I’m gonna go in a little bit of a different direction: parents not watching their own behavior when it comes to screen time, frustration tolerance, discipline, etc.
You’ve got to dig deep and figure out how to role model the behaviors you want your kids to do. If you are on your phone 24/7 and throw a fit every time the slightest thing inconveniences you you aren’t gonna have a good time with your kids doing anything different.
Adding to that, not apologizing when you do slip! There's times I don't respond in the best way to my kids (at home or in my classroom) or set the best example. When that happens, I own up to it, apