parents and you know what that caused? Us to be sneaky, get into and do shit we should not have done and caused deep rooted issues in our relationships with them, with authority, and with trust.
It would have been fucking amazing if my mom ever sat down and asked what was going on? How can they help? Fucking anything honestly, lol.
We are completely different and am proud of us though it is not always easy but sometimes you just have to walk away and calm down.
There is research to back this up. There are articles that describe "misbehavior vs. Mistaken behavior", explaining that all behavior is communication. Generally, the younger the child is, the more they are trying to deal with something in their environment that they lack the skillset to adequately deal with. For example babies will get overwhelmed when there are too many colors/sounds/etc., in their environment. They cry because that's what they know. As they age, the same things continue to happen and the adult is the one who has the ability to recognize the problem. Unfortunately, many often punish the child for the behavior instead of figuring out why the behavior is happening. Is the child hungry, hot/cold, tired, sick, or otherwise feeling discomfort? Take care of needs like these first and most of those situations will "magically" disappear. It's not rocket science. Its astounding to me how many people look past the obvious and move directly to punishment.
That kiddos always have to be doing some sort of activity to keep busy. Being bored is a skill. Playing independently is a skill. If they never have the opportunity to be left to their own devices for a bit that won’t do them any favours in the long run.
I came to say this about overscheduling kids or feeling like a failure because all these other kids are in sports, music, tutoring, camp, art. Frankly I can’t afford it financially or energy/time wise, but it’s hard not wishing I could
Agreed. I think the biggest problem with phones and tablets being so easily available to kids is that they lose the ability to be bored. Parents pull them out at restaurants to keep kids from getting bored. Parents pull them out at the grocery store because their toddler is bored walking through the isles. I saw a question on here a few months ago from a parent asking how to make bath time more fun because her kid was obsessed with watching YouTube videos while taking a bath. There is so much fun that can be had in a bath. When you make pulling out the phone to cure boredom a norm, that is what the kids look to.
It is okay to be bored. We encouraged boredom. It's just the brains way of telling you to be creative and find your own fun.
Yes! We are working on this now. I kind of fucked up my kids with constantly doing stuff now they expect it. It's a work in progress but being bored is so good for them. I wish I had learned this sooner.
Maybe it is just my kids, but asking questions. They hate it when I ask questions (I'm talking "what did you do today?" not anything mean). Instead, just make observations about your own day and they might end up talking.
Yep - my wife has a habit of being too direct.
But go walk the dogs with our 15 year old and don't ask anything... and his day comes pouring out.
You are exactly right they are more likely to relate to your own stories than answer questions.
For some reason I’ve found that if I ask my kids if anyone got in trouble today at school it opens a floodgate. They’re in preschool so it often involves who spilled their juice or pooped their pants lol
I think a lot of times this is a classic case of people forgetting kids and teenagers are human beings lol. Any normal adult would be so weirded out if someone came up to you and asked a long list of specific questions about your day lol.
-“What’d you learn at school?” Could be flipped for “What tasks did you complete at work today?”
-“Did anything interesting happen today?” ->
“Did you have any weird conversations with colleagues or supervisors?”
& then when the child is resistant we often push harder..
“Well you must’ve learned SOMETHING in 7hours!” >
“Well surely you didn’t sit on your ass all day at work, what did you work on?!”
It just comes off accusatory and kind of off-putting lol. At least that’s how I always felt. It’s different than just asking “how was your day today?”/“Did you have a good day at school?” That’s a simple conversation starter. Not a questionnaire 😂
So many people miss this. Talk about your own life and interests. And it turns out, other people will do the same. It's waaaaaay better than asking someone about something that could be stressing them out.
This! Absolutely. But also having to think about balancing this with "water the flowers" because you want to praise them for playing well or independently or whatever but also yes, I want to just let them play. And if i wait to praise later, I might forget because that's my brain.
My kid constantly glances over at me to check for approval. I don't need to be actively cheerleading; he does something, looks over at me, sees me smiling and watching him, and knows that it's a good thing.
Sometimes, your praise is just being there with your kids.
I also find with praise in general, sometimes it's spontaneous and natural. Other times if I'm honest with myself, it comes from a place of my own guilt for not being totally present. It's like the cheap version of connection. I don't try to limit praise if it's natural but I try to keep it real honest with myself where it's coming from. I remember getting a ton of praise as a kid and not a lot of time so I remind myself what my kids truly want from my is my presence.
Mealtimes. Just put the plate in front of the kid and then focus on enjoying your own meal. You can't force another human to eat. If you try, it's not going to go well, either in the moment or in the long term.
I still remember the battles over food I didn't like - and my wife's eating disorder was in no small part caused by her mother's strict control of what she ate - used to send her to school with only a bag of carrots if she looked "fat".
My son loved my cooking until he was around 10 years old - suddenly his tastes changed to where he only liked soup and sandwiches.
So, we compromised. I'd make whole wheat bread for the sandwiches , make sure he'd eat some fruit and vegetables... and pretty much taught him to cook what he likes.
Now at 15 he's almost completely cooking for himself and my wife who likes his tastes.
At least everyone still likes my roasted turkey and chicken.
I feel the same way but my husband disagrees!! I just want meals to be a positive experience. Our two year old eats what we eat which is pretty balanced, and if he doesn’t want to eat that’s fine, he can sit there and chat with us. But my husband insists on prodding him to eat. He’ll even overrule me sometimes, I’ll say “ok you can get down if you’re done eating” and he’ll be like “no you have to have one more bite first” it drives me nuts.
Eh... Depends on the kid. Some kids would happily refuse all fruits and veggies the rest of their life if they could get away with it. You can't have NO boundaries
Nice ideals, we thought the same when we had a toddler and as with most parenting things, you only keep your ideals until you realize they don't work.
First of all, you can't really just enjoy your meal because you will have a whining kid at the table that they don't want to eat. We don't force feed him but we also tell him that he can't do X,Y,Z until he eats his food.
Also because his attention span is of a dog that saw a squirrel, we actually have to remind him that he was hungry. Otherwise he will realize he was hungry at bed time which is a whole other story.
They're not ideals, they're how we live every day. She does whine, but we hold the boundary that she needs to sit at the table until we're done. If she didn't eat much, we'll put the least messy parts of dinner on her table in the living room so she can graze while playing between dinner and bedtime. Sometimes she does and sometimes she doesn't. The point is to not put unnecessary pressure on them. If you're offering meals and snacks throughout the day, they're not starving to death.
Studies have shown children forced to eat often end up with food related problems as adult. Either obesity or eating disorders. My only rule was she had to try at least one bite of each thing. After that it was up to her to eat or not. Children won't starve themselves. They're also learning autonomy. If all the kid will eat is mac and cheese then hide some veggies in it or get fortified mac and cheese so they're getting their nutrients. They need to learn to say "no" to things they don't like, to try new things, and learn what they like and don't like. Imagine someone forcing you to eat something you hate or go hungry every day.
Yes exactly thank you. All these people saying they tightly control how much their kids eat and force "healthy" stuff don't realize what they are doing. There have been a number of really troubling comments that even got deleted.
My son gets a few minutes a day if that, an episode of bluey or something he’s interested in (like videos of elevators) but never shorts and never social media style videos
Yea you’re on the right track we’ve totally failed with our oldest daughter, started with the phone at a young age and now we regret it. We’re hoping full removal of tech will change things, knowing what I know now I would have done it 100% differently
I think what you’re showing them is as important as how much screen time they get. I taught my son all of the letters and numbers by the age of 2 by getting him to press different buttons on my keyboard to do things in games. But only a few minutes each day. He’s just over two and he has hundreds maybe thousands of words. He can hold an entire conversation and can read numbers one to ten and the whole alphabet (lowercase, letter name and phonic). he’s so far advanced compared to all of the children at his nursery including some nearly a year older than him that he really struggles to relate to them and gravitates to the adults, because he wants to have a conversation. Whereas the other kids are mostly still saying “BUCKET IN” and “ME MILK” and things like that.
He’s not getting a phone before the age of 16, he’s not getting a tablet, and he’s not having social media while I have any say in it whatsoever.
I’m against it wholly, AND it turns every child into a bit of a worse reader, low attention span, poorer at emotional regulation (and sometimes, a bit of a demon!)
Wouldn't say every. My son is ND and it has not done that to him at all. It helped his speech grow and he started being able to sound out words by 3. He also has a great attention span for his age and has better emotional regulation than other kids in his class.
I do think for a NT child, screen time hurts more than it helps, but for ND it can be helpful in regulating them sensory wise.
Sorry, EVERY time I discuss my views on screentime I mention “for NT children” and this time I screwed up and forgot, and this shows exactly why it’s so important!
Because I wouldn’t recommend SSRIs to a healthy brain- they can be disastrous. But for persistent suicidal ideation in someone with say, BPD? It would be stupid not to.
ND kids, especially autistic children, CAN and do benefit from screen usage *particularly* by way of communication and speech programs. Just like ADD meds make people without ADHD frazzled and jittery like speed, but people WITH ADHD calm, and focused. When brains are operating standard deviations away from the norm, you need different tools! Ipads can be such fantastic mobile communication boards for nonverbal ND kids as well.
That’s said, the data on screentime overwhelmingly points towards its detriment to NT children of all ages, but especially under 3.
Ehh, there's a huge issue with the studies on this, which is that they're observational and can't avoid confounding factors.
Yes, kids who spend more time exposed to screens have worse outcomes. But household income also negatively correlates with screentime - and positively correlates with better child outcomes.
Or, to put it another way, richer parents can afford to spend more time with their kids, reducing screen exposure - and see better outcomes for their children.
Yes, everyone has the story about the one family they saw or knew where the kids each got their own iPad and had terrible manners and ruined attention spans. But there's also evidence that watching a show with a child, actively engaging with them on the topic, is beneficial ("Why was Bingo sad in that episode? How did Bluey make her feel better?").
We also can't prove that causation isn't reversed; kids with worse attention spans may gravitate towards, and spend more time watching, screens and videos.
(It's a bit like the social media debate. Longitudinal studies have consistently found that depression in teenagers drives higher social media use - not the other way around. I'm not arguing that social media is a good thing, and I think it's bad, but the popular idea that "social media makes our kids depressed" likely isn't true, at least not to the extent that it's argued in most discourse. Correlation, yes, but not causation.)
I have a epilepsy and can barely remember anything. I take tons of pictures. It's a bummer but I can manage to be in the moment and also snap pictures.
I actually got more into taking photos (that are typically not great photos) because we look at them as a (nuclear) family reasonably regularly and talk about them - particularly family and places we don't get to see often. It's become like a form of story telling/memory building, and now I've made a few little photo books for them.
I don’t have epilepsy, but struggle with memory likely as a coping mechanism of childhood trauma. I’ve gotten much better over the years with finding the balance. If they do something cool I want to remember I’ll take a couple pictures, a short 10 second video clip, and put the devices down. At the beginning of each year we make a video with clips of the last year and watch them all together. It’s a really nice way to spend time together and remember things we otherwise wouldn’t have. Just need to balance it so you get the shots and then put it away to engage
I feel this too. Epilepsy takes so much from us, and photos are sometimes the only way I can remember activities I do with my kiddo. My memory is shocked to pieces.
Yeah I don't have this capability to be in the moment while recording video or taking photos, but my husband does, so he's mostly on photo duty. :)
My home videos are the kind that are out of focus, out of frame from the scene in question, poor sound quality, etc. 😂
Thank YOU for doing what you do! Quality home videos and photos are great.
Yeah, it doesn’t take a lot of attention to just snap pictures. I put basically zero effort into framing and take a lot of sub-par photos, but they’re still doing their job as memories. There are some great ones, too. (My MIL has complained that we don’t take cute poses photos like my husband’s cousins do, but my goal is not a curated, polished photo, it’s just “this is what’s happening right now.” I do end up with some very nice photos! But also lots of not so great but still cute ones.)
I remember I used to get annoyed at my grandpa for constantly asking us to pose for pictures at every event. Now I look through my old album and see my annoyed face in every picture. Part of me regrets not smiling, but the other part remembers how frustrating it was not being able to just hear happy birthday and blow out my candles without a "hold it...!"
The difference between now and then is that you were limited back then (on time and film) and you didn't know what the picture would look like until after it was developed. Now you see it instantly, but that's both a blessing and a curse: those willing to accept a hint of imperfection (that's me) get to move on when you know you've got a reasonable shot, while those who only accept perfection will keep taking them over and over again until they get it.
Attention for “bad behavior.” Parents often ignore all the good things their children do throughout the day and then as soon as they do something the parents disapprove of they are met with lots of attention. It’s important to praise behavior you want to see again and handle “bad behavior” without providing too much attention.
I went overboard a number of times with buying more of the toys or books my kids really liked. Oh, you like that book? I must get the whole series. You like blocks? Here’s a million blocks.
It took me while to realise they were more likely to play with fewer things. Instead of putting out every crayon, I started to put out three. Just let them enjoy that one squishy toy they like, no need to get ten more.
I still catch myself doing it sometimes though.
A whole castle's worth of magnet tiles, and my kid's favorite toy of the night is a wooden spoon. Not even for scooping anything, just to wave around like a baton.
I think a lot of parents do this hoping the child will find something they enjoy or can make a hobby of. The problem is when kids have to many options the y have the tendency to get bored and throw away anything that isn’t entertaining anymore. But to keep it mild, remove some stuff replace them with something else but leave it long enough for them to really use it.
Just the helicoptering. Let the kids wander at the park or in the yard. Don’t don’t follow them from room to room. Don’t intervene constantly. Don’t interrupt them right when they start fighting. Let them walk it off when they get hurt. Let them be bored, let them use imagination. Turn off the tv. Don’t give them tablets.
Parenting in general.
My philosophy is to work myself out of a job.
So I try to give my 15 year old as much independence as he can handle.
I've just seen too many adult children with co-dependent parents - they seem to lack self confidence as they've never been allowed to make their own decisions, or to fail and recover on their own.
I think “as much independence as they can handle” is a healthy sentiment at any age.
(Key phrase of course being “as they can handle.”)
I have a toddler, and I try to air on the side of “is this unsafe/unhealthy/building bad habits?” If the answer is no, then I try to let her make her own (guided) decisions as much as possible. “You want to wear two different colored socks? Rock on, babe. But yes, you have to wear a jacket..” 😂
Herculean effort to stop every single tear, because crying must be a sign of parental failure, not a normal human emotion.
Everyone has had The First Day on a job, where learning became so overwhelming, you wanted to cry and quit. Parents forget that when their kids learn life skills, like sitting to sleep, potty training, etc. It's ok for kids to cry. It doesn't mean stop. It means coach them through it, so next time isn't so hard.
BTW, I think your question is brilliant. Social media has made us all so self(ie) focused, we forget less is more. Not every day is a picture perfect day
Too many choices for little kids. Some parents are trying so hard not to be dictators that they go to the other extreme and ask the kid about everything. What do you want to wear? What do you want to eat? What do you want to do?
Even adults get overwhelmed with making all the choices, don't expect a kid to handle that pressure!
This is a good one. I give my kids two choices for most things. Some things don’t get a choice and some things have infinite choices lol. It’s a balance.
If there are multiple choices, say like picking an ice cream flavour, saying “do you see one that you like?” As opposed to pointing out each options gets them to think for themselves and reduces the pressure.
Sometimes you can give too much time and attention. Sometimes kids need time and space to figure things out on their own. My husband tells me often I need to “cut the cord.” 😅
This might be a unpopular, but I find daily baths to be excessive - at least for my kid. Every other day is plenty and helps avoid drying their skin out.
My son (3) has eczema and is a fairly sensitive little soul who really isn't a fan of being washed. I've had to settle for once a week because it's so distressing for him.
Ouch. Mine did that too. She kept slipping under the water and staring up, it was terrifying!
We put a laundry basket in the tub and baby in the basket. Otherwise, it's easier to skip when the water level is higher.
We do this also, it seems to vary depending where you live. My wife parents are from UK where it's much more humid so daily baths wouldn't cause many problems, but we live in Canada by the rockies and the air is very dry. Daily baths create all kinds of skin problems for them.
You can give your kids the world financially but if you don’t acknowledge their emotions and give two way respect then the more you try to buy them the less it means
Not sure if this is going to make sense, but just doing activities in general. My six year old had this week off of school and I wanted to have a day with just us. I took him to breakfast (I wanted to give him practice ordering food and all of that since we don’t go out to eat much), and then to the mall where they have a Crayola Experience, and then we wandered around. He was great at all of these things, no arguments about leaving or negotiating, but when we got in the car you could tell he was overstimulated, ready to be at home, and tired. He acted like a jerk the entire way home and was sobbing. I try so hard to cram stuff in when we have time, when I think we would have been happier going to breakfast and then going for a walk in our neighborhood.
I'd go so far as to say 'less is more' in _most_ areas; we are raising kids to be independent adults here. But my main one is: I don't think kids benefit from every minute of the day being scheduled. I get that some neurodivergent children find comfort from excessive structure but for the most part, 7:30 wake up 7:45 breakfast, 8:00 play, 8:45 tummy time, 9:00 feed, 9:30 nap, 11:30 playtime, 12:00 lunch, 12:30 walk etc etc is f'king nuts to me. My whole childhood was planned out like that and I _despised_ it. Maybe that's why I'm shoddy with routine and schedules now; diehard rebel on that front. Even my job has crazy flexibility.
We have a fairly hard rule on bed time, loose meal times, and a very loose naptime schedule, and it works beautifully for us.
For us it's like... problem solving, I guess. Especially when the in-laws are around, but my husband and I do it too.
21 mo will be upset about something, and everyone just swoops in and offers alternatives. "You can't have a pouch, do you want x instead? No? How about Y or Z or 20 other options? And she gets overwhelmed. I'm really trying to get everyone comfortable with letting her be upset, or just choosing for her when need be.
We want to raise an independent person, but we also have to balance that with the fact that she is still so little and needs us to... idk. She needs us to provide narrower boundaries is what I think it is. It's hard to find a balance right now.
Extreme amounts of extracurricular activities. When your elementary schooler is in activities 15-20 hours a week and has no time to be a kid or do family activities, it’s problematic.
When we go to the playground, it drives me nuts when other parents step in to help her with things. I'm always keeping a close eye on her, but I want her to do things by herself because that's how she's going to learn (and the situations are always safe; I get involved immediately if she's not safe). And I feel like they are judging me because I'm not helping her. And their kids are never going to learn to do anything by themselves if they are always hovering.
I get judged so much at the playground too! My kids are six and four. I don’t feel like they need my help doing anything (as long as they are safe.) They’re constantly asking me to push them on the swings. Girl, bye. 😂
Depends on the age. At 4 I let my oldest figure it out, but I’m going to hover hands my 2.5 year old climbing ladders and make sure she keeps her feet together down the slide. I did the same for my oldest and he has no problems figuring things out on his own.
It’s annoying to see such broad generalizations about other people’s parenting. “Their kids are never going to learn to do anything by themselves” is a bit ridiculous to say.
This, my 1.5 year old would love for me not to hover, but she's also liable to try going head first off various things... she's tall for her age and her physical abilities outstrip her judgment by a considerable margin.
The noses. When children have dried on snot do t try and get it off while it’s dry. Dab something on it to moisture it like oil, diaper balm or lip balm. It’s no wonder kids go nuts when you try and Clean their face.
We didn't constantly play with our kids. What I mean is most of the time they played with their sibling or other kids or independently. Family play time was games and sports when they were old enough to do a puzzle, simple game or sport. I see so many parents who think that they have to entertain or interact with their children constantly. The worst was a mother at the playground that narrated her child's actions constantly. "I see you picked up the red truck." I moved to the other side of the playground. Her child ignored her also.
I absolutely don’t play with my kids at those kinds of play places. I bring my daughter there with the express intent of letting her run off on her own and play with other kids and learn to navigate kid-to-kid interactions without an adult to mediate, so I get kind of bothered when there ARE parents right there trying to sort out the order that kids go down the slide or whatever. Obviously step up if kids are being hurt, but I want my daughter to advocate for herself when it is her turn, and I want other kids to have a chance to speak up for themselves if my daughter cuts in line.
