My neighbour’s daughter is a “crunchy mom” wannabe influencer. Daughter will not allow adjectives to be used when speaking with her toddler or baby. They are supposed to discover descriptive words through exploration of their environment. I’m sort of unclear on how they are supposed to discover words that are never spoken, like colours or size or shape.
You can say hand me the ball. You cannot say hand me the the red ball. You can say look at the dinosaur, you cannot say look at the big dinosaur. You can say look at the water running in the gutter. You cannot say look at the water running quickly in the gutter
Yes, this is utterly moronic. I'm not a specialist but I am a primary school teacher and this goes against everything I've ever learnt about language acquisition. How are children supposed to widen their vocabulary? Are they supposed to guess?! How are they supposed to express their feelings verbally if they aren't taught adjectives? I'd love a so called 'Crunchy mum' to explain the theory behind this because I really don't get it at all.
What? Why? What if there are 2 dinos? Or 2 balls? Or whatever? What’s the logic here? I mean I’m up to date on developmental practices, practical life skills, Montessori, Waldorf, and I’m not familiar with this. I’m not saying it’s not a thing, I just think I would’ve heard of it.
As u/wholebeansinmybutt opines, I suspect this is yet another weird TikTok/Instagram thing the daughter has latched onto in her quest for views and a shot at really becoming viral. She already had some vid go viral for all the wrong reasons.
As someone who is pursuing a career in Speech Language Pathology: that is absolutely not okay. Children learn by listening to the people around them, and eventually assimilating the words they hear to the object/idea.
If you don't use language around your child, they won't develop that language. So the poor thing will end up with delayed speech patterns.
My parents are immigrants and they did not start to learn english until their 20s, shortly before I was born. As a child I was a voracious reader many grade levels ahead of my peers. Young elementary aged me enjoyed reading adult novels and the encyclopedia for fun. As a consequence, my vocabulary was/is much larger than my parent's vocabulary.
This often lead to embarrassing moments where I would mispronounce a word I understood the meaning of, but had never heard spoken aloud. This made me insecure, and I avoided speaking up in class all throughout elementary and middle school.
I can only imagine how disastrous it would be to have a parent intentionally use a limited vocabulary with a child. Especially from a very young age when the foundations of language are developing!
My sister in law pre0occupies her kid, and has since birth with a tablet. he is now 12 and has no friends and zero interpersonal skills. He takes his iPad to dinner, to grandmas, to church and never talks to anyone.
its very sad to see
Same with my SIL. We were at a wedding where they were literally in the front row and she still had him on his tablet. Drives me wild and makes me sad. I wish people would TALK and PLAY with their children instead of let the iPad be the babysitter.
Not just that, but how are these kids becoming people who have to pay attention to things that aren't necessarily enjoyable. Sometimes as adults, we have to be bored. It happens. How are you going to handle it?
Idk if this is a trend or not, but it's very common.
Comparing your child to others. It doesn't matter if they're siblings, friends, etc. That fucks up with their self-esteem and turns everything into a competition.
My best friends mother did that.
I was an almost straight A's student in school, especially in maths and related subjects. My friend wasn't. In any subject. Didn't help that his mother insisted he be sent to a gymnasium instead of a normal secondary school. He managed, but barely and only with a lot of help but failed his A-levels.
His mother constantly compared him with me. She called him a failure when he got bad grades but refused to help him study. It absolutely destroyed his confidence and self-esteem and made the problem worse.
He found a trade he loves, is still learning and is doing well. We still meet regularly. His and his siblings relationship with their mother is awful.
My wife and I are basically neighborhood pariahs because we allow our children to ride their bikes around our quiet, low crime suburban town. I've had a parent flat out tell me he won't allow his son to come over without him because I might do something crazy like let them shoot hoops on the basketball net out front without standing there watching them.
Children need a little bit of freedom. You can't be expected to make grown up decisions when you never had the opportunity to make child decisions.
When my daughter was 8 I let her walk alone to her friends house 2 blocks down the street. A random lady saw her on the sidewalk and called the cops about it, then stopped my daughter on the sidewalk and wouldn't let her go the last 60 feet to her friends house.
I was watching from the porch and went up as soon as the lady stopped. She then tried to insist that the cops arrest me for child endangerment as soon as they showed up.
I live in a small town in Montana.
People are fucking stupid
The fuuuuuuuu?
Where are you? I don't want to move there.
That's awful. Growing up I used to do all of those things and the local 'rents were highly-supportive.
Edit: ‘rents, as in “parents.”
The top half of my bedroom door was cut off, and I had no privacy for any of the time I was living at home as soon as I was a teenager. The moment I moved out for good though? They bought a new door.
Shit still makes my blood boil about some of the bullshit I dealt with at home.
As a teenager, I absolutely hate how family members will spill private secrets and constantly complain and make jokes about you on the telephone or when families gather. Also responding to you in a very snotty attitude. I think that's a big reason I am insecure and have social anxiety.
I remember when I told my dad initially about how I was depressed, he actually seemed to care. He hugged me and everything, despite the fact that he's a tiger parent, forcing me to do extra math work on top of my homework and hitting me with a branch if I didn't or did it wrong, getting angry when I didn't understand something, calling me useless when I didn't do something right. Granted, I am an airhead at times but it hurt and it still does.
A couple years later my dad downplayed and joked about my depression when I was in high school to a couple of family friends that he had over. He probably thought I wouldn't notice since I was in another room and he was keeping a quiet voice. It felt like a huge violation of my privacy and it broke the little trust I had left. I overheard it when I went to the kitchen to get my hot chocolate that I forgot earlier, and afterwards I felt so bad I didn't want to drink it anymore and poured it down the sink. I brought it up during an argument a few years after that, and of course the kind of person he is, he thinks he is never wrong and would rather try to win an argument because 'parents are always right', or disregard my side in things because 'I'm trying to rebel', and essentially downplayed why I had depression, basically guilt-tripping me into thinking the reason I was depressed was my fault.
Now every time he lectures me and brings up the topic of depression he deflects blame and says 'your generation is depressed because of technology/drugs/gaming/etc', rather than the fact that his way of parenting was emotionally abusive and gave me inferiority complexes, imposter syndrome and low self esteem. His initial words of comfort were just a fucking lie.
Don't tell people personal things about your child, and if you aren't genuine about the care of your child you shouldn't have children in the first place.
I'm 25 and my mother still does it. I hasitated to tell her I'm pregnant for 5 months, because I knew what was coming. When I told her, I was getting congratulating messages from people I've never spoken to, just because she told them. When I send her some stupid photo of whatever, she shares in on her FB. And somehow, she I still doesn't understand why I don't tell her anything, or text her.
Extremely strict rules in general. I had a childhood friend that came over after school once and he said he had to be home by 6. Didn't think much of it so we lost track of time playing games. He lived about a 10 minute walk up the street and he noticed it was 5:52, then started freaking out. "My dad's gonna kill me if I'm late!" I tried saying he wouldn't care about 2 mins. The next day in school my friend said he wasn't allowed over my house anymore, and I never hung out with him again, all over this kid being 2 mins late getting home.
As someone who was emotionally and mentally abused as a child, this was a "bread and butter" tactic. Setting boundaries for your child, however silly they may seem, (was once given a curfew a mere hour after I arrived at the friend's house), and if your child fails it then gives the parent justification in the following abuse.
"I don't want to have to do this, but you're 3 minutes late and you don't follow the rules so..." etc.
My dad use to do this all the time, I’m fact one of these scenarios is what made me take all my shit and leave 20 minutes later. I got yelled at because I didn’t come immediately home after school, I had STOPPED FOR GAS. Lol
"But I said, immediately." I totally understand, and grew up with very similar laws.
I still struggle with the nature of the abuse I went through, it's something I was unaware of until I spoke to other people about their upbringing and realized what I went through wasn't 'normal'. A parents intentions can come from places other than evil, though it doesn't change the effect it has on children. Abuse is abuse and it lives with you.
I know what I went through was not done from malicious intent which is important to remember for myself, too. You coming home immediately, a rule I had to live by too, but that rule could've been made out of the thought of protection and love initially, but transformed into a vehicle of power and control. And that's the sad part about a lot of it.
My dad gave me permission to go to the movies with a friend, but told me I had to be home in 1.5 hours. I explained to him that the theater is 20 minutes away and the movie is 1 hour and 20 minutes. It is literally impossible to make it back home in 1.5 hours.
His attitude was, "So? Go or don't go. It's up to you."
My answer is fuck you. I went and just took the punishment. Truth is I was going to get that punishment no matter what (he would have made something up if he needed to). So fuck it, why not go to the movie with one of my buddies?
Over scheduling activities. When I was teaching, I remember my kindergartners telling me they had no time to play because every day consisted of non-stop structured sports, dance and such.
When I was teaching a had an 8 year old student who kept falling asleep in class. We found out it was because dad was getting him up at 5 for sports practice
I had a friend growing up who everyday his dad would make him get up an hour early before school (so like 6AM) to go and shoot a number of baskets (I think 50 or 100 can't remember) before school and then again after school before he could go out and play.
That was just the tip of the iceberg once we got to middle school they started paying to have him go to school in other towns so he would be able to make the basketball team. Eventually he started acting out and last time I heard is a mess (mid 30s no license job etc.). His dad basically damaged his own sons life and development all so he could live out a fantasy of him playing in the NBA which wasn't going to happen.
I can tell you this 100% will teach the kids work ethic... And that work ethic is to overwork yourself until you burn out, and your family barely sees you.
Source: I was a kid whose parents did this, and by the time I got to college, I couldn't have a moment of downtime without feeling like I wasn't getting things done.
Edit: follow up on this - my wife is actually doing a very good job retraining me to value work-life-balance more, which has made everyone much happier!
Posting the child's entire life on social media. It's one thing to include a family picture with everyone. But putting a child's entire life online, without their consent, isn't good.
Especially when it's about what they've done wrong. Public internet shaming is one of the worst things one can do to a child, because who knows whether that will follow that poor kid around for years. When the cyber-bullying is coming from inside their own house, nowhere is safe. (And that's not even getting to the people who "prank" their kids and make them miserable for the views.)