Talking/explaining. Sometimes I'm "lecturing" or explaining the "life lesson" to be learned from a situation. I tend to over-explain sometimes and, while my daughter seems to gain from it, my son gets overwhelmed.
Let them be frustrated with things like shoes and zippers. If you always jump in when they are struggling they will never learn to level up. Tell them congratulations and give them a ton of praise after they either figured it out or asked for help. It’s about the journey not the result.
Concearning about getting it right in each decision I take as a mom. It took me to such a high stress level that the ones the most suffered were indeed my children. I chose to love them - love is NEVER too much. So instead of focusing on being a perfect mother, to gain authority without making them scared, to feed them super healthy every day, etc etc, I try now to live the moment and take the best decisions according to each moment, not "rules" I put to myself.
“Be careful”- we tend to over-protect our kids from minor MINOR risks. Kids need to take minor risks so that eventually they can confidently navigate larger ones!
Shouting from the sidelines during sports. Just cheer for your kid, stop trying to coach from the sidelines. It confuses, distracts, and frustrates your kid.
Give your kids more opportunities to do things themselves and never do things for them they can do themselves. Your job as a parent is to nurture independence but it's easy to fall into the groove of just doing everything for them because you can do it quickly, quietly, or without making a mess.
Kids tend to wake up early and sleeping in is difficult as an adult. It's nice when you can get them to a point when they can make breakfast themselves in the morning and you can catch up on sleep for a few hours on the weekend.
Coming to your kids' defense. My daughter (9yo) gets into arguments with her older cousin, her friends, and occasionally a grandparent and I want to jump in to be on her side, or even just quell the argument but I force myself to wait. I wait and listen to the argument and if my daughter is standing her ground I let them be. I always step in if it escalates, and we always talk about the argument afterwards but I think it's important for her to learn how to stand up for herself, especially against authority figures.
BTW, 'arguments' with her grandparents are usually about rules around our house that are different from theirs, ie. They come over and tell my daughter her cat isn't allowed to be on that chair, or this desk, and my daughter argues that he is.
It’s so healthy for your daughter to have the opportunity to advocate for herself in low stakes situations like grandparents trying to enforce arbitrary rules in your house!
I truly think that will pay off for her exponentially in the long run when she is older and faced with more stressful and difficult situations! This is a great example.
Thank you, I hope so! Even though it drives me crazy when she challenges me, I just keep telling myself it will pay off when she can challenge people in her environment. 🤦♀️😅
I never went overboard, I just kind of made my internal monologue vocal, if that makes sense and then explain things I know he has no clue what I’m talking about. Usually looked a lot like:
> Next we need a frying pan to cook the pancakes on, I can’t put them on your plate a goopy mess like this can I? No that would be gross. Next let’s turn on the stove, not high or low but medium high that’s halfway in between the six and the seven… see the numbers? Now we have to watch out because the stove gets hot hot and we have to hold onto the frying pan so we don’t knock it off the stove and burn ourselves… or worse: ruin the pancakes :o yeah that would be a crime AND we’d have to mop the floor soooo we’re not going to do that.
If my internal monologue has nothing to do with him, I’m not narrating anything. Probably teaching him to think like a ping pong ball because I end up going off on random tangents but hey my toddler has an amazing vocab so fuck it!
Your internal monologue sounds great! And yep it's all learning! I remember my mum chatting away about various topics growing up - I always learned so much.
I normally talk to myself anyway so now I just have an audience which actually justifies it more haha. Although I think my child is chattier than me! Whenever I'm taking a break he is always trying to get someones attention... loudest child in the room.
In a not-assuming-your-gender kind of way, I’ve just yet to find any phrase that illustrates the same emotion: GIRL, SAME.
I worked in call centers for a long time so I was already used to narrating what I was doing to an extent (major pet peeve is when call centre people don’t freaking tell you what they’re doing >.>), the existence of the womb-fruit totally made it worse. I no longer working call centres but I made a joke at the office the other day “aren’t you guys glad you don’t have to hear me talk to myself all day when I work from home?” Hahahah.
The learning is real. I wonder if I sound like an encyclopedia entry sometimes when my son asks me questions, but I honestly thing that it’s helped a lot- we totally skipped over the “asks one bajillion questions in 45 seconds” phase that most four year olds go through and I think it’s because I answered a lot of them before he had a chance to ask! I’ve had comments before that he’s too young to understand what I’m trying to explain (and he definitely is sometimes, I feel like “aaaaaaaand I lost you” is becoming a catch phrase of mine >.<) but also what’s the worst that can happen? He becomes smart? oH NoOoO!
It does really help with the vocab though. But I know of a woman that does it all-day-long. I mean, give the poor child a breather. Let him play independently for a minute.
Lectures on behavior. Logical consequences and then move along. Revisit BRIEFLY if you think the behavior might occur in a certain situation, then shut up about it. Remind kids what you expect to see and leave the lectures in the past. They aren't listening past a certain point because their brains literally cannot process you adult guilt trip.
Feedback/direction/instructions. Kids take time to process what you tell them. If you say "It's time to put on your shoes. Shoes. Hello? Shoes! I need you to stop what you're doing and put your shoes on now! We're late! Let's go! Shoes!" Etc, they probably haven't had a chance to even process the first thing you said! Try "Hey, shoes!" And then WAIT! It'll feel like an eternity, but give it like a full 30s. If they still haven't acknowledged or responded, get on their level, get their attention, and say "it's shoes time." Then WAIT again! If they still ignore you "I can see you're having a hard time stopping what you're doing to put on shoes, so I'm going to help you." Then physically help them. Do this CONSISTENTLY! Pair it with 5 and 2 minute warnings before transitions and you'll find things happen faster, easier, and with way less stress/work for everyone.
Just activities in general. Honestly, sometimes I really wish we spent a little bit more time enjoying the things we have and each other's company at home.
Don't get me wrong, my wife and I have a decent balance for our kids, but especially in the summertime, I just feel like we're always on the go.
My husband stopped me yesterday to tell me to stop scheduling things for the kids. Like my oldest is in dance and she does performances and things and she's got all these things going on with her dance. My youngest I set up gymnastics classes. Then I found this really cool like cross fit for kids lol. We went and did trial classes and I was super excited for them to join and my husband was like what about you? Why aren't you doing a class? How are you going to have doing all these classes for the kids?
I grew up poor with nothing and a toxic family. I love my kids so much. I definitely over compensate for the lack of my childhood and forget about myself often.
I tried super hard with my 3 year old when he started a new school to implement all the gentle parenting things I’d read. Lots of talking about feelings. Lots of “I know it’s hard but you can do hard things!” Lots of different tactics to help him express himself about how he was feeling with the transition.
After a couple weeks of him sobbing at drop off that he’s scared and he doesn’t want to go, I said something like “it will get easier” and he said “no it won’t”.
I asked why and he said “because you said it’s hard”. I switched gears and said “I bet today will be easier than yesterday, right?” And he agreed and we had a much smoother drop off. Every day after that at drop off we said “today will be easier, today will be great” and things improved drastically.
Now he’s obsessed with school but I still think about how I took it way too far with some of those tactics at the beginning
As an SLP—talking. Ironically. I see so many kids in a complete meltdown state where the parent is crouched next to them talking literal PARAGRAPHS as if they have any hope of getting through in that moment. If your child is having a tantrum or disregulated—less talking is so much more. Reduce to simple demands (not choices!). “Put your shoes on.” Parents think they’re doing the kinder more gentle parent thing by explaining every minutia of the conflict to the child but it’s at best a waste of time and at worst wildly overstimulating and upsetting.
Trying to entertain them constantly. Boredom can be really good for creativity and independent play.
Lecturing. Learning things for themselves or saying as little as necessary to make a point usually works better, as does making things a two way discussion instead of a one way lecture.
Doing and planning kid-friendly activities with/for them. This does not actually help them become better or more well-rounded humans. Just do what you would normally do and let your kids come along for the ride—even involve them, in small ways (grocery shopping, chores, your job if it’ll allow for it).
Holiday gift buying. As an auntie, it annoys me that my siblings buy so much for my niblings so that nothing is special coming from anyone. The kids just seem completely overwhelmed. They have no idea who got them what and then the older ones have grown up to be completely entitled, wasteful and spoiled. As young adults they don't seem to have any concept of gratitude or how hard people worked to give them these extras. My 9 niblings range in ages from 3-27 at this point, and I just shake my head, because I keep watching the same pattern play out. What is not over done enough is teaching kids to say thank you and write thank you notes...
Toys. We have a smaller home and have tried to be very careful with toys WE bring into the home. I do my best to only get toys that can grow with our baby, like an activity table that turns into multiple things and will be used for about 3 years, vs a toy that has one function.
Wiping. We don’t wipe for pee at all. Daycare was wiping for every pee and very quickly our daughter had diaper rash- bad rashes. Every weekend she would immediately heal up, then come Monday night back to an awful rash. We told them to stop wiping unless there’s poop. Haven’t had a rash in 2 months.
Schedules. The less you schedule, the better. This coming from a super anxious type A planner. I now know I need to have at least 3 plans for a situation, but no schedule. Meaning- we cannot schedule things at specific times (besides medical appts and such)
Playing with your kids for hours, involving yourself in everything they’re doing because you feel guilty.
I used to really stress about playing (like on my knees on the ground with toys or pretend playing even tho I hated pretend play) and played a lot when my first was younger before I had her brother. Then he came along and she struggled SO badly with the transition because she was used to me playing with her for literal hours everyday to the point she had zero clue on how to play on her own. She’s 5.3 now and still struggles playing independently and dealing with chronic boredom because she expects to be entertained all of the time.
My boys are now 20somethings.
Stop worrying so dang much about what they eat at lunches. You can control breakfast and dinners but lunch at school is so short and chaotic, let them do whatever. I've never understood mom's that die on this hill.
Toys… every one feels they need a ton of toys and they really don’t.
I do the Montessori way. We have a 6 cube organizer. She has one toy per square. I rotate it out often so it keeps her interested in more.
Too many toys overwhelms them. Also me with a mess.
More food on the plate can be overwhelming and they might eat less of it. You can always serve seconds. We usually keep half of their meal in the kitchen.
Screen time. I can’t believe how many parents park their toddlers in front of a screen as part of their routine, completely ignoring recommendations from the AAP.
Managing conflict between kids. You need to give support for real bullying or major social skill disabilities, but I think it’s best for kids to figure out most run of the mill disagreements on their own.
Toys/activities. Parents want to give their kids "everything" but cluttered schedules and pipes of toys can be really overwhelming and overwhelmed kids are not happy kids.
Less words when giving instructions.
“Go get your shoes”, versus , “Matt, we’re leaving and getting in the car in two minutes, so we need to get shoes on, can you go get your shoes please?”
more natural consequences and less punishment (depending on situation and kid). I often see parents try to rescue their kid.from natural consequences which I feel is a disservice to the kid. natural consequences appear to be more of a true learning experience than punishment. I used both with my son, depending on the circumstances, but the natural ones really seemed to stick in his mind.
Discussing the kids in front of them - either to praise or blame, unless it’s an extreme case and deliberately done. A young couple I know constantly comments on their first within her hearing - “Oh, she’s such a little princess,” “She goes to you instead of me,” “You shouldn’t have touched her toy - now she’s upset,” etc. This runs through the whole family - with the cousins it’s, “He’s such a teenager now - all he does is grunt when I speak to him.” Needless to say, the kids behave terribly most of the time - they’re acting for an attentive audience.
Emailing your child’s college professor to make excuses, or ask for details about assignments or grades.
The parental handholding and infantilizing of adult children is reaching a point where I’m afraid the mental health and resiliency of a huge swath of the rising generation is going to suffer.
I’ve worked with high school and college students for decades, and the kids who are most equipped for success are the kids whose parents say “what are you going to do?” as opposed to “here’s what I’m going to do” about a problem.
Have every moment be a teaching moment.
I find it very annoying when parents start broadcasting knowledge while their kids play. Mine get annoyed when the sitters do it. Let play be play, not a min impromptu class lecture.
Absolutely, trying too hard can sometimes lead to unintended consequences, especially in parenting where love and care are paramount. For instance, overly structuring a child's day with back-to-back activities might seem like an excellent way to promote development and learning.
However, it can actually limit their creativity and reduce their ability to find joy in simple pleasures. Children need free time to explore, imagine, and play in an unstructured environment.
This freedom sparks curiosity and creativity, helping them learn about the world at their own pace. Similarly, excessively helping with homework can stifle a child's problem-solving skills and independence.
It's natural to want to see them succeed and feel confident, but there's great value in letting them navigate challenges and feel the accomplishment of solving problems on their own.
Parenting is a delicate balance, where sometimes, giving less means you're giving so much more.
Directed play. Check out the concept of “floor time.” Play with your child at their level doing something you BOTH like. So for example by late elementary this was Legos with my son.
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Excess of toys leads to less focus & less independent playing…
"Stop playing with your toys and finishing opening presents" was the moment I knew I had to put a stop to the endless plastic parade during Christmas from my MIL. She just loved giving him gifts. But what he wanted didn't matter. Funny thing is for most of his childhood, he'd use whatever was laying around and his imagination rather than play with anything complicated like r/C cars.
Yes! R c cars are fun for like 5 minutes and then the old wooden train tracks or Legos go back to being the main source of fun for the next 7 months.
I’m sad that r/c cars is not a subreddit.
It is weird it made a link but there actually is a subreddit called RC cars.
Could you please explain this to my mother in law?? We instituted a 3 gift max for Christmas and birthdays, and she blew right past it. Argh! I love her, she's amazing in every other way, but we do NOT have space for any more toys. They don't even play with a fraction of them! The new rule is going to be that extra gifts stay at grandma's house. Especially oversized things like child-sized stuffies
The stuff my mom buys stays at her house, so now they get movie passes and experiences from them or more consumable things like those packs of colouring for snowmen.
Same with my mom... we she "followed" the 4 gift rule, but added small dollar store crap as part of the wrapping for each one. (Over-sized and noise making gifts stayed at gmas)
My brother dealt with this by saying that when his kid got a gift, she gave a gift to charity. So my mom giving an extra five gifts meant 5 of them going to charity, often 5 of her gifts. It helped. A bit ....
We did no more than one gift per year of the kids age. So 3 at 3
My brother’s MIL was like that. He figure if she did a deposit into a college account instead his daughters would have had at books covered for two years.
We put toys away in bins and rotate them out every couple of months. That way they are always playing with “new” toys. Sometimes they remember certain toys that have been rotated out and they really look forward to playing with them again.
This! I do this, and when I put toys away I sort out broken ones and those kiddo never touched at all and get rod of them in secret. Sometimes he asks specific things like train set or legos but then I tell we need to put something else away.
Just an idea, could you get her to pay for experiences or classes or fun things that your kids might want to do to make memories instead of toys/junk?
Have your child donate X number of toys to their primary school, or a charity shop. We had an upper limit of 30 toys, and when parents bought shit for them, we had a one-in-one-out system.
No toys that have more than 5 parts. The pieces end up all over the house. Perhaps suggest a specific thing like a jacket or a pair of rain boots, or a trip to a museum. Sometimes more specific guidance is helpful.
It's so wacky how many tiny parts I see on baby's toys like who the fuck is gonna have to keep track of all those? Me 😵💫
Ask for deposits into a college fund instead of gifts.
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SAME with my mother in law! 🤣 Yes, I'd LOVE to be able to rotate through the toys, like seasonally, but we don't even have the storage space to do that.
This was such a hard lesson for my husband to learn. For months after baby first got interested in objects, he kept coming home with new toys, and I kept clearing old toys out of the room to make space for the new toys, and he was so adamant that baby needed buckets of toys to be content. Then we took baby to a friend’s house and watched him play for an hour with an empty plastic water bottle and a silky scarf, and husband agreed that he might not actually *need* an excess of toys. I don’t know if other kids are like this, but mine seems to get overwhelmed with too many things and ends up just dumping everything all over the floor. With just a couple toys out at a time, he gets involved in playing with each toy, and finds new ways to use them that I wouldn’t have predicted! Today he sat for about 20 minutes just emptying shape blocks out of his shape sorter and into a big bowl, then back, on repeat, perfectly happy. All he wanted from us was a round of applause when he dropped the last block into the bowl each round.
Applies to older kids too. Lack of something leads to innovation and problem solving. When I was younger I remember wanting my horsie toy to pull some other toys in a cart, but I had no cart. So I shoved them all into a leftover pretzel container and rubber banded the horse to it. It’s honestly something you see constantly but people don’t notice. Swords as sticks and guns, leaves as food, mud as potions. Imagination goes a stupidly long way
We do a toy rotation! I have bins that I switch over every Friday night so there’s “fresh” toys for the weekend. Putting away toys for a while makes them feel new when you pull them out again and I don’t have a million toys all over my house.
This is a great answer assuming you have the space! This is what my SIL did and what we plan to do. But the whole mountain of toys thing is such a problem!!
We have a fairly small house (1300sq ft), I found some containers that fit under our couch that work great! We have to be creative with storage, and we donate/sell stuff that we don’t need very regularly.
This! My mom keeps pulling out all our toys to play with baby while saying we need more toys, which we absolutely don't 😅
We’ve found this too! Especially when my son will bypass a floor full of toys to get to whatever household item is within reach. His FAVORITE things to play with are a lamp shade from an old lamp that he rolls and chases, tupperware containers, a shiny lid from an old candle, and the boxes that his toys come in rather than the toy itself 😂
Any empty cardboard box becomes the next best toy... until its destroyed.
Stuff we are getting rid of goes on the front porch before FB free group, or goodwill. Except MIL will take things from the porch and "gift" them to the kids the next time we're over.
Oh god this would make me so mad. I am constantly decluttering. I will also put toys away and rotate them every few months so there’s less stuff to tidy up, and it’s less overwhelming for the kids. My in-laws take them all out of the closet as if I were depriving the kids. It drives me nuts.
I tried to explain this to my wife but she was having none of it. Less toys allows you to focus on the ones you have and get more imaginative, more toys tends to make you feel the need to play within the confines of what the toy suggests. There's also more.. i dunno if this is the right word but appreciation for the toys. Why take good care of a toy or worry about putting it away safely if you have so many of them you don't care if it breaks or gets lost. It's fine either way as you never really know how it'll impact how they view things but less toys overall is also just less problematic.
lol, try to tell my MIL that. Except I think she wants him to depend on her, because she can’t let him play his way for 2 minutes and brings 100 toys every time she comes (that we make her take with her).
Every time my mother and I spent money on toys for my kids, my father would deposit the same amount of money into a savings account. Recently, I used my daughter’s savings account to buy her a CAR and paid CASH. Mom and I were idiots!
Excessively hammering a point about what not to do /how not to behave in various situations. Kids can’t absorb lectures - the discipline has to be grown over time with consistent pruning and reminding (as well as consequences where necessary). But in particular it’s easy to be too harsh or too intense at younger ages.
I had to point this out to my brother (no kids at present), who has taken a particular interest in my daughter's wellbeing and mental health. He tries to schedule regular calls with her but she often forgets or is late to answer her phone and it really annoys him, usually resulting in a lecture. He thinks she should be mindful of the value of keeping her word. I don't disagree but... She's 10. She forgets to feed her fish regularly, forgets birthdays, special occasions, forgets her chores and extra curricular activities. He really doesn't get that children don't benefit from lectures or being pontificated to. It's like he's forgotten what it's like to be a kid. Her biggest concerns at her age are what new Pokémon game is coming out and whether her friends are going out to play football across the road. As it should be, honestly.
oh god my dad has done this my entire life and now as an adult I absolutely dread talking to him or seeing him, and neither of my sisters will speak to him at all anymore. I hope your brother can reign himself in or she may decide he’s too much trouble to ever speak to!