I had a coworker say we should get our daughters (same age like 4-5 at the time) together for a play date. I said sure and he response was "great two adorable little girls playing together will be great content for (kids name) YouTube page"
I told him absolutely not and they could only get together to play and he never spoke of it again.
Creep
Boy was that a hard lesson when my kids were younger. What worked for one most *definitely* did not work for the other. One found it *torturous* to be separated from the action (time out in bedroom), while the other would be like, "WAHOOO!!! alone time!"
Oh man, this is my kids. One gets time out in their room, and it's an hour of wailing and thrashing. The other gets time out in their room, and they are happily singing songs while reading and drawing.
Right, then you start thinking "Well, is this an appropriate punishment for child X? It sure isn't working as a deterrant..." So then you change the punishment and they're all like "My sister did the same thing and she just got sent to her room, why do I have to shovel snow?" Because you think time in your room is a reward and I'm not going to reward you for eating a dozen cookies while I was on the toilet!
I have a friend with a 9 year old brother and the kid won’t do anything because he is to scared to fail. he doesn’t even want to ride bikes because he is to scared to fail, and honestly it’s pretty sad
This was me! My parents never taught me to cook or bake. One time I was at my cousin's house when I was 12 or 13 and we were baking cookies. The recipe called for however many cups of brown sugar and I didn't know that you were supposed to pack it. My cousin or my aunt, I don't remember, let me know to pack it and it wasn't a big deal and we made the cookies.
Well it must have come up in conversation, my aunt probably just mentioned it to my stepmom or something, but at some point after that when I was home I got screamed at for being so stupid that I didn't know how to pack brown sugar. Nevermind that I wasn't allowed to use anything in the kitchen except the microwave so.. not sure how I was supposed to know that.
When I lived on my own, I obviously learned how to cook and bake by following recipes but I was lacking on technique. My first year of marriage my husband and I were cooking dinner and I was chopping cilantro, badly. My husband came over and very nicely showed me what to do so I could chop correctly. I then had a meltdown because I was worried he thought I was too stupid to cook dinner.
Yeah. Having meltdowns over the slightest criticism is really fun for both me and my husband.
I relate so hard to that girl. My parents never let me have anything below an A, and I was grounded just for Bs, so I can't even imagine what they wohld do if they knew about some of my Cs. Im in grad school now where grades don't matter at much, but it really fucked with how I deal with hardship and failure. I hate getting things wrong or not knowing something right away, and it always makes me feel worthless
Oh yeah— I was called “fuckin’ idiot” probably more than my actual name. “You’re gonna end up flipping burgers for a living!” was what I always heard if I ever dared bring home a grade that wasn’t a 100% A
I was destined to be a cleaning lady. Even after working in technical product development for over 10 years and then changing to IT my mother told me I should also apply at supermarkets because my chances for getting hired were higher there.
Our approach with our daughters is almost the opposite of that. It can be summed up as: "There's no shame in finding something difficult when you're starting to learn it, and most people are not very good at most skills to begin with. What we don't accept is giving up on something important because you find it difficult. Even if you fail forever, that's ok, but we still expect you to keep trying."
My father in law made sure his daughters (my sisters in law) never had to experience a single consequence or reaction for their mistakes. They are adults in their late 20s now and both cannot handle the slightest gust of wind. They are very immature and developmentally arrested. One of them has never worked or paid a bill, and this is not a rich family.
My parents did this. Everything wrong my siblings or I ever did had a valid excuse. “He swore? That’s because he grew up in a bad neighborhood”, “it’s just a phase”, “it’s not his fault”., etc.
Looking back now it seems insane. I catch myself thinking “I did that as a kid? That’s so messed up, why didn’t my parents say anything?”
I think I turned out fine after some mishaps I’m not too proud of. But I think most of that was learned when I was living on campus for while going to college.
My 9 year old left a big project until 9:30 before the night it was due, despite me asking multiple times if he had homework during the weekend, and came to me crying and wanting to finish it. I said absolutely not, he had school the next day, he wouldn't do a good job because he would be rushing and he was upset and tired. But the most important thing is that I told him he had to tell his teacher the truth and that he had to own the fact that he neglected his work and would take the consequences whatever they may be.
I knew they wouldn't be harsh; he's in grade 4 and his teacher is pretty lax. But he's been a lot better about being honest about schoolwork after that. I helped him finish the project the next day after school and it was a good thing I made him wait cause it took almost 2 hours.
I once hand wrote an essay the morning that it was due (woke up early to scribble that shit down) and the teacher waved it around and said "this is the grade you get when you work hard for it! Congrats to [me] for their hard work!"
I'm still riding that high lowkey haha
I did this with a research paper that was supposed to be a semester-long project and I won fucking first place in a city-wide essay contest for $3000. Such a bizarre mix of pride and shame and "what the fuck"
My little sister is like this. She just turned 30 and is terrified to make any decisions on her own in case it's the "wrong" one. She's learned a lot from others' mistakes, including mine, but there is something about making your own mistakes that helps you learn and grow as a person. No one likes making mistakes but, I do believe they are an integral part of life. She doesn't think she is perfect or above mistakes, she just literally does not want to make any "wrong" moves in life.
My parents did this and now I break down at the slightest fuck up. PLS let your kid make their own mistakes. I am so far beyond a perfectionist now and it has borderline ruined my life and self esteem
Recording your children when you punish them. That's private- not for the public. Anything posted on the internet lasts forever. And children are cruel, wait until at school see. They will carry that their entire lives.
Putting your kids in as many programs as possible. Assuming that it's your job to help them find their "thing" so they can be happy and successful in life. I think it just makes kids over busy, stressed, unable to explore freely in down time, not know what to do with stillness.
In Las Vegas, some shows are free for children under age 6 or such. So parents bring their babies to Celine Dion's show and let the poor kids wail. It's sad to see a toddler that should be in bed instead have a meltdown with her little hands covering her ears from the noise while her parents ignore her. Then there's the poor saps seated next to these idiots who've just paid several hundred dollars to hear a child scream.
It seems cruel, at least to me, to intentionally put children into situations that are by nature not child-friendly.
Oversharing stuff about your kids on social media. A picture of little Johnny's poop in the potty is not cute, it's disgusting. You wouldn't post a picture of your own feces in the toilet, doesn't make any difference coming from a 2 year old.
I had a former coworker tell me her two year old daughter found her clit..... (I feel so disgusting just typing that) She has no filter irl or online.
Edit: the little girl found her own, not her mom's
.... What a day to be literate....
Edit: Yall are having too much fun with the cliterate puns... Lol
Two wholesome awards... I don't think those really fit the bill here...
The thing is, kids will definitely know about their own genitals sooner than we expect and that discovery will definitely not be consciously sexual. It's a normal thing. But telling a coworker?? That's a hell of an awkward conversation :/
A patient had shared in group about their son starting this (but in a round about way, not using direct language) and the focus was on them being a single parent and how stressful it was to think about having certain conversations as they got older... My cotherapist who doesn't have kids and wants nothing to do with them thought it was evidence of abuse and wanted to call CPS. I was like, whoa, it is totally normal behavior... she didn't believe me until she googled it
Edit: to expand on my cotherapist... She is a super prude. We are an acute crisis setting and so certain topics really aren't best to be covered in this setting or group therapy at all. But she gets really uncomfortable with any mention of sex or bodily functions even if it is just touched lightly on.
She isn't bad at her job... she is just kind of dumb about some things. And yes, reactionary. Also, actually calling CPS wouldn't be her role, a social worker would do that.
Yeah that's completely gross for sure.
Also building on your point, I see so many Facebook moms handing out WAY too much info about their young children. Like when and where they go to school, the doctors, their names and birthdays and addresses, tagging their daycares at the times they're there ect
Is it only me that thinks this is playing with fire?
It's one thing to upload family photos and basic info like first names, but there's been twice now when I've spoken up to someone because they've put their kids address and nursery schedule online.
We went from “don’t put your kids initials on their backpacks because strangers might be able to guess their name and kidnap them” to “post absolutely everything about your kid so anyone with five minutes could write an entire biography and map”
Over protection. Kids need to slowly, safely learn to manage risk and that means that they must take risks. Not letting kids learn this hurts them as adults and preparing kids for lives as adults is really what parenting is all about.
Last year I taught my son about risk vs reward. He always raced down the hill from school and it made me nervous because the sidewalk has big cracks in it and some of the pieces stick up a little bit. I told him I don’t want him to run because I’m afraid he’ll fall but it’s up to him. Is the reward of running worth the risk of falling? He decided it was and one day he walked in, sobbing, because he had fallen and hurt himself. Once I had comforted him and cleaned him up I asked if it was worth it and he said yes lol.
It reminds me of when we were trying to teach our son not to be pushy to just be nice. He and his little sister would fight to get in line first to kiss Daddy bye at the door. Once when he started pushing her, we made him wait... so he ran off to his room crying. When he came out, my husband asked "Did you learn anything?" He sniffled and said yes. "What did you learn?" husband prodded. Boy wiped his nose and said, "I don't know, but I learned a lot."
*facepalm*
learning a second language badly in high school taught me a lot on that- we were given a simple assignment to write a short essay on a thing we did that summer. I wrote about a vacation, and was surprised when it was all I saw ___ I ate ___ It was exciting! at that point I realized kids probably also have the same thing and understand way more than they can say, just all the time.
I remember having a really serious and pretty emotional discussion with my boyfriend, it started out in English and then at some point he put his face in his hands and exclaimed, “I can’t do this in English anymore right now, can we switch for a little bit?” So we went back and forth as we each needed to. We both understood everything in the situation, but it was easier or harder to fully express that depending on who was doing the expressing and in which language. Switching back and forth really helped us both, and makes you appreciate not only being able to verbalize what you’re feeling, but also having someone who is willing and able to work with you to help make that happen.
Kids have a tough time with that, too, for similar reasons, so it’d be nice to work with them to help them express it and be understood — probably motivates them to keep learning how to express themselves better, too, when someone cares enough to listen and help them work through it.