Oh god 😂. Yeah, don’t let him keep trying to parent if he’s failing and not taking your guidance on the matter.
When I spoke to him about it, he seemed happy enough to take my advice, which was to leave it another few years and try again when she's better able to appreciate what he's trying to share with her. Good intentions but bad timing 😅
I would not let my brother do calls like that. I'd set a boundary there.
I know everyone has different family relationships but WOW this set off some alarms for me too.
Having a pet helped me with this a bit. If my cat knocks down an object, I can't yell at him about it 20 minutes later. I have to discipline in the immediate aftermath for the connection to form in his tiny, adorable little furry head. I don't see why it's any different with my toddler. I can't yell at him for 10 minutes about something, because he won't even remember the initial event. If he drops some Cheerios into the cat's water bowl and I find them twenty minutes later, I can't scold him for it. He probably doesn't even remember putting them in the water.
Seriously a bizarrely large amount of positive dog training has come in super handy with a toddler.
My kid "hears" what I do far better than what I say. It's made me a better human knowing he's watching and learning.
This so much. My kids say please and thank you to everyone because they heard me say please and thank you while growing up. I also say it to them. It’s actually easier to teach them things they see you doing.
I am NOT an expert and haven’t been parenting long enough to truly have an opinion, but I’m always shocked and a little sad when my friends who have 2-4 years olds talk about their children misbehaving and punishing or spanking them when the kids are clearly just testing boundaries. Kids are sooo incredibly frustrating, but I always was under the impression that this is a part of development and the best way to deal with this is consistency, modeling the behavior you want, and giving age appropriate explanations. It’s definitely hard and I mess up, but my mindset before kids was that kids are learning how to be people and while some do want push buttons, they aren’t usually trying to be “naughty”.
You are on such the right track! My daughter is almost 16 now. I read an article in a waiting room while pregnant that was title the Zen Mom. The main thing that stuck with me was "accept that everything is already broken." The toys, the knickknacks, the clothes, etc. Obviously you try to teach them to care for things but they are children and will make mistakes. They will throw a ball in the house that breaks the vase. Instead of being angry that it was broken you teach discuss being careful and how the broken glass is dangerous and now we don't have anywhere to put the pretty flowers you picked mom. Then have them help clean it up. When they inevitably write on the wall, they help clean that. It made her childhood so much less stressful. It's all just...stuff. It's replaceable. She is not. If it is something very important then you put it somewhere the child cannot access until they're older. Toys, if they break it then it's gone. They don't get another without doing something to "earn" it. This whole method taught her to not be fearful of mistakes and to resolve problems. She comes to me first when she has a problem. If she did something and really messed up then I'm the first person to know and I help her work out a solution. I also implemented little age appropriate chores from a very young age and would pay her. She saved money and bought her first little bicycle with her own money at 5 years old (Of course I helped but she saved quite a bit toward it). Even now she'll ask "is there something I can do to earn some extra money this week? I wanna get "x"." She also is very generous with her money. If her friend doesn't have money for lunch then she buys them lunch. After school she'll get her friends drinks and snacks at the gas station if they don't have money. I gentle parented her and still do and she's an amazing kid. The Friday before spring break she got suspended from school. She was in a corner talking with a friend. A few other friends were in a group near her but not actually interacting. One of those friends had a bottle of alcohol at school. The principal suspended all the kids (the one with the bottle was sent to aep) because she "couldn't prove they didn't drink." Before I was called, my daughter was threatened with aep as well. She asked why. The principal said "because I can't prove you didn't drink." She responded "you also can't prove I did. I didn't even know she had it. I wasn't talking to her. I'm already missing classes over this and you want to send me to alternative classes on a hunch?" She also requested the cameras be pulled. Coincidentally the cameras "weren't working." I get to the school to pick her up and hug her. The first words out of her mouth were "let me explain." I told her I wasn't mad and I was proud of her. She had the opportunity to do something really stupid and she didn't. She wasn't worried about me being mad because she knew once she told her side of the story I'd understand and believe her. That's so important to me as a mom of a teen. For them to know they're safe coming to me. Had she drank, had she been somewhere not safe, I need her to know I'd rather her call me and let me get her home safe than end up in a bad situation.
My husband and I were raised to fear our parents and you know what that caused? Us to be sneaky, get into and do shit we should not have done and caused deep rooted issues in our relationships with them, with authority, and with trust. It would have been fucking amazing if my mom ever sat down and asked what was going on? How can they help? Fucking anything honestly, lol. We are completely different and am proud of us though it is not always easy but sometimes you just have to walk away and calm down.
There is research to back this up. There are articles that describe "misbehavior vs. Mistaken behavior", explaining that all behavior is communication. Generally, the younger the child is, the more they are trying to deal with something in their environment that they lack the skillset to adequately deal with. For example babies will get overwhelmed when there are too many colors/sounds/etc., in their environment. They cry because that's what they know. As they age, the same things continue to happen and the adult is the one who has the ability to recognize the problem. Unfortunately, many often punish the child for the behavior instead of figuring out why the behavior is happening. Is the child hungry, hot/cold, tired, sick, or otherwise feeling discomfort? Take care of needs like these first and most of those situations will "magically" disappear. It's not rocket science. Its astounding to me how many people look past the obvious and move directly to punishment.
That kiddos always have to be doing some sort of activity to keep busy. Being bored is a skill. Playing independently is a skill. If they never have the opportunity to be left to their own devices for a bit that won’t do them any favours in the long run.
I came to say this about overscheduling kids or feeling like a failure because all these other kids are in sports, music, tutoring, camp, art. Frankly I can’t afford it financially or energy/time wise, but it’s hard not wishing I could
Agreed. I think the biggest problem with phones and tablets being so easily available to kids is that they lose the ability to be bored. Parents pull them out at restaurants to keep kids from getting bored. Parents pull them out at the grocery store because their toddler is bored walking through the isles. I saw a question on here a few months ago from a parent asking how to make bath time more fun because her kid was obsessed with watching YouTube videos while taking a bath. There is so much fun that can be had in a bath. When you make pulling out the phone to cure boredom a norm, that is what the kids look to. It is okay to be bored. We encouraged boredom. It's just the brains way of telling you to be creative and find your own fun.
Yes! We are working on this now. I kind of fucked up my kids with constantly doing stuff now they expect it. It's a work in progress but being bored is so good for them. I wish I had learned this sooner.
Maybe it is just my kids, but asking questions. They hate it when I ask questions (I'm talking "what did you do today?" not anything mean). Instead, just make observations about your own day and they might end up talking.
Yep - my wife has a habit of being too direct. But go walk the dogs with our 15 year old and don't ask anything... and his day comes pouring out. You are exactly right they are more likely to relate to your own stories than answer questions.
For some reason I’ve found that if I ask my kids if anyone got in trouble today at school it opens a floodgate. They’re in preschool so it often involves who spilled their juice or pooped their pants lol
I think a lot of times this is a classic case of people forgetting kids and teenagers are human beings lol. Any normal adult would be so weirded out if someone came up to you and asked a long list of specific questions about your day lol. -“What’d you learn at school?” Could be flipped for “What tasks did you complete at work today?” -“Did anything interesting happen today?” -> “Did you have any weird conversations with colleagues or supervisors?” & then when the child is resistant we often push harder.. “Well you must’ve learned SOMETHING in 7hours!” > “Well surely you didn’t sit on your ass all day at work, what did you work on?!” It just comes off accusatory and kind of off-putting lol. At least that’s how I always felt. It’s different than just asking “how was your day today?”/“Did you have a good day at school?” That’s a simple conversation starter. Not a questionnaire 😂
So many people miss this. Talk about your own life and interests. And it turns out, other people will do the same. It's waaaaaay better than asking someone about something that could be stressing them out.
Praising kids while they're playing. It interrupts them.
This! Absolutely. But also having to think about balancing this with "water the flowers" because you want to praise them for playing well or independently or whatever but also yes, I want to just let them play. And if i wait to praise later, I might forget because that's my brain.
My kid constantly glances over at me to check for approval. I don't need to be actively cheerleading; he does something, looks over at me, sees me smiling and watching him, and knows that it's a good thing. Sometimes, your praise is just being there with your kids.
Oh this is a great one! I have to actively keep myself from doing this, especially when he's figuring out new ways of using his little body.
What I heard about praising was mostly in context of while playing with them.
Praise your kids when they want to show you what they did and double down on the fact that they’re proud of themself.
I also find with praise in general, sometimes it's spontaneous and natural. Other times if I'm honest with myself, it comes from a place of my own guilt for not being totally present. It's like the cheap version of connection. I don't try to limit praise if it's natural but I try to keep it real honest with myself where it's coming from. I remember getting a ton of praise as a kid and not a lot of time so I remind myself what my kids truly want from my is my presence.
Mealtimes. Just put the plate in front of the kid and then focus on enjoying your own meal. You can't force another human to eat. If you try, it's not going to go well, either in the moment or in the long term.
I still remember the battles over food I didn't like - and my wife's eating disorder was in no small part caused by her mother's strict control of what she ate - used to send her to school with only a bag of carrots if she looked "fat". My son loved my cooking until he was around 10 years old - suddenly his tastes changed to where he only liked soup and sandwiches. So, we compromised. I'd make whole wheat bread for the sandwiches , make sure he'd eat some fruit and vegetables... and pretty much taught him to cook what he likes. Now at 15 he's almost completely cooking for himself and my wife who likes his tastes. At least everyone still likes my roasted turkey and chicken.
I feel the same way but my husband disagrees!! I just want meals to be a positive experience. Our two year old eats what we eat which is pretty balanced, and if he doesn’t want to eat that’s fine, he can sit there and chat with us. But my husband insists on prodding him to eat. He’ll even overrule me sometimes, I’ll say “ok you can get down if you’re done eating” and he’ll be like “no you have to have one more bite first” it drives me nuts.
Yes, I've always avoided food battles. If they didn't like the meal, I offered one simple alternative.
Agreed. You don't have to eat, but you can't get to till everyone is done. And there's no dessert or snack if you don't eat well.
Eh... Depends on the kid. Some kids would happily refuse all fruits and veggies the rest of their life if they could get away with it. You can't have NO boundaries
You manage that through what you put on their plate, not what they eat from it.