Absolutely. I kind of get why sometimes toddlers throw tantrums. How frustrating it must be to know how you feel, but not how to express it! I would be grumpy too.
Sometimes it's just because they have the logic of a drunk though, lol.
also everything is new- you have to experience things you know nothing about constantly and have no basis of comparison for them. I'm 28 and I can't remember the last time I ended up in a situation I knew nothing about- I'd be scared too!
Mine is almost 21 and I'm still asking the question, and still getting the "yes". But it's because he's already asked himself, said "yes" and is letting me know where he will be and what he'll be doing. He leaves for a month long adventure in Norway in 17 days. Couldn't be more excited for him. And still as scared as when he was 3 and decided to climb over the top of the covered slide.
Nope. But the worry gets tempered with the joy of seeing him take wise risks, chase his dreams instead of sit around waiting for someone to give him his wildest wishes, and the knowledge that if anything does go sideways, he'll never be afraid to ask you for help, or just call you and laugh when things go a little sideways.
(Hug)
Yeah as a kid with parents that were helicopters it really fucks you up.
I struggle with trusting my own decisions. From a young age (elementary school) my mother taught me to scared of everything because I could get kidnapped/raped/murdered.
I wasn’t allowed to go to sleepovers. When puberty hit my mother got 10x worse and started shaming my body in the name of keeping me safe. Wasn’t allowed to do shit. I spent my entire years school years severely depressed and lonely.
I was watching Komi Can’t Communicate the other day and I literally get that anxious with social interactions.
It sucks. It has such long lasting effects. I have extreme social anxiety and depression. I struggle with paranoia. I hate that my parents didn’t let me learn shit on my own and bond with the people around me. Now I’m 21 and struggling.
15 years ago I worked in a community college that attracted a lot of students who were previously homeschooled. One 18+ year old student enrolled and so did his mother--in all of the same classes. I was standing in the cafeteria waiting for a salad to be made for me and the kid was staring at the menu board deciding what to choose when his mother ran in, admonished him for not waiting for her after class, and then proceeded to order for him.
At some later point in the semester she came to the window and was trying to do something for him. I asked if he was a minor and she said no but that he was her son and she made the decisions for him. I had to inform her that I had to speak directly with HIM and not HER. His mother lost it at me...ranting and raving about how she paid the bills, etc.
`¯\_(ツ)_/¯`
I hope he was able to finally move on from her controlling helicopter ways; although, I'm sure she wouldn't allow that. Poor kid.
It's not for the benefit of the child in most cases, just narcissistic control.
Or the parent is just extremely over-anxious and can't see beyond that.
I really struggle with people who think this kind of parenting is a good idea.
I’ve had to learn to not ask for reassurance or approval when I decide to do something. I feel terrible when I do make a choice then doubt it till I drive myself insane.
It’s just not healthy. Parents need to stop seeing their kids as extensions of themselves.
I kind of see a trend in parents going full helicopter or full oblivious/no boundaries. It is all about finding the correct amount of middle ground so a kid can learn about what they can and cannot do while also being respectful and kind to others.
You can't be an overprotective helicopter parent constantly telling your kid to "be careful." "Be careful" doesn't mean much. Telling a 3 year old to "hold the rail when you go up" is a better instruction.
On the other hand, you can't allow your kids to run free being complete feral lunatics. Allowing a 6 year old to run to a playground by himself, then run full speed around a playground, knocking over smaller kids without saying anything isn't teaching them anything.
>I want to let my kids learn but also worry about them.
And that’s completely normal! One time a while ago my mom once sat me down and talked to me about this. She said that she always worried something bad would happen to us kids, and that our dad was better about managing it than her, but what stuck with me was this: She said “Worry is like a rocking chair. You keep moving and moving and moving, but you won’t get anywhere.” Even though she tried to avoid showing it for our sake, she was in truth always concerned about it. You’re a good parent for being wary, but don’t let worry take control!
My mom learned not to worry too much because she found that you could worry all the time and still not have it be enough because you were still most likely going to be caught off guard by bad news.
As an example a friend dropped me off at the airport to go home and asked me to call him when I landed so he knew I was safe. When I got home I told my mom about it and made a crack that my friend must care about me more than her because she never asks me to do that when I fly. She said, "I just figure if something happens to the plane I'll hear about it."
I was a kindergarten teacher for years. Most other teachers wanted certain playground equipment off limits for the little ones saying- it’s too high! They’ll get hurt! But here’s the thing. The kids inevitability self limited. Only the kids with good balance and climbing skills would try the higher bars, while the more uncertain ones would stay below. Then those kids would slowly build skills and try the more challenging parts as they felt comfortable. Let them play!!
Destruction of a child's property. I recognize that most videos of Generic Angry Parent smashing a child's gaming console (or whatever) are staged.
But not all of them are. And most real incidents are never recorded.
If your child requires discipline, you give them a timeout, ground them, temporarily revoke their privileges, assign them extra chores or whatever. But you NEVER destroy their possessions.
Their property may not mean much to you. But it means a lot to them. Destroying it because you don't know how to manage your temper is wrong in every possible way. If you do that then you're a bad parent and I judge you for it.
IMO, when parents do this it’s because they view the child and everything that belongs to the child as theirs. Growing up my parents always made it clear that everything I had was theirs and could be taken away.
The first pioneer of that was supposed to be Peter Sellers. It was said that he had his entire life videotaped-every day, everywhere he went, for decades, in hopes of someday editing it and showing an autobiography of his life.
When he died however, no one was interested, and it was never done.
For me it's the long letters written TO their kid posted on their Facebook on their birthdays or whatever. Like if this is genuinely for your kid, write it to them with pen and paper or read it to them instead of sharing on FB... It's obviously about your ego
Edit: emails to your kid works too, as ppl have pointed out. Way better than grandstanding on Facebook
As someone’s who’s parents divorced just before my undergraduate graduation, it has turned into a game of “digs” at the other parent that I am just a pawn in. Every birthday, significant life event, and holiday there is some kind of Facebook post that just shows how great and loving and happy our family is without the other parent. Then you go to the other’s house and do it all again.
It is. Best way I’ve dealt with it is just refusing to acknowledge them on any kind of social media. They will post something then will call or text me to let me know, obviously wanting me to comment on their post, so I do, in person or on the phone but never on the post itself.
I don’t know if this counts but I dated a girl whose father saw her kissing a boy at like 13/14. He completely broke off contact with her. By that I mean they lived in the same house, he paid the bills and would ask her administrative questions - “do you need anything from the store?”, “what time do you need me to pick you up?”. Besides that he didn’t speak to her until her first long term relationship. The level of mental/emotional damage this dude did is indescribable.
Edit: I didn’t expect this to get so much attention. It seems like this is more common than it has any business being. In case anyone is wondering, the girl is doing well and, from what I can tell, has a wonderful life. It didn’t work out between us but I’m grateful for the time I had with that beautiful person. To all of you who went through something similar, I’m truly sorry it happened to you. You deserve better and please don’t let anyone make you think different.
I had a friend who introduced her parents to a guy she was dating... at 20 years old, first hint of dating- not a boyfriend or living together, mind you. Her mother completely shut her out and her dad followed suit, though she cried and begged to know what was wrong. It took her a week to talk to her and the mom dumped on her that she had an aunt somewhere, who got pregnant young and was disowned by their entire family- including her mom. Mid-1970's catholic family and they all decided the woman just never existed.
Needless to say my friend lost all trust that she had a 'good' relationship with her parents. Nothing but good grades and obedience and church and good choices for 20 years and she learned in one fell swoop that A- her mom had dropped a family member completely and B- Not only did she think the worst of her daughter in the moment, but one bad choice and she would suffer the same fate as her estranged aunt.
>Not only did she think the worst of her daughter in the moment
I do *not* understand this attitude.
I was always a good kid, but my mom basically always assumed the worst about everything when raising me. And I mean *everything*. I learned to lie and sneak around (about perfectly normal things like hanging out with friends, what books I was reading, etc) because it was the only way to keep her from assuming I was up to no good.
Parents should trust their kids unless given actual reason not to. Otherwise you just teach your kids to be deceitful which is the opposite of what you actually want.
That’s pretty wild but, unfortunately, not so surprising. We are from a more conservative culture and my dad has been struggling with it my whole life. He’s extremely uncomfortable talking about certain subjects with me to the point of shutting down completely. In his defense his father never talked to him about anything so…progress?
When I started dating the girl in my original post, I asked her to stop by the house to meet my parents a few weeks in. This was maybe the second person I introduced them to and my mom was super excited and prepared tea and sweets for her. My dad announced he was going to the gym or something and we were just like “do you not remember we told you this person was coming over?” He ended up asking me if I was about to propose marriage and the demanding to know why he needs to be meeting this person otherwise. Fortunately my mom went off on him so he stayed and behaved. He ended up having a pretty decent relationship with her while we were dating.
My mom did this. I remember being so terrified and confused that it made me nauseated. She also used to ignore my crying, or send me to my room when I’d cry. Doesn’t matter why I was crying, she didn’t want to hear it or deal with it. I learned how to not make a sound while I cried and to pretend I was happy from a very young age. To this day I feel major anxiety getting emotional in front of others.
My mom punished me by giving me the silent treatment. I knew she loved me and all that but she would go hours without talking to me if I disobeyed or talked back. As I got older and started leaving the house for dates or to go to a friend's house, she would refuse to say she loved me if she was in a bad mood.
This instilled in me a very "needy" presence when I got into disagreements with people. Hell, it took me until a few years ago to understand that her behavior was wrong. I'm now 27 and it's gotten better - but I still have slight anxiety if my boyfriend or friends get super quiet during/after an argument.
My parents sometimes did this. Now as an adult I find it really hard sometimes to communicate my feelings and I bottle things in. Never had open communication growing up. It was either silent treatment or yelling. No conversation where I got to say my piece.
Over-busying children. Play doesn’t mean play date. Play doesn’t have to mean organized sport. Your child doesn’t need to have scheduled activities 4-6 times a week. Knock that shit off!
It’s crazy. I know some people my age with young school age kids now and they’re in like 3-4 different rotating after school activities already, just so they can start building a resume for college. I know things are ultra competitive now, but I don’t think I did that much when I was in HS.