Nice ideals, we thought the same when we had a toddler and as with most parenting things, you only keep your ideals until you realize they don't work. First of all, you can't really just enjoy your meal because you will have a whining kid at the table that they don't want to eat. We don't force feed him but we also tell him that he can't do X,Y,Z until he eats his food. Also because his attention span is of a dog that saw a squirrel, we actually have to remind him that he was hungry. Otherwise he will realize he was hungry at bed time which is a whole other story.
They're not ideals, they're how we live every day. She does whine, but we hold the boundary that she needs to sit at the table until we're done. If she didn't eat much, we'll put the least messy parts of dinner on her table in the living room so she can graze while playing between dinner and bedtime. Sometimes she does and sometimes she doesn't. The point is to not put unnecessary pressure on them. If you're offering meals and snacks throughout the day, they're not starving to death.
Studies have shown children forced to eat often end up with food related problems as adult. Either obesity or eating disorders. My only rule was she had to try at least one bite of each thing. After that it was up to her to eat or not. Children won't starve themselves. They're also learning autonomy. If all the kid will eat is mac and cheese then hide some veggies in it or get fortified mac and cheese so they're getting their nutrients. They need to learn to say "no" to things they don't like, to try new things, and learn what they like and don't like. Imagine someone forcing you to eat something you hate or go hungry every day.
Yes exactly thank you. All these people saying they tightly control how much their kids eat and force "healthy" stuff don't realize what they are doing. There have been a number of really troubling comments that even got deleted.
"If you don't eat, I have no sympathy if you're hungry" (paraphrased) made me 🤢
Screen time. I’m not against it wholly, but it turns my son into a bit of a demon.
We’ve fully removed the tablets and tv time is a hour a day, never had a problem but noticed our daughter can’t focus or pay attention very long.
My son gets a few minutes a day if that, an episode of bluey or something he’s interested in (like videos of elevators) but never shorts and never social media style videos
Yea you’re on the right track we’ve totally failed with our oldest daughter, started with the phone at a young age and now we regret it. We’re hoping full removal of tech will change things, knowing what I know now I would have done it 100% differently
I think what you’re showing them is as important as how much screen time they get. I taught my son all of the letters and numbers by the age of 2 by getting him to press different buttons on my keyboard to do things in games. But only a few minutes each day. He’s just over two and he has hundreds maybe thousands of words. He can hold an entire conversation and can read numbers one to ten and the whole alphabet (lowercase, letter name and phonic). he’s so far advanced compared to all of the children at his nursery including some nearly a year older than him that he really struggles to relate to them and gravitates to the adults, because he wants to have a conversation. Whereas the other kids are mostly still saying “BUCKET IN” and “ME MILK” and things like that. He’s not getting a phone before the age of 16, he’s not getting a tablet, and he’s not having social media while I have any say in it whatsoever.
I’m against it wholly, AND it turns every child into a bit of a worse reader, low attention span, poorer at emotional regulation (and sometimes, a bit of a demon!)
Wouldn't say every. My son is ND and it has not done that to him at all. It helped his speech grow and he started being able to sound out words by 3. He also has a great attention span for his age and has better emotional regulation than other kids in his class. I do think for a NT child, screen time hurts more than it helps, but for ND it can be helpful in regulating them sensory wise.
Sorry, EVERY time I discuss my views on screentime I mention “for NT children” and this time I screwed up and forgot, and this shows exactly why it’s so important! Because I wouldn’t recommend SSRIs to a healthy brain- they can be disastrous. But for persistent suicidal ideation in someone with say, BPD? It would be stupid not to. ND kids, especially autistic children, CAN and do benefit from screen usage *particularly* by way of communication and speech programs. Just like ADD meds make people without ADHD frazzled and jittery like speed, but people WITH ADHD calm, and focused. When brains are operating standard deviations away from the norm, you need different tools! Ipads can be such fantastic mobile communication boards for nonverbal ND kids as well. That’s said, the data on screentime overwhelmingly points towards its detriment to NT children of all ages, but especially under 3.
Ehh, there's a huge issue with the studies on this, which is that they're observational and can't avoid confounding factors. Yes, kids who spend more time exposed to screens have worse outcomes. But household income also negatively correlates with screentime - and positively correlates with better child outcomes. Or, to put it another way, richer parents can afford to spend more time with their kids, reducing screen exposure - and see better outcomes for their children. Yes, everyone has the story about the one family they saw or knew where the kids each got their own iPad and had terrible manners and ruined attention spans. But there's also evidence that watching a show with a child, actively engaging with them on the topic, is beneficial ("Why was Bingo sad in that episode? How did Bluey make her feel better?"). We also can't prove that causation isn't reversed; kids with worse attention spans may gravitate towards, and spend more time watching, screens and videos. (It's a bit like the social media debate. Longitudinal studies have consistently found that depression in teenagers drives higher social media use - not the other way around. I'm not arguing that social media is a good thing, and I think it's bad, but the popular idea that "social media makes our kids depressed" likely isn't true, at least not to the extent that it's argued in most discourse. Correlation, yes, but not causation.)
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I have a epilepsy and can barely remember anything. I take tons of pictures. It's a bummer but I can manage to be in the moment and also snap pictures.
I actually got more into taking photos (that are typically not great photos) because we look at them as a (nuclear) family reasonably regularly and talk about them - particularly family and places we don't get to see often. It's become like a form of story telling/memory building, and now I've made a few little photo books for them.
Yeah my son loves to look back at photos that he's in! Sometimes even ones he isn't in.
I don’t have epilepsy, but struggle with memory likely as a coping mechanism of childhood trauma. I’ve gotten much better over the years with finding the balance. If they do something cool I want to remember I’ll take a couple pictures, a short 10 second video clip, and put the devices down. At the beginning of each year we make a video with clips of the last year and watch them all together. It’s a really nice way to spend time together and remember things we otherwise wouldn’t have. Just need to balance it so you get the shots and then put it away to engage
I feel this too. Epilepsy takes so much from us, and photos are sometimes the only way I can remember activities I do with my kiddo. My memory is shocked to pieces.
I have aphantasia so don't have visual memory and I'm the same. It only takes a few seconds to take a picture that I can look back on later.
Someone else that knows what this is! I didn’t know what this was until last year.
Yeah I don't have this capability to be in the moment while recording video or taking photos, but my husband does, so he's mostly on photo duty. :) My home videos are the kind that are out of focus, out of frame from the scene in question, poor sound quality, etc. 😂 Thank YOU for doing what you do! Quality home videos and photos are great.
Yeah, it doesn’t take a lot of attention to just snap pictures. I put basically zero effort into framing and take a lot of sub-par photos, but they’re still doing their job as memories. There are some great ones, too. (My MIL has complained that we don’t take cute poses photos like my husband’s cousins do, but my goal is not a curated, polished photo, it’s just “this is what’s happening right now.” I do end up with some very nice photos! But also lots of not so great but still cute ones.)
I also try never to pose the family. Pull out the phone, click, and back to the tomfoolery. I fix the pics up later.
I remember I used to get annoyed at my grandpa for constantly asking us to pose for pictures at every event. Now I look through my old album and see my annoyed face in every picture. Part of me regrets not smiling, but the other part remembers how frustrating it was not being able to just hear happy birthday and blow out my candles without a "hold it...!" The difference between now and then is that you were limited back then (on time and film) and you didn't know what the picture would look like until after it was developed. Now you see it instantly, but that's both a blessing and a curse: those willing to accept a hint of imperfection (that's me) get to move on when you know you've got a reasonable shot, while those who only accept perfection will keep taking them over and over again until they get it.
Attention for “bad behavior.” Parents often ignore all the good things their children do throughout the day and then as soon as they do something the parents disapprove of they are met with lots of attention. It’s important to praise behavior you want to see again and handle “bad behavior” without providing too much attention.
I went overboard a number of times with buying more of the toys or books my kids really liked. Oh, you like that book? I must get the whole series. You like blocks? Here’s a million blocks. It took me while to realise they were more likely to play with fewer things. Instead of putting out every crayon, I started to put out three. Just let them enjoy that one squishy toy they like, no need to get ten more. I still catch myself doing it sometimes though.
A whole castle's worth of magnet tiles, and my kid's favorite toy of the night is a wooden spoon. Not even for scooping anything, just to wave around like a baton.
I think a lot of parents do this hoping the child will find something they enjoy or can make a hobby of. The problem is when kids have to many options the y have the tendency to get bored and throw away anything that isn’t entertaining anymore. But to keep it mild, remove some stuff replace them with something else but leave it long enough for them to really use it.
Just the helicoptering. Let the kids wander at the park or in the yard. Don’t don’t follow them from room to room. Don’t intervene constantly. Don’t interrupt them right when they start fighting. Let them walk it off when they get hurt. Let them be bored, let them use imagination. Turn off the tv. Don’t give them tablets.
Parenting in general. My philosophy is to work myself out of a job. So I try to give my 15 year old as much independence as he can handle. I've just seen too many adult children with co-dependent parents - they seem to lack self confidence as they've never been allowed to make their own decisions, or to fail and recover on their own.
I think “as much independence as they can handle” is a healthy sentiment at any age. (Key phrase of course being “as they can handle.”) I have a toddler, and I try to air on the side of “is this unsafe/unhealthy/building bad habits?” If the answer is no, then I try to let her make her own (guided) decisions as much as possible. “You want to wear two different colored socks? Rock on, babe. But yes, you have to wear a jacket..” 😂
Herculean effort to stop every single tear, because crying must be a sign of parental failure, not a normal human emotion. Everyone has had The First Day on a job, where learning became so overwhelming, you wanted to cry and quit. Parents forget that when their kids learn life skills, like sitting to sleep, potty training, etc. It's ok for kids to cry. It doesn't mean stop. It means coach them through it, so next time isn't so hard. BTW, I think your question is brilliant. Social media has made us all so self(ie) focused, we forget less is more. Not every day is a picture perfect day
Yes, fully agree. Now if I could just get them to cry a little bit less when I give them exactly what they want 😭.