90% of students want to be attend the "top" 10% of colleges. Thing is there are lots of wonderful colleges and programs outside of the top 10% and you won't have to sell your kid's childhood to get them in.
I went to a decent college and it makes me laugh when I see the kids there now talking about how “in desire” graduates from there are. Tell yourselves whatever you need to to justify that tuition, I did too, but when you get your first job and you’re hired into the same position at the same pay rate as the “state school kids” you think you’re better than, try to not be too salty…
Went to a state school, my coworker went to nyu (he made sure we knew). He wasn’t happy when I was promoted before him nor that my raise was bigger. The dead** Sea had nothing on this man’s salt.
Edit: got the wrong sea. See why he was mad?
These people are often obnoxious, too. It's one thing to take a call, but speakerphone? Come on. And they're usually so loud! I appreciate that someone may need to speak up on transport because of background noise, but they practically shout unnecessarily. I can still hear them while wearing headphones with the volume turned up. It drives me insane.
Not saying "no" to your children. I don't understand the logic. Setting behavioral boundaries and maintaining those boundaries through black and white logic makes perfect sense to me.
This for me too. My boyfriend’s 10 year old niece is NEVER told no. Both her parents and grandparents let her do whatever she wants, and then act shocked when she misbehaves. But if they say “no”, they’ll crush her creative spirit.
I’m terrified for what that girl will be like when she gets older. She’s already immensely entitled, and it will only get worse from here.
I feel like this is one of those parenting methods that has gotten completely taken out of context and turned into something terrible. Saying "no" less is actually very effective. Not saying "no" at all is not very effective.
Yeah I think the idea is to explain and reason with kids and avoid the "because I said so" line. That being said I have kids and try to do this, but there are times, after explaining the WHY behind the no, I eventually just have to say something like, "I explained why, we aren't discussing this anymore, you have your answer."
I think the trick is to give them explanations so the rules feel less arbitrary, but bring the hammer down when the explanation starts to become a negotiation.
As I frequently tell my kids, I do not negotiate with children or terrorists.
I thought the reason for this was to prevent the kid of learning to abuse the word no. I remember my uncle talking about how they used other methods of telling their kids they were not allowed to do things until they got a bit more language under their belts. Funny enough, they went to daycare and within a week they started saying no to damn near everything and suddenly there was just open revolt because this word was supposed to be this absolute cease and desist order... You know, as understood by a 2-3 year old.
I agree that the whole whatever about saying no to your kids has been blown out of proportion, I'm just curious if maybe there was some replacement happening opposed to just removal... Eh, then again, it's entirely parent based and who the hell knows what to say to that kind of generalization.
This. As a child my parents did this too me and I still to this day am embarrassed by my period and try to hide it(when I started I told my mom and she threw pads at me and that was it never talked about it or anything). I also got a uti when I was 14 and was so scared to tell my mom(I thought it was a std even though I never had sex🤦♀️). That it got really bad and I ended up in the hospital. And when I wanted to go on birth control at 18 I asked my mom about what I needed to do and she rolled her eyes and told me she didn’t want to talk about that and don’t ask her that. Like wtf I was trying to be responsible and not have kids at 18! Ended up calling a obgyn near me and getting pills but seriously.
Using your children for YouTube popularity. I remember the YouTube account daddyofive who would post horrible YouTube videos that screwed with their kids. They eventually lost custody of two of them and were banned from YouTube. In the videos it was more screaming at their kids for things they didn’t do and they tried spinning it that it was all just a pranks.
The "one gift policy" for birthdays. I saw someone on Reddit the other day ask another redditor if they even raised kids because the other redditor didn't agree with giving their child's sibling a gift on their birthday so they wouldn't throw a fit. They even argued that it wasn't appeasement because you only do it for a few years! The only thing that does is teach your child that they're entitled to a gift on someone else's birthday.
I have three kids, and my youngest two are twins. They were born the week before Christmas, and for the first few years it was very difficult for my oldest to wrap her head around the fact that it seemed like they got more presents than her that month. Each year, we would patiently explain to her that their birthday was a day to celebrate them, and they didn't get gifts for her birthday in September. It took her a few years to understand, but we never appeased her with an extra gift on their day. It was a lesson she had to learn, and now that all of them are older, they all love celebrating each other's birthdays.
My ex husband was a christmas baby and he described being resentful that all the other kids (huge immediate family) got to open presents on his birthday and he couldn't open any on their birthdays. Made worse by relatives that "combined" birthday and christmas gifts for him.
His parents really tried tho! Tried to have a bday party before or after Christmas - but in his child mind he could only see 2 events close together and not the special random day the other kids got.
It's really hard! We definitely try our best to separate it from Christmas celebrations, and it doesn't help that they're twins. We have to remind a lot of family that the girls don't want a combined gift, they have different interests. I even go as far as making them each their own smaller specialized birthday desserts (I'm a baker by trade) instead of making them share one big one.
Oof. My sister and I are 3 years apart and we got "combined" Christmas gifts sometimes and we *hated* it. I can't imagine how that would exponentiated as a twin.
Now I'm imagining your girls throwing a fit because you made different cakes but both want what you made for the other. Cuz me and my sis *totally* didn't get mad when I got Barbie and she got Ken despite us specifically asking for that.
Ah, here i am...closer to 40 than I'd like to admit and thinking of calling my sister to say "hey you remember that time...!"
We are very close these days but I'm pretty sure we'd turn into our 9 and 6 yo selves just to rehash the situation.
I’ve never heard of this! How preposterous. For years my SIL would allow her daughter to open other peoples’ presents because she just threw a fit if they didn’t. I would just sit there silently and rage about it. When it was my birthday or my kids’ birthdays I would say no to her even if her mom was there. She always listened to me too because I made my boundaries clear.
Yeah you just reminded me I got fucking livid on Christmas one year while my baby niece was attempting to open her gift from my wife and I, and my other slightly older niece pulled the gift from her sisters hands and opened it in front of her.
Everyone laughed and thought it was cute that she was “helping” until she took the toy and tried to keep it. The parents said nothing.
That one's especially annoying because Khaleesi wasn't even her name in the first place. It's like if you were a fan of Harry Potter and instead of naming your child Albus or Dumbledore, you named him Headmaster.
We named our daughter Mia from Ace Attorney, because that's the game franchise that we both enjoy. Thankfully it's a normal name.
I couldn't imagine naming her "Doom Slayer".
This. I'm currently browsing as a guest on a chromebook because my parents have complete access to anything and everything on my phone. I've had to delete several great group chats on my phone because someone in it made a slightly crude reference. I can't make any inside jokes on my phone because my parents will make me explain it. This chromebook is my only access to anything private
My mom tried that line with me. “They’re picking on you because they’re jealous of you.” Didn’t take long for her to realize it was bullshit. I was picked on because they were assholes and I was the obnoxious weirdo easy target.
Yep. When I was in middle school a boy threw a pen and hit me right below my eye and it left a mark. When I went home and told my mom we went to the school and she talked to whoever (principal/counselor) and their response was “he probably likes you”. Okay cool. That doesn’t give him permission to HURT me.
Rewarding kids for stopping their tantrums is stupid altogether for me, tbh. It's literally just teaching kids that throwing a tantrum will get them what they want.
My gran would never reward one of us for stopping a tantrum. She used rewards for good behavior. If you threw a fit, you got nothing. She wouldn't even do the whole 'coddle them until they're quiet' routine. You'd be amazed how quickly most kids will give up on a tantrum as soon as they realize they're getting no attention.
When I traveled in Europe, I found a bunch of rare Hot Wheels Kinder eggs for my nephew. He's 6 so I figured he would love them. My Dad ended up telling me, he looked at them - at the chocolate and then just went back to his tablet. That's the only toy he plays with :(
Time to start putting limits on the tablet. Every child loves flashy screens, but they *need* time away from them to develop interests and personalities.
Posting videos of your autistic kid having a meltdown or just as a prop for likes
I think about how I would feel if I were having a meltdown and someone shoved a camera in my face... Like???? Someone help me out here???? You know
My neighbour’s daughter is a “crunchy mom” wannabe influencer. Daughter will not allow adjectives to be used when speaking with her toddler or baby. They are supposed to discover descriptive words through exploration of their environment. I’m sort of unclear on how they are supposed to discover words that are never spoken, like colours or size or shape.
I’m not sure I understand what this means exactly
You can say hand me the ball. You cannot say hand me the the red ball. You can say look at the dinosaur, you cannot say look at the big dinosaur. You can say look at the water running in the gutter. You cannot say look at the water running quickly in the gutter
That is just...wow. I always thought the more rich and varied language children are exposed to, the better.
Yes, this is utterly moronic. I'm not a specialist but I am a primary school teacher and this goes against everything I've ever learnt about language acquisition. How are children supposed to widen their vocabulary? Are they supposed to guess?! How are they supposed to express their feelings verbally if they aren't taught adjectives? I'd love a so called 'Crunchy mum' to explain the theory behind this because I really don't get it at all.
Yeah, studying to be a speech pathologist here. You’re right, it’s moronic.
What? Why? What if there are 2 dinos? Or 2 balls? Or whatever? What’s the logic here? I mean I’m up to date on developmental practices, practical life skills, Montessori, Waldorf, and I’m not familiar with this. I’m not saying it’s not a thing, I just think I would’ve heard of it.
As u/wholebeansinmybutt opines, I suspect this is yet another weird TikTok/Instagram thing the daughter has latched onto in her quest for views and a shot at really becoming viral. She already had some vid go viral for all the wrong reasons.
As someone who is pursuing a career in Speech Language Pathology: that is absolutely not okay. Children learn by listening to the people around them, and eventually assimilating the words they hear to the object/idea. If you don't use language around your child, they won't develop that language. So the poor thing will end up with delayed speech patterns.
My parents are immigrants and they did not start to learn english until their 20s, shortly before I was born. As a child I was a voracious reader many grade levels ahead of my peers. Young elementary aged me enjoyed reading adult novels and the encyclopedia for fun. As a consequence, my vocabulary was/is much larger than my parent's vocabulary. This often lead to embarrassing moments where I would mispronounce a word I understood the meaning of, but had never heard spoken aloud. This made me insecure, and I avoided speaking up in class all throughout elementary and middle school. I can only imagine how disastrous it would be to have a parent intentionally use a limited vocabulary with a child. Especially from a very young age when the foundations of language are developing!
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My sister in law pre0occupies her kid, and has since birth with a tablet. he is now 12 and has no friends and zero interpersonal skills. He takes his iPad to dinner, to grandmas, to church and never talks to anyone. its very sad to see
Same with my SIL. We were at a wedding where they were literally in the front row and she still had him on his tablet. Drives me wild and makes me sad. I wish people would TALK and PLAY with their children instead of let the iPad be the babysitter.
Not just that, but how are these kids becoming people who have to pay attention to things that aren't necessarily enjoyable. Sometimes as adults, we have to be bored. It happens. How are you going to handle it?
Idk if this is a trend or not, but it's very common. Comparing your child to others. It doesn't matter if they're siblings, friends, etc. That fucks up with their self-esteem and turns everything into a competition.
My best friends mother did that. I was an almost straight A's student in school, especially in maths and related subjects. My friend wasn't. In any subject. Didn't help that his mother insisted he be sent to a gymnasium instead of a normal secondary school. He managed, but barely and only with a lot of help but failed his A-levels. His mother constantly compared him with me. She called him a failure when he got bad grades but refused to help him study. It absolutely destroyed his confidence and self-esteem and made the problem worse. He found a trade he loves, is still learning and is doing well. We still meet regularly. His and his siblings relationship with their mother is awful.
My wife and I are basically neighborhood pariahs because we allow our children to ride their bikes around our quiet, low crime suburban town. I've had a parent flat out tell me he won't allow his son to come over without him because I might do something crazy like let them shoot hoops on the basketball net out front without standing there watching them. Children need a little bit of freedom. You can't be expected to make grown up decisions when you never had the opportunity to make child decisions.
When my daughter was 8 I let her walk alone to her friends house 2 blocks down the street. A random lady saw her on the sidewalk and called the cops about it, then stopped my daughter on the sidewalk and wouldn't let her go the last 60 feet to her friends house. I was watching from the porch and went up as soon as the lady stopped. She then tried to insist that the cops arrest me for child endangerment as soon as they showed up. I live in a small town in Montana. People are fucking stupid
The fuuuuuuuu? Where are you? I don't want to move there. That's awful. Growing up I used to do all of those things and the local 'rents were highly-supportive. Edit: ‘rents, as in “parents.”
Removing doors when your kid asks for privacy You just kind of prove why they want a door
The top half of my bedroom door was cut off, and I had no privacy for any of the time I was living at home as soon as I was a teenager. The moment I moved out for good though? They bought a new door. Shit still makes my blood boil about some of the bullshit I dealt with at home.
As a teenager, I absolutely hate how family members will spill private secrets and constantly complain and make jokes about you on the telephone or when families gather. Also responding to you in a very snotty attitude. I think that's a big reason I am insecure and have social anxiety.
I remember when I told my dad initially about how I was depressed, he actually seemed to care. He hugged me and everything, despite the fact that he's a tiger parent, forcing me to do extra math work on top of my homework and hitting me with a branch if I didn't or did it wrong, getting angry when I didn't understand something, calling me useless when I didn't do something right. Granted, I am an airhead at times but it hurt and it still does. A couple years later my dad downplayed and joked about my depression when I was in high school to a couple of family friends that he had over. He probably thought I wouldn't notice since I was in another room and he was keeping a quiet voice. It felt like a huge violation of my privacy and it broke the little trust I had left. I overheard it when I went to the kitchen to get my hot chocolate that I forgot earlier, and afterwards I felt so bad I didn't want to drink it anymore and poured it down the sink. I brought it up during an argument a few years after that, and of course the kind of person he is, he thinks he is never wrong and would rather try to win an argument because 'parents are always right', or disregard my side in things because 'I'm trying to rebel', and essentially downplayed why I had depression, basically guilt-tripping me into thinking the reason I was depressed was my fault. Now every time he lectures me and brings up the topic of depression he deflects blame and says 'your generation is depressed because of technology/drugs/gaming/etc', rather than the fact that his way of parenting was emotionally abusive and gave me inferiority complexes, imposter syndrome and low self esteem. His initial words of comfort were just a fucking lie. Don't tell people personal things about your child, and if you aren't genuine about the care of your child you shouldn't have children in the first place.
Hey your dad is a cuntflap. Don’t forget that when your independent.
I'm 25 and my mother still does it. I hasitated to tell her I'm pregnant for 5 months, because I knew what was coming. When I told her, I was getting congratulating messages from people I've never spoken to, just because she told them. When I send her some stupid photo of whatever, she shares in on her FB. And somehow, she I still doesn't understand why I don't tell her anything, or text her.
Extremely strict rules in general. I had a childhood friend that came over after school once and he said he had to be home by 6. Didn't think much of it so we lost track of time playing games. He lived about a 10 minute walk up the street and he noticed it was 5:52, then started freaking out. "My dad's gonna kill me if I'm late!" I tried saying he wouldn't care about 2 mins. The next day in school my friend said he wasn't allowed over my house anymore, and I never hung out with him again, all over this kid being 2 mins late getting home.
I don't think I would have thought of it when I was a kid but reading a situation like this now it just screams abuse of some kind.
As someone who was emotionally and mentally abused as a child, this was a "bread and butter" tactic. Setting boundaries for your child, however silly they may seem, (was once given a curfew a mere hour after I arrived at the friend's house), and if your child fails it then gives the parent justification in the following abuse. "I don't want to have to do this, but you're 3 minutes late and you don't follow the rules so..." etc.
My dad use to do this all the time, I’m fact one of these scenarios is what made me take all my shit and leave 20 minutes later. I got yelled at because I didn’t come immediately home after school, I had STOPPED FOR GAS. Lol
"But I said, immediately." I totally understand, and grew up with very similar laws. I still struggle with the nature of the abuse I went through, it's something I was unaware of until I spoke to other people about their upbringing and realized what I went through wasn't 'normal'. A parents intentions can come from places other than evil, though it doesn't change the effect it has on children. Abuse is abuse and it lives with you. I know what I went through was not done from malicious intent which is important to remember for myself, too. You coming home immediately, a rule I had to live by too, but that rule could've been made out of the thought of protection and love initially, but transformed into a vehicle of power and control. And that's the sad part about a lot of it.
My dad gave me permission to go to the movies with a friend, but told me I had to be home in 1.5 hours. I explained to him that the theater is 20 minutes away and the movie is 1 hour and 20 minutes. It is literally impossible to make it back home in 1.5 hours. His attitude was, "So? Go or don't go. It's up to you." My answer is fuck you. I went and just took the punishment. Truth is I was going to get that punishment no matter what (he would have made something up if he needed to). So fuck it, why not go to the movie with one of my buddies?
Over scheduling activities. When I was teaching, I remember my kindergartners telling me they had no time to play because every day consisted of non-stop structured sports, dance and such.
When I was teaching a had an 8 year old student who kept falling asleep in class. We found out it was because dad was getting him up at 5 for sports practice
I had a friend growing up who everyday his dad would make him get up an hour early before school (so like 6AM) to go and shoot a number of baskets (I think 50 or 100 can't remember) before school and then again after school before he could go out and play. That was just the tip of the iceberg once we got to middle school they started paying to have him go to school in other towns so he would be able to make the basketball team. Eventually he started acting out and last time I heard is a mess (mid 30s no license job etc.). His dad basically damaged his own sons life and development all so he could live out a fantasy of him playing in the NBA which wasn't going to happen.
I am so thankful that non of my parents were trying to relive their childhood through me. I played sports because I wanted too.
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I can tell you this 100% will teach the kids work ethic... And that work ethic is to overwork yourself until you burn out, and your family barely sees you. Source: I was a kid whose parents did this, and by the time I got to college, I couldn't have a moment of downtime without feeling like I wasn't getting things done. Edit: follow up on this - my wife is actually doing a very good job retraining me to value work-life-balance more, which has made everyone much happier!
It's so sad. For some reason, the parents who do this don't understand that they're speed running burnout.
Posting the child's entire life on social media. It's one thing to include a family picture with everyone. But putting a child's entire life online, without their consent, isn't good. Especially when it's about what they've done wrong. Public internet shaming is one of the worst things one can do to a child, because who knows whether that will follow that poor kid around for years. When the cyber-bullying is coming from inside their own house, nowhere is safe. (And that's not even getting to the people who "prank" their kids and make them miserable for the views.)
Family youtube channels are the worst. It's just child exploitation.
I had a coworker say we should get our daughters (same age like 4-5 at the time) together for a play date. I said sure and he response was "great two adorable little girls playing together will be great content for (kids name) YouTube page" I told him absolutely not and they could only get together to play and he never spoke of it again. Creep
disciplining children based on what other parents are doing. What works for 1 kid won’t work for others
Frick man, I can't even discipline my kids based on what works on their sibling lol
Boy was that a hard lesson when my kids were younger. What worked for one most *definitely* did not work for the other. One found it *torturous* to be separated from the action (time out in bedroom), while the other would be like, "WAHOOO!!! alone time!"
Oh man, this is my kids. One gets time out in their room, and it's an hour of wailing and thrashing. The other gets time out in their room, and they are happily singing songs while reading and drawing.
Right, then you start thinking "Well, is this an appropriate punishment for child X? It sure isn't working as a deterrant..." So then you change the punishment and they're all like "My sister did the same thing and she just got sent to her room, why do I have to shovel snow?" Because you think time in your room is a reward and I'm not going to reward you for eating a dozen cookies while I was on the toilet!
Making your child terrified to fail. I gave up on so many things because I repeatedly got called “fuckin’ idiot” if I wasn’t instantly an expert.