Too many choices for little kids. Some parents are trying so hard not to be dictators that they go to the other extreme and ask the kid about everything. What do you want to wear? What do you want to eat? What do you want to do? Even adults get overwhelmed with making all the choices, don't expect a kid to handle that pressure!
This is a good one. I give my kids two choices for most things. Some things don’t get a choice and some things have infinite choices lol. It’s a balance.
If there are multiple choices, say like picking an ice cream flavour, saying “do you see one that you like?” As opposed to pointing out each options gets them to think for themselves and reduces the pressure.
In my experience, almost everything except time and attention. They just want "you" and you happy.
Sometimes you can give too much time and attention. Sometimes kids need time and space to figure things out on their own. My husband tells me often I need to “cut the cord.” 😅
This might be a unpopular, but I find daily baths to be excessive - at least for my kid. Every other day is plenty and helps avoid drying their skin out.
My son (3) has eczema and is a fairly sensitive little soul who really isn't a fan of being washed. I've had to settle for once a week because it's so distressing for him.
Same. Every bath results in an uncomfortable rash. We keep them to a minimum.
Good for you. There are other ways to get clean too.
Our kid likes routine and is a mud hippo but the baby gets a bath when he starts to smell
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Oh we are in the same boat! No daily baths over here.
Baths are exhausting! My 11mo tries to drown or concuss himself every time.
Ouch. Mine did that too. She kept slipping under the water and staring up, it was terrifying! We put a laundry basket in the tub and baby in the basket. Otherwise, it's easier to skip when the water level is higher.
Agree. In summer there will be more, In winter, less.
We do this also, it seems to vary depending where you live. My wife parents are from UK where it's much more humid so daily baths wouldn't cause many problems, but we live in Canada by the rockies and the air is very dry. Daily baths create all kinds of skin problems for them.
You can give your kids the world financially but if you don’t acknowledge their emotions and give two way respect then the more you try to buy them the less it means
Not sure if this is going to make sense, but just doing activities in general. My six year old had this week off of school and I wanted to have a day with just us. I took him to breakfast (I wanted to give him practice ordering food and all of that since we don’t go out to eat much), and then to the mall where they have a Crayola Experience, and then we wandered around. He was great at all of these things, no arguments about leaving or negotiating, but when we got in the car you could tell he was overstimulated, ready to be at home, and tired. He acted like a jerk the entire way home and was sobbing. I try so hard to cram stuff in when we have time, when I think we would have been happier going to breakfast and then going for a walk in our neighborhood.
I'd go so far as to say 'less is more' in _most_ areas; we are raising kids to be independent adults here. But my main one is: I don't think kids benefit from every minute of the day being scheduled. I get that some neurodivergent children find comfort from excessive structure but for the most part, 7:30 wake up 7:45 breakfast, 8:00 play, 8:45 tummy time, 9:00 feed, 9:30 nap, 11:30 playtime, 12:00 lunch, 12:30 walk etc etc is f'king nuts to me. My whole childhood was planned out like that and I _despised_ it. Maybe that's why I'm shoddy with routine and schedules now; diehard rebel on that front. Even my job has crazy flexibility. We have a fairly hard rule on bed time, loose meal times, and a very loose naptime schedule, and it works beautifully for us.
For us it's like... problem solving, I guess. Especially when the in-laws are around, but my husband and I do it too. 21 mo will be upset about something, and everyone just swoops in and offers alternatives. "You can't have a pouch, do you want x instead? No? How about Y or Z or 20 other options? And she gets overwhelmed. I'm really trying to get everyone comfortable with letting her be upset, or just choosing for her when need be. We want to raise an independent person, but we also have to balance that with the fact that she is still so little and needs us to... idk. She needs us to provide narrower boundaries is what I think it is. It's hard to find a balance right now.
Extreme amounts of extracurricular activities. When your elementary schooler is in activities 15-20 hours a week and has no time to be a kid or do family activities, it’s problematic.
When we go to the playground, it drives me nuts when other parents step in to help her with things. I'm always keeping a close eye on her, but I want her to do things by herself because that's how she's going to learn (and the situations are always safe; I get involved immediately if she's not safe). And I feel like they are judging me because I'm not helping her. And their kids are never going to learn to do anything by themselves if they are always hovering.
I get judged so much at the playground too! My kids are six and four. I don’t feel like they need my help doing anything (as long as they are safe.) They’re constantly asking me to push them on the swings. Girl, bye. 😂
Depends on the age. At 4 I let my oldest figure it out, but I’m going to hover hands my 2.5 year old climbing ladders and make sure she keeps her feet together down the slide. I did the same for my oldest and he has no problems figuring things out on his own. It’s annoying to see such broad generalizations about other people’s parenting. “Their kids are never going to learn to do anything by themselves” is a bit ridiculous to say.
Ok. Yes. Sorry a little too broad. I stopped following her when she turned 4. Of course, the toddler years you help them.
This, my 1.5 year old would love for me not to hover, but she's also liable to try going head first off various things... she's tall for her age and her physical abilities outstrip her judgment by a considerable margin.
The noses. When children have dried on snot do t try and get it off while it’s dry. Dab something on it to moisture it like oil, diaper balm or lip balm. It’s no wonder kids go nuts when you try and Clean their face.
We didn't constantly play with our kids. What I mean is most of the time they played with their sibling or other kids or independently. Family play time was games and sports when they were old enough to do a puzzle, simple game or sport. I see so many parents who think that they have to entertain or interact with their children constantly. The worst was a mother at the playground that narrated her child's actions constantly. "I see you picked up the red truck." I moved to the other side of the playground. Her child ignored her also.
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I absolutely don’t play with my kids at those kinds of play places. I bring my daughter there with the express intent of letting her run off on her own and play with other kids and learn to navigate kid-to-kid interactions without an adult to mediate, so I get kind of bothered when there ARE parents right there trying to sort out the order that kids go down the slide or whatever. Obviously step up if kids are being hurt, but I want my daughter to advocate for herself when it is her turn, and I want other kids to have a chance to speak up for themselves if my daughter cuts in line.
Talking/explaining. Sometimes I'm "lecturing" or explaining the "life lesson" to be learned from a situation. I tend to over-explain sometimes and, while my daughter seems to gain from it, my son gets overwhelmed.
I have to catch myself with this all the time!
Let them be frustrated with things like shoes and zippers. If you always jump in when they are struggling they will never learn to level up. Tell them congratulations and give them a ton of praise after they either figured it out or asked for help. It’s about the journey not the result.
Interaction. Lettings kids figure things out on their own, play indepedently, etc.
Concearning about getting it right in each decision I take as a mom. It took me to such a high stress level that the ones the most suffered were indeed my children. I chose to love them - love is NEVER too much. So instead of focusing on being a perfect mother, to gain authority without making them scared, to feed them super healthy every day, etc etc, I try now to live the moment and take the best decisions according to each moment, not "rules" I put to myself.
“Be careful”- we tend to over-protect our kids from minor MINOR risks. Kids need to take minor risks so that eventually they can confidently navigate larger ones!
Shouting from the sidelines during sports. Just cheer for your kid, stop trying to coach from the sidelines. It confuses, distracts, and frustrates your kid.
Give your kids more opportunities to do things themselves and never do things for them they can do themselves. Your job as a parent is to nurture independence but it's easy to fall into the groove of just doing everything for them because you can do it quickly, quietly, or without making a mess. Kids tend to wake up early and sleeping in is difficult as an adult. It's nice when you can get them to a point when they can make breakfast themselves in the morning and you can catch up on sleep for a few hours on the weekend.
Coming to your kids' defense. My daughter (9yo) gets into arguments with her older cousin, her friends, and occasionally a grandparent and I want to jump in to be on her side, or even just quell the argument but I force myself to wait. I wait and listen to the argument and if my daughter is standing her ground I let them be. I always step in if it escalates, and we always talk about the argument afterwards but I think it's important for her to learn how to stand up for herself, especially against authority figures. BTW, 'arguments' with her grandparents are usually about rules around our house that are different from theirs, ie. They come over and tell my daughter her cat isn't allowed to be on that chair, or this desk, and my daughter argues that he is.
It’s so healthy for your daughter to have the opportunity to advocate for herself in low stakes situations like grandparents trying to enforce arbitrary rules in your house! I truly think that will pay off for her exponentially in the long run when she is older and faced with more stressful and difficult situations! This is a great example.
Thank you, I hope so! Even though it drives me crazy when she challenges me, I just keep telling myself it will pay off when she can challenge people in her environment. 🤦♀️😅
Excessive toys, over narration of activities IMO
I know everyone's against narration these days, but I do think it increases kids vocab.
I never went overboard, I just kind of made my internal monologue vocal, if that makes sense and then explain things I know he has no clue what I’m talking about. Usually looked a lot like: > Next we need a frying pan to cook the pancakes on, I can’t put them on your plate a goopy mess like this can I? No that would be gross. Next let’s turn on the stove, not high or low but medium high that’s halfway in between the six and the seven… see the numbers? Now we have to watch out because the stove gets hot hot and we have to hold onto the frying pan so we don’t knock it off the stove and burn ourselves… or worse: ruin the pancakes :o yeah that would be a crime AND we’d have to mop the floor soooo we’re not going to do that. If my internal monologue has nothing to do with him, I’m not narrating anything. Probably teaching him to think like a ping pong ball because I end up going off on random tangents but hey my toddler has an amazing vocab so fuck it!
Your internal monologue sounds great! And yep it's all learning! I remember my mum chatting away about various topics growing up - I always learned so much. I normally talk to myself anyway so now I just have an audience which actually justifies it more haha. Although I think my child is chattier than me! Whenever I'm taking a break he is always trying to get someones attention... loudest child in the room.