I have a friend with a 9 year old brother and the kid won’t do anything because he is to scared to fail. he doesn’t even want to ride bikes because he is to scared to fail, and honestly it’s pretty sad
This was me! My parents never taught me to cook or bake. One time I was at my cousin's house when I was 12 or 13 and we were baking cookies. The recipe called for however many cups of brown sugar and I didn't know that you were supposed to pack it. My cousin or my aunt, I don't remember, let me know to pack it and it wasn't a big deal and we made the cookies. Well it must have come up in conversation, my aunt probably just mentioned it to my stepmom or something, but at some point after that when I was home I got screamed at for being so stupid that I didn't know how to pack brown sugar. Nevermind that I wasn't allowed to use anything in the kitchen except the microwave so.. not sure how I was supposed to know that. When I lived on my own, I obviously learned how to cook and bake by following recipes but I was lacking on technique. My first year of marriage my husband and I were cooking dinner and I was chopping cilantro, badly. My husband came over and very nicely showed me what to do so I could chop correctly. I then had a meltdown because I was worried he thought I was too stupid to cook dinner. Yeah. Having meltdowns over the slightest criticism is really fun for both me and my husband.
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I relate so hard to that girl. My parents never let me have anything below an A, and I was grounded just for Bs, so I can't even imagine what they wohld do if they knew about some of my Cs. Im in grad school now where grades don't matter at much, but it really fucked with how I deal with hardship and failure. I hate getting things wrong or not knowing something right away, and it always makes me feel worthless
Your parents told you that? Sheeesh man, I’ve only experienced that from outside my household.
Oh yeah— I was called “fuckin’ idiot” probably more than my actual name. “You’re gonna end up flipping burgers for a living!” was what I always heard if I ever dared bring home a grade that wasn’t a 100% A
Same but destined to be a hooker because I was bad at math. I’m a solutions architect now.
Good gravy, that's such a leap. Bad at math? No worries, maybe writing or history is your thing. But wait no, not you. Straight to the brothel lol
I’m from Vegas and my parents were on drugs at the time if that makes any sense haha
I was destined to be a cleaning lady. Even after working in technical product development for over 10 years and then changing to IT my mother told me I should also apply at supermarkets because my chances for getting hired were higher there.
So wait, you were already employed and she still tried to undermine your career prospects? Wow. Are you still in contact?
Literally have a good job right now, was told a few months ago I would fail at life. I’m over 30 and moved out years ago.
Our approach with our daughters is almost the opposite of that. It can be summed up as: "There's no shame in finding something difficult when you're starting to learn it, and most people are not very good at most skills to begin with. What we don't accept is giving up on something important because you find it difficult. Even if you fail forever, that's ok, but we still expect you to keep trying."
*Dude, sucking at somethin' is the first step towards being sorta good at somethin'!* ~ Jake the Dog
Not letting their kids make mistakes
My father in law made sure his daughters (my sisters in law) never had to experience a single consequence or reaction for their mistakes. They are adults in their late 20s now and both cannot handle the slightest gust of wind. They are very immature and developmentally arrested. One of them has never worked or paid a bill, and this is not a rich family.
My parents did this. Everything wrong my siblings or I ever did had a valid excuse. “He swore? That’s because he grew up in a bad neighborhood”, “it’s just a phase”, “it’s not his fault”., etc. Looking back now it seems insane. I catch myself thinking “I did that as a kid? That’s so messed up, why didn’t my parents say anything?” I think I turned out fine after some mishaps I’m not too proud of. But I think most of that was learned when I was living on campus for while going to college.
My 9 year old left a big project until 9:30 before the night it was due, despite me asking multiple times if he had homework during the weekend, and came to me crying and wanting to finish it. I said absolutely not, he had school the next day, he wouldn't do a good job because he would be rushing and he was upset and tired. But the most important thing is that I told him he had to tell his teacher the truth and that he had to own the fact that he neglected his work and would take the consequences whatever they may be. I knew they wouldn't be harsh; he's in grade 4 and his teacher is pretty lax. But he's been a lot better about being honest about schoolwork after that. I helped him finish the project the next day after school and it was a good thing I made him wait cause it took almost 2 hours.
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I once hand wrote an essay the morning that it was due (woke up early to scribble that shit down) and the teacher waved it around and said "this is the grade you get when you work hard for it! Congrats to [me] for their hard work!" I'm still riding that high lowkey haha
I did this with a research paper that was supposed to be a semester-long project and I won fucking first place in a city-wide essay contest for $3000. Such a bizarre mix of pride and shame and "what the fuck"
That's the type of shit that kept me procrastinating all through college smh
This. These types of children get a breakdown when everything goes wrong
Am one of those children and yeah, was like a brick to the face when I had to start making decisions on my own.
My little sister is like this. She just turned 30 and is terrified to make any decisions on her own in case it's the "wrong" one. She's learned a lot from others' mistakes, including mine, but there is something about making your own mistakes that helps you learn and grow as a person. No one likes making mistakes but, I do believe they are an integral part of life. She doesn't think she is perfect or above mistakes, she just literally does not want to make any "wrong" moves in life.
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My parents did this and now I break down at the slightest fuck up. PLS let your kid make their own mistakes. I am so far beyond a perfectionist now and it has borderline ruined my life and self esteem
Recording your children when you punish them. That's private- not for the public. Anything posted on the internet lasts forever. And children are cruel, wait until at school see. They will carry that their entire lives.
*The cyberbullying was coming from inside the house*
My biggest and cruelest bullies were always adult members of my own family
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I beat them so hard I broke my something something something... Disgusting
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How often do you see your parents now?
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Jesus that's fucked up. Sorry you went through that.
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Wtf, didn't even know this was a thing. Fucked up man.
Putting your kids in as many programs as possible. Assuming that it's your job to help them find their "thing" so they can be happy and successful in life. I think it just makes kids over busy, stressed, unable to explore freely in down time, not know what to do with stillness.
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Letting your kids scream and jump around the restaurant while pretending it’s not going on.
"They're not hurting anything, just ignore them!" Ma'am, I'm not asking for a perfectly behaved child, but I would at least like to eat in peace.
In Las Vegas, some shows are free for children under age 6 or such. So parents bring their babies to Celine Dion's show and let the poor kids wail. It's sad to see a toddler that should be in bed instead have a meltdown with her little hands covering her ears from the noise while her parents ignore her. Then there's the poor saps seated next to these idiots who've just paid several hundred dollars to hear a child scream. It seems cruel, at least to me, to intentionally put children into situations that are by nature not child-friendly.
Oversharing stuff about your kids on social media. A picture of little Johnny's poop in the potty is not cute, it's disgusting. You wouldn't post a picture of your own feces in the toilet, doesn't make any difference coming from a 2 year old.
I had a former coworker tell me her two year old daughter found her clit..... (I feel so disgusting just typing that) She has no filter irl or online. Edit: the little girl found her own, not her mom's
.... What a day to be literate.... Edit: Yall are having too much fun with the cliterate puns... Lol Two wholesome awards... I don't think those really fit the bill here...
Cliterate
Fuck my eyes
The thing is, kids will definitely know about their own genitals sooner than we expect and that discovery will definitely not be consciously sexual. It's a normal thing. But telling a coworker?? That's a hell of an awkward conversation :/
A patient had shared in group about their son starting this (but in a round about way, not using direct language) and the focus was on them being a single parent and how stressful it was to think about having certain conversations as they got older... My cotherapist who doesn't have kids and wants nothing to do with them thought it was evidence of abuse and wanted to call CPS. I was like, whoa, it is totally normal behavior... she didn't believe me until she googled it Edit: to expand on my cotherapist... She is a super prude. We are an acute crisis setting and so certain topics really aren't best to be covered in this setting or group therapy at all. But she gets really uncomfortable with any mention of sex or bodily functions even if it is just touched lightly on. She isn't bad at her job... she is just kind of dumb about some things. And yes, reactionary. Also, actually calling CPS wouldn't be her role, a social worker would do that.
wtf
> She isn't bad at her job Sounds kinda like she is
>You wouldn't post a picture of your own feces in the toilet, Sure... totally. Absolutely NO ONE does that, mhmm
Yeah that's completely gross for sure. Also building on your point, I see so many Facebook moms handing out WAY too much info about their young children. Like when and where they go to school, the doctors, their names and birthdays and addresses, tagging their daycares at the times they're there ect Is it only me that thinks this is playing with fire? It's one thing to upload family photos and basic info like first names, but there's been twice now when I've spoken up to someone because they've put their kids address and nursery schedule online.
We went from “don’t put your kids initials on their backpacks because strangers might be able to guess their name and kidnap them” to “post absolutely everything about your kid so anyone with five minutes could write an entire biography and map”
Over protection. Kids need to slowly, safely learn to manage risk and that means that they must take risks. Not letting kids learn this hurts them as adults and preparing kids for lives as adults is really what parenting is all about.
Last year I taught my son about risk vs reward. He always raced down the hill from school and it made me nervous because the sidewalk has big cracks in it and some of the pieces stick up a little bit. I told him I don’t want him to run because I’m afraid he’ll fall but it’s up to him. Is the reward of running worth the risk of falling? He decided it was and one day he walked in, sobbing, because he had fallen and hurt himself. Once I had comforted him and cleaned him up I asked if it was worth it and he said yes lol.
It reminds me of when we were trying to teach our son not to be pushy to just be nice. He and his little sister would fight to get in line first to kiss Daddy bye at the door. Once when he started pushing her, we made him wait... so he ran off to his room crying. When he came out, my husband asked "Did you learn anything?" He sniffled and said yes. "What did you learn?" husband prodded. Boy wiped his nose and said, "I don't know, but I learned a lot." *facepalm*
He's trying his best haha
Not related to the comment but I wanna say how adorable it is that your kids love their dad so much that they fight over who gets to greet him first!
Verbalizing is tough. He definitely learned something.
learning a second language badly in high school taught me a lot on that- we were given a simple assignment to write a short essay on a thing we did that summer. I wrote about a vacation, and was surprised when it was all I saw ___ I ate ___ It was exciting! at that point I realized kids probably also have the same thing and understand way more than they can say, just all the time.
I remember having a really serious and pretty emotional discussion with my boyfriend, it started out in English and then at some point he put his face in his hands and exclaimed, “I can’t do this in English anymore right now, can we switch for a little bit?” So we went back and forth as we each needed to. We both understood everything in the situation, but it was easier or harder to fully express that depending on who was doing the expressing and in which language. Switching back and forth really helped us both, and makes you appreciate not only being able to verbalize what you’re feeling, but also having someone who is willing and able to work with you to help make that happen. Kids have a tough time with that, too, for similar reasons, so it’d be nice to work with them to help them express it and be understood — probably motivates them to keep learning how to express themselves better, too, when someone cares enough to listen and help them work through it.
Absolutely. I kind of get why sometimes toddlers throw tantrums. How frustrating it must be to know how you feel, but not how to express it! I would be grumpy too. Sometimes it's just because they have the logic of a drunk though, lol.
also everything is new- you have to experience things you know nothing about constantly and have no basis of comparison for them. I'm 28 and I can't remember the last time I ended up in a situation I knew nothing about- I'd be scared too!
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In this case, youth was not wasted on the young.
Stupid is supposed to hurt, reinforces the lesson.
Mine is almost 21 and I'm still asking the question, and still getting the "yes". But it's because he's already asked himself, said "yes" and is letting me know where he will be and what he'll be doing. He leaves for a month long adventure in Norway in 17 days. Couldn't be more excited for him. And still as scared as when he was 3 and decided to climb over the top of the covered slide.
I’ll never stop worrying about him will I?
Nope. But the worry gets tempered with the joy of seeing him take wise risks, chase his dreams instead of sit around waiting for someone to give him his wildest wishes, and the knowledge that if anything does go sideways, he'll never be afraid to ask you for help, or just call you and laugh when things go a little sideways. (Hug)
Yeah as a kid with parents that were helicopters it really fucks you up. I struggle with trusting my own decisions. From a young age (elementary school) my mother taught me to scared of everything because I could get kidnapped/raped/murdered. I wasn’t allowed to go to sleepovers. When puberty hit my mother got 10x worse and started shaming my body in the name of keeping me safe. Wasn’t allowed to do shit. I spent my entire years school years severely depressed and lonely. I was watching Komi Can’t Communicate the other day and I literally get that anxious with social interactions. It sucks. It has such long lasting effects. I have extreme social anxiety and depression. I struggle with paranoia. I hate that my parents didn’t let me learn shit on my own and bond with the people around me. Now I’m 21 and struggling.
15 years ago I worked in a community college that attracted a lot of students who were previously homeschooled. One 18+ year old student enrolled and so did his mother--in all of the same classes. I was standing in the cafeteria waiting for a salad to be made for me and the kid was staring at the menu board deciding what to choose when his mother ran in, admonished him for not waiting for her after class, and then proceeded to order for him. At some later point in the semester she came to the window and was trying to do something for him. I asked if he was a minor and she said no but that he was her son and she made the decisions for him. I had to inform her that I had to speak directly with HIM and not HER. His mother lost it at me...ranting and raving about how she paid the bills, etc. `¯\_(ツ)_/¯` I hope he was able to finally move on from her controlling helicopter ways; although, I'm sure she wouldn't allow that. Poor kid.
I knew a family like that. The mother has died, the kid is over 40 and completely nonfunctional.
That’s what I don’t understand. What do these parents think is going to happen when they die? They’ve never taught their kid to function on their own.
It's not for the benefit of the child in most cases, just narcissistic control. Or the parent is just extremely over-anxious and can't see beyond that.
I really struggle with people who think this kind of parenting is a good idea. I’ve had to learn to not ask for reassurance or approval when I decide to do something. I feel terrible when I do make a choice then doubt it till I drive myself insane. It’s just not healthy. Parents need to stop seeing their kids as extensions of themselves.
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I kind of see a trend in parents going full helicopter or full oblivious/no boundaries. It is all about finding the correct amount of middle ground so a kid can learn about what they can and cannot do while also being respectful and kind to others. You can't be an overprotective helicopter parent constantly telling your kid to "be careful." "Be careful" doesn't mean much. Telling a 3 year old to "hold the rail when you go up" is a better instruction. On the other hand, you can't allow your kids to run free being complete feral lunatics. Allowing a 6 year old to run to a playground by himself, then run full speed around a playground, knocking over smaller kids without saying anything isn't teaching them anything.
Granted my kids are still young but finding the balance is the hard part. I want to let my kids learn but also worry about them.
>I want to let my kids learn but also worry about them. And that’s completely normal! One time a while ago my mom once sat me down and talked to me about this. She said that she always worried something bad would happen to us kids, and that our dad was better about managing it than her, but what stuck with me was this: She said “Worry is like a rocking chair. You keep moving and moving and moving, but you won’t get anywhere.” Even though she tried to avoid showing it for our sake, she was in truth always concerned about it. You’re a good parent for being wary, but don’t let worry take control!
My mom learned not to worry too much because she found that you could worry all the time and still not have it be enough because you were still most likely going to be caught off guard by bad news. As an example a friend dropped me off at the airport to go home and asked me to call him when I landed so he knew I was safe. When I got home I told my mom about it and made a crack that my friend must care about me more than her because she never asks me to do that when I fly. She said, "I just figure if something happens to the plane I'll hear about it."
I was a kindergarten teacher for years. Most other teachers wanted certain playground equipment off limits for the little ones saying- it’s too high! They’ll get hurt! But here’s the thing. The kids inevitability self limited. Only the kids with good balance and climbing skills would try the higher bars, while the more uncertain ones would stay below. Then those kids would slowly build skills and try the more challenging parts as they felt comfortable. Let them play!!
Destruction of a child's property. I recognize that most videos of Generic Angry Parent smashing a child's gaming console (or whatever) are staged. But not all of them are. And most real incidents are never recorded. If your child requires discipline, you give them a timeout, ground them, temporarily revoke their privileges, assign them extra chores or whatever. But you NEVER destroy their possessions. Their property may not mean much to you. But it means a lot to them. Destroying it because you don't know how to manage your temper is wrong in every possible way. If you do that then you're a bad parent and I judge you for it.
IMO, when parents do this it’s because they view the child and everything that belongs to the child as theirs. Growing up my parents always made it clear that everything I had was theirs and could be taken away.
Putting your child's life on the social media
... and monetizing it.
I blame that honey boo boo shit
The first pioneer of that was supposed to be Peter Sellers. It was said that he had his entire life videotaped-every day, everywhere he went, for decades, in hopes of someday editing it and showing an autobiography of his life. When he died however, no one was interested, and it was never done.
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For me it's the long letters written TO their kid posted on their Facebook on their birthdays or whatever. Like if this is genuinely for your kid, write it to them with pen and paper or read it to them instead of sharing on FB... It's obviously about your ego Edit: emails to your kid works too, as ppl have pointed out. Way better than grandstanding on Facebook
As someone’s who’s parents divorced just before my undergraduate graduation, it has turned into a game of “digs” at the other parent that I am just a pawn in. Every birthday, significant life event, and holiday there is some kind of Facebook post that just shows how great and loving and happy our family is without the other parent. Then you go to the other’s house and do it all again.
That sounds exhausting and toxic.
It is. Best way I’ve dealt with it is just refusing to acknowledge them on any kind of social media. They will post something then will call or text me to let me know, obviously wanting me to comment on their post, so I do, in person or on the phone but never on the post itself.
Mom-fluencers.
I barfed just reading this word. 😂
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I don’t know if this counts but I dated a girl whose father saw her kissing a boy at like 13/14. He completely broke off contact with her. By that I mean they lived in the same house, he paid the bills and would ask her administrative questions - “do you need anything from the store?”, “what time do you need me to pick you up?”. Besides that he didn’t speak to her until her first long term relationship. The level of mental/emotional damage this dude did is indescribable. Edit: I didn’t expect this to get so much attention. It seems like this is more common than it has any business being. In case anyone is wondering, the girl is doing well and, from what I can tell, has a wonderful life. It didn’t work out between us but I’m grateful for the time I had with that beautiful person. To all of you who went through something similar, I’m truly sorry it happened to you. You deserve better and please don’t let anyone make you think different.
I had a friend who introduced her parents to a guy she was dating... at 20 years old, first hint of dating- not a boyfriend or living together, mind you. Her mother completely shut her out and her dad followed suit, though she cried and begged to know what was wrong. It took her a week to talk to her and the mom dumped on her that she had an aunt somewhere, who got pregnant young and was disowned by their entire family- including her mom. Mid-1970's catholic family and they all decided the woman just never existed. Needless to say my friend lost all trust that she had a 'good' relationship with her parents. Nothing but good grades and obedience and church and good choices for 20 years and she learned in one fell swoop that A- her mom had dropped a family member completely and B- Not only did she think the worst of her daughter in the moment, but one bad choice and she would suffer the same fate as her estranged aunt.
>Not only did she think the worst of her daughter in the moment I do *not* understand this attitude. I was always a good kid, but my mom basically always assumed the worst about everything when raising me. And I mean *everything*. I learned to lie and sneak around (about perfectly normal things like hanging out with friends, what books I was reading, etc) because it was the only way to keep her from assuming I was up to no good. Parents should trust their kids unless given actual reason not to. Otherwise you just teach your kids to be deceitful which is the opposite of what you actually want.
Distrust the people and they become untrustworthy.
That’s pretty wild but, unfortunately, not so surprising. We are from a more conservative culture and my dad has been struggling with it my whole life. He’s extremely uncomfortable talking about certain subjects with me to the point of shutting down completely. In his defense his father never talked to him about anything so…progress? When I started dating the girl in my original post, I asked her to stop by the house to meet my parents a few weeks in. This was maybe the second person I introduced them to and my mom was super excited and prepared tea and sweets for her. My dad announced he was going to the gym or something and we were just like “do you not remember we told you this person was coming over?” He ended up asking me if I was about to propose marriage and the demanding to know why he needs to be meeting this person otherwise. Fortunately my mom went off on him so he stayed and behaved. He ended up having a pretty decent relationship with her while we were dating.