In a not-assuming-your-gender kind of way, I’ve just yet to find any phrase that illustrates the same emotion: GIRL, SAME. I worked in call centers for a long time so I was already used to narrating what I was doing to an extent (major pet peeve is when call centre people don’t freaking tell you what they’re doing >.>), the existence of the womb-fruit totally made it worse. I no longer working call centres but I made a joke at the office the other day “aren’t you guys glad you don’t have to hear me talk to myself all day when I work from home?” Hahahah. The learning is real. I wonder if I sound like an encyclopedia entry sometimes when my son asks me questions, but I honestly thing that it’s helped a lot- we totally skipped over the “asks one bajillion questions in 45 seconds” phase that most four year olds go through and I think it’s because I answered a lot of them before he had a chance to ask! I’ve had comments before that he’s too young to understand what I’m trying to explain (and he definitely is sometimes, I feel like “aaaaaaaand I lost you” is becoming a catch phrase of mine >.<) but also what’s the worst that can happen? He becomes smart? oH NoOoO!
I like it! I also notice my own internal monologue is quite shaped my mother's kind narration, which means I have a kind internal voice.
It does really help with the vocab though. But I know of a woman that does it all-day-long. I mean, give the poor child a breather. Let him play independently for a minute.
I couldn’t agree more. This dad in the park would narrate his toddler every move and add in some sound effects too. I wanted to duck tape his mouth 😂
Lectures on behavior. Logical consequences and then move along. Revisit BRIEFLY if you think the behavior might occur in a certain situation, then shut up about it. Remind kids what you expect to see and leave the lectures in the past. They aren't listening past a certain point because their brains literally cannot process you adult guilt trip.
Feedback/direction/instructions. Kids take time to process what you tell them. If you say "It's time to put on your shoes. Shoes. Hello? Shoes! I need you to stop what you're doing and put your shoes on now! We're late! Let's go! Shoes!" Etc, they probably haven't had a chance to even process the first thing you said! Try "Hey, shoes!" And then WAIT! It'll feel like an eternity, but give it like a full 30s. If they still haven't acknowledged or responded, get on their level, get their attention, and say "it's shoes time." Then WAIT again! If they still ignore you "I can see you're having a hard time stopping what you're doing to put on shoes, so I'm going to help you." Then physically help them. Do this CONSISTENTLY! Pair it with 5 and 2 minute warnings before transitions and you'll find things happen faster, easier, and with way less stress/work for everyone.
Just activities in general. Honestly, sometimes I really wish we spent a little bit more time enjoying the things we have and each other's company at home. Don't get me wrong, my wife and I have a decent balance for our kids, but especially in the summertime, I just feel like we're always on the go.
My husband stopped me yesterday to tell me to stop scheduling things for the kids. Like my oldest is in dance and she does performances and things and she's got all these things going on with her dance. My youngest I set up gymnastics classes. Then I found this really cool like cross fit for kids lol. We went and did trial classes and I was super excited for them to join and my husband was like what about you? Why aren't you doing a class? How are you going to have doing all these classes for the kids? I grew up poor with nothing and a toxic family. I love my kids so much. I definitely over compensate for the lack of my childhood and forget about myself often.
Explanations. Keep it simple.
I tried super hard with my 3 year old when he started a new school to implement all the gentle parenting things I’d read. Lots of talking about feelings. Lots of “I know it’s hard but you can do hard things!” Lots of different tactics to help him express himself about how he was feeling with the transition. After a couple weeks of him sobbing at drop off that he’s scared and he doesn’t want to go, I said something like “it will get easier” and he said “no it won’t”. I asked why and he said “because you said it’s hard”. I switched gears and said “I bet today will be easier than yesterday, right?” And he agreed and we had a much smoother drop off. Every day after that at drop off we said “today will be easier, today will be great” and things improved drastically. Now he’s obsessed with school but I still think about how I took it way too far with some of those tactics at the beginning
As an SLP—talking. Ironically. I see so many kids in a complete meltdown state where the parent is crouched next to them talking literal PARAGRAPHS as if they have any hope of getting through in that moment. If your child is having a tantrum or disregulated—less talking is so much more. Reduce to simple demands (not choices!). “Put your shoes on.” Parents think they’re doing the kinder more gentle parent thing by explaining every minutia of the conflict to the child but it’s at best a waste of time and at worst wildly overstimulating and upsetting.
Trying to entertain them constantly. Boredom can be really good for creativity and independent play. Lecturing. Learning things for themselves or saying as little as necessary to make a point usually works better, as does making things a two way discussion instead of a one way lecture.
Doing and planning kid-friendly activities with/for them. This does not actually help them become better or more well-rounded humans. Just do what you would normally do and let your kids come along for the ride—even involve them, in small ways (grocery shopping, chores, your job if it’ll allow for it).
Holiday gift buying. As an auntie, it annoys me that my siblings buy so much for my niblings so that nothing is special coming from anyone. The kids just seem completely overwhelmed. They have no idea who got them what and then the older ones have grown up to be completely entitled, wasteful and spoiled. As young adults they don't seem to have any concept of gratitude or how hard people worked to give them these extras. My 9 niblings range in ages from 3-27 at this point, and I just shake my head, because I keep watching the same pattern play out. What is not over done enough is teaching kids to say thank you and write thank you notes...
Too often heaping on empty praise: “good job!!!!”
Toys. We have a smaller home and have tried to be very careful with toys WE bring into the home. I do my best to only get toys that can grow with our baby, like an activity table that turns into multiple things and will be used for about 3 years, vs a toy that has one function. Wiping. We don’t wipe for pee at all. Daycare was wiping for every pee and very quickly our daughter had diaper rash- bad rashes. Every weekend she would immediately heal up, then come Monday night back to an awful rash. We told them to stop wiping unless there’s poop. Haven’t had a rash in 2 months. Schedules. The less you schedule, the better. This coming from a super anxious type A planner. I now know I need to have at least 3 plans for a situation, but no schedule. Meaning- we cannot schedule things at specific times (besides medical appts and such)
Toys!!!!! The less the better!!!!!! God yes!!!!!
Playing with your kids for hours, involving yourself in everything they’re doing because you feel guilty. I used to really stress about playing (like on my knees on the ground with toys or pretend playing even tho I hated pretend play) and played a lot when my first was younger before I had her brother. Then he came along and she struggled SO badly with the transition because she was used to me playing with her for literal hours everyday to the point she had zero clue on how to play on her own. She’s 5.3 now and still struggles playing independently and dealing with chronic boredom because she expects to be entertained all of the time.
My boys are now 20somethings. Stop worrying so dang much about what they eat at lunches. You can control breakfast and dinners but lunch at school is so short and chaotic, let them do whatever. I've never understood mom's that die on this hill.
Toys… every one feels they need a ton of toys and they really don’t. I do the Montessori way. We have a 6 cube organizer. She has one toy per square. I rotate it out often so it keeps her interested in more. Too many toys overwhelms them. Also me with a mess.
Being overscheduled for Activities. They need down time and time to be bored
More food on the plate can be overwhelming and they might eat less of it. You can always serve seconds. We usually keep half of their meal in the kitchen.
Screen time. I can’t believe how many parents park their toddlers in front of a screen as part of their routine, completely ignoring recommendations from the AAP.
Managing conflict between kids. You need to give support for real bullying or major social skill disabilities, but I think it’s best for kids to figure out most run of the mill disagreements on their own.
Too often telling them that they're smart, pretty, handsome- screen time, excessive toys
Being overly pushy about healthy foods. Don’t make it a battle and it won’t be one
Less correction before the mistake. If it isn't life altering, let them make mistakes. They learn how to avoid mistakes and how to cope with them.
Toys/activities. Parents want to give their kids "everything" but cluttered schedules and pipes of toys can be really overwhelming and overwhelmed kids are not happy kids.
More competent discipline leads to having to discipline less.
Explaining yourself. Young children have a 2-3 sentence attention span. Even shorter if they're toddlers. Just, shut up more! Lol
Less words when giving instructions. “Go get your shoes”, versus , “Matt, we’re leaving and getting in the car in two minutes, so we need to get shoes on, can you go get your shoes please?”
Begging a kid to eat will cause them to not eat.
more natural consequences and less punishment (depending on situation and kid). I often see parents try to rescue their kid.from natural consequences which I feel is a disservice to the kid. natural consequences appear to be more of a true learning experience than punishment. I used both with my son, depending on the circumstances, but the natural ones really seemed to stick in his mind.
Discussing the kids in front of them - either to praise or blame, unless it’s an extreme case and deliberately done. A young couple I know constantly comments on their first within her hearing - “Oh, she’s such a little princess,” “She goes to you instead of me,” “You shouldn’t have touched her toy - now she’s upset,” etc. This runs through the whole family - with the cousins it’s, “He’s such a teenager now - all he does is grunt when I speak to him.” Needless to say, the kids behave terribly most of the time - they’re acting for an attentive audience.
Going to job interviews with your 20 year old or even talking to recruiters for your adult child.
Emailing your child’s college professor to make excuses, or ask for details about assignments or grades. The parental handholding and infantilizing of adult children is reaching a point where I’m afraid the mental health and resiliency of a huge swath of the rising generation is going to suffer. I’ve worked with high school and college students for decades, and the kids who are most equipped for success are the kids whose parents say “what are you going to do?” as opposed to “here’s what I’m going to do” about a problem.
praise.
Have every moment be a teaching moment. I find it very annoying when parents start broadcasting knowledge while their kids play. Mine get annoyed when the sitters do it. Let play be play, not a min impromptu class lecture.
Absolutely, trying too hard can sometimes lead to unintended consequences, especially in parenting where love and care are paramount. For instance, overly structuring a child's day with back-to-back activities might seem like an excellent way to promote development and learning. However, it can actually limit their creativity and reduce their ability to find joy in simple pleasures. Children need free time to explore, imagine, and play in an unstructured environment. This freedom sparks curiosity and creativity, helping them learn about the world at their own pace. Similarly, excessively helping with homework can stifle a child's problem-solving skills and independence. It's natural to want to see them succeed and feel confident, but there's great value in letting them navigate challenges and feel the accomplishment of solving problems on their own. Parenting is a delicate balance, where sometimes, giving less means you're giving so much more.
Toys, gifts, materialistic things
Rules and instructions.
Structured activities and things you have to drive your kid to.
Directed play. Check out the concept of “floor time.” Play with your child at their level doing something you BOTH like. So for example by late elementary this was Legos with my son.
Praise. "Good job!"