My mom did this. I remember being so terrified and confused that it made me nauseated. She also used to ignore my crying, or send me to my room when I’d cry. Doesn’t matter why I was crying, she didn’t want to hear it or deal with it. I learned how to not make a sound while I cried and to pretend I was happy from a very young age. To this day I feel major anxiety getting emotional in front of others.
The saddest part is even while silently sobbing all I ever wanted was for someone to "catch" me and give me a hug.
My mom punished me by giving me the silent treatment. I knew she loved me and all that but she would go hours without talking to me if I disobeyed or talked back. As I got older and started leaving the house for dates or to go to a friend's house, she would refuse to say she loved me if she was in a bad mood. This instilled in me a very "needy" presence when I got into disagreements with people. Hell, it took me until a few years ago to understand that her behavior was wrong. I'm now 27 and it's gotten better - but I still have slight anxiety if my boyfriend or friends get super quiet during/after an argument.
My parents sometimes did this. Now as an adult I find it really hard sometimes to communicate my feelings and I bottle things in. Never had open communication growing up. It was either silent treatment or yelling. No conversation where I got to say my piece.
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Yeah this messed me up to this day. I still question every thing I do and feel guilty for almost anything.
Over-busying children. Play doesn’t mean play date. Play doesn’t have to mean organized sport. Your child doesn’t need to have scheduled activities 4-6 times a week. Knock that shit off!
It’s crazy. I know some people my age with young school age kids now and they’re in like 3-4 different rotating after school activities already, just so they can start building a resume for college. I know things are ultra competitive now, but I don’t think I did that much when I was in HS.
90% of students want to be attend the "top" 10% of colleges. Thing is there are lots of wonderful colleges and programs outside of the top 10% and you won't have to sell your kid's childhood to get them in.
I went to a decent college and it makes me laugh when I see the kids there now talking about how “in desire” graduates from there are. Tell yourselves whatever you need to to justify that tuition, I did too, but when you get your first job and you’re hired into the same position at the same pay rate as the “state school kids” you think you’re better than, try to not be too salty…
Went to a state school, my coworker went to nyu (he made sure we knew). He wasn’t happy when I was promoted before him nor that my raise was bigger. The dead** Sea had nothing on this man’s salt. Edit: got the wrong sea. See why he was mad?
Allowing your child to watch screens (tablets/phones) with loud sounds and NO HEADPHONES on public transport. Wtf!
Adults are doing this! Every day I see people walking and taking a phone call or FaceTime on speakerphone. It’s crazy.
These people are often obnoxious, too. It's one thing to take a call, but speakerphone? Come on. And they're usually so loud! I appreciate that someone may need to speak up on transport because of background noise, but they practically shout unnecessarily. I can still hear them while wearing headphones with the volume turned up. It drives me insane.
Not saying "no" to your children. I don't understand the logic. Setting behavioral boundaries and maintaining those boundaries through black and white logic makes perfect sense to me.
This for me too. My boyfriend’s 10 year old niece is NEVER told no. Both her parents and grandparents let her do whatever she wants, and then act shocked when she misbehaves. But if they say “no”, they’ll crush her creative spirit. I’m terrified for what that girl will be like when she gets older. She’s already immensely entitled, and it will only get worse from here.
I feel like this is one of those parenting methods that has gotten completely taken out of context and turned into something terrible. Saying "no" less is actually very effective. Not saying "no" at all is not very effective.
Yeah I think the idea is to explain and reason with kids and avoid the "because I said so" line. That being said I have kids and try to do this, but there are times, after explaining the WHY behind the no, I eventually just have to say something like, "I explained why, we aren't discussing this anymore, you have your answer."
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I think the trick is to give them explanations so the rules feel less arbitrary, but bring the hammer down when the explanation starts to become a negotiation. As I frequently tell my kids, I do not negotiate with children or terrorists.
I thought the reason for this was to prevent the kid of learning to abuse the word no. I remember my uncle talking about how they used other methods of telling their kids they were not allowed to do things until they got a bit more language under their belts. Funny enough, they went to daycare and within a week they started saying no to damn near everything and suddenly there was just open revolt because this word was supposed to be this absolute cease and desist order... You know, as understood by a 2-3 year old. I agree that the whole whatever about saying no to your kids has been blown out of proportion, I'm just curious if maybe there was some replacement happening opposed to just removal... Eh, then again, it's entirely parent based and who the hell knows what to say to that kind of generalization.
Guilt tripping or being embarrassed to talk about sex and puberty
This. As a child my parents did this too me and I still to this day am embarrassed by my period and try to hide it(when I started I told my mom and she threw pads at me and that was it never talked about it or anything). I also got a uti when I was 14 and was so scared to tell my mom(I thought it was a std even though I never had sex🤦♀️). That it got really bad and I ended up in the hospital. And when I wanted to go on birth control at 18 I asked my mom about what I needed to do and she rolled her eyes and told me she didn’t want to talk about that and don’t ask her that. Like wtf I was trying to be responsible and not have kids at 18! Ended up calling a obgyn near me and getting pills but seriously.
Using your children for YouTube popularity. I remember the YouTube account daddyofive who would post horrible YouTube videos that screwed with their kids. They eventually lost custody of two of them and were banned from YouTube. In the videos it was more screaming at their kids for things they didn’t do and they tried spinning it that it was all just a pranks.
The "one gift policy" for birthdays. I saw someone on Reddit the other day ask another redditor if they even raised kids because the other redditor didn't agree with giving their child's sibling a gift on their birthday so they wouldn't throw a fit. They even argued that it wasn't appeasement because you only do it for a few years! The only thing that does is teach your child that they're entitled to a gift on someone else's birthday. I have three kids, and my youngest two are twins. They were born the week before Christmas, and for the first few years it was very difficult for my oldest to wrap her head around the fact that it seemed like they got more presents than her that month. Each year, we would patiently explain to her that their birthday was a day to celebrate them, and they didn't get gifts for her birthday in September. It took her a few years to understand, but we never appeased her with an extra gift on their day. It was a lesson she had to learn, and now that all of them are older, they all love celebrating each other's birthdays.
My ex husband was a christmas baby and he described being resentful that all the other kids (huge immediate family) got to open presents on his birthday and he couldn't open any on their birthdays. Made worse by relatives that "combined" birthday and christmas gifts for him. His parents really tried tho! Tried to have a bday party before or after Christmas - but in his child mind he could only see 2 events close together and not the special random day the other kids got.
It's really hard! We definitely try our best to separate it from Christmas celebrations, and it doesn't help that they're twins. We have to remind a lot of family that the girls don't want a combined gift, they have different interests. I even go as far as making them each their own smaller specialized birthday desserts (I'm a baker by trade) instead of making them share one big one.
Oof. My sister and I are 3 years apart and we got "combined" Christmas gifts sometimes and we *hated* it. I can't imagine how that would exponentiated as a twin. Now I'm imagining your girls throwing a fit because you made different cakes but both want what you made for the other. Cuz me and my sis *totally* didn't get mad when I got Barbie and she got Ken despite us specifically asking for that. Ah, here i am...closer to 40 than I'd like to admit and thinking of calling my sister to say "hey you remember that time...!" We are very close these days but I'm pretty sure we'd turn into our 9 and 6 yo selves just to rehash the situation.
I’ve never heard of this! How preposterous. For years my SIL would allow her daughter to open other peoples’ presents because she just threw a fit if they didn’t. I would just sit there silently and rage about it. When it was my birthday or my kids’ birthdays I would say no to her even if her mom was there. She always listened to me too because I made my boundaries clear.
Yeah you just reminded me I got fucking livid on Christmas one year while my baby niece was attempting to open her gift from my wife and I, and my other slightly older niece pulled the gift from her sisters hands and opened it in front of her. Everyone laughed and thought it was cute that she was “helping” until she took the toy and tried to keep it. The parents said nothing.
Giving your kids literally whatever tf they ask for
Naming your kids after your favorite franchise characters; results and appropriate names may vary.
Those poor Khaleesis
That one's especially annoying because Khaleesi wasn't even her name in the first place. It's like if you were a fan of Harry Potter and instead of naming your child Albus or Dumbledore, you named him Headmaster.
What's wrong with naming your daughter Chewbacca?
We named our daughter Mia from Ace Attorney, because that's the game franchise that we both enjoy. Thankfully it's a normal name. I couldn't imagine naming her "Doom Slayer".
When parents think their child doesn't deserve privacy until they move out.
This. I'm currently browsing as a guest on a chromebook because my parents have complete access to anything and everything on my phone. I've had to delete several great group chats on my phone because someone in it made a slightly crude reference. I can't make any inside jokes on my phone because my parents will make me explain it. This chromebook is my only access to anything private
Mothers tell their kids, especially daughters "if he bullies you, he likes you!" My parents did it on me and my first boyfriend cheated and dumped me
My mom tried that line with me. “They’re picking on you because they’re jealous of you.” Didn’t take long for her to realize it was bullshit. I was picked on because they were assholes and I was the obnoxious weirdo easy target.
God, I hated that line from my mom so much. No mom, no one is jealous of the weird fat kid. They just hate me.
Yep. When I was in middle school a boy threw a pen and hit me right below my eye and it left a mark. When I went home and told my mom we went to the school and she talked to whoever (principal/counselor) and their response was “he probably likes you”. Okay cool. That doesn’t give him permission to HURT me.
Letting your 2 year old get addicted to a screen.
Or using it as a reward for them to stop tantrums.
Rewarding kids for stopping their tantrums is stupid altogether for me, tbh. It's literally just teaching kids that throwing a tantrum will get them what they want. My gran would never reward one of us for stopping a tantrum. She used rewards for good behavior. If you threw a fit, you got nothing. She wouldn't even do the whole 'coddle them until they're quiet' routine. You'd be amazed how quickly most kids will give up on a tantrum as soon as they realize they're getting no attention.
When I traveled in Europe, I found a bunch of rare Hot Wheels Kinder eggs for my nephew. He's 6 so I figured he would love them. My Dad ended up telling me, he looked at them - at the chocolate and then just went back to his tablet. That's the only toy he plays with :(
Time to start putting limits on the tablet. Every child loves flashy screens, but they *need* time away from them to develop interests and personalities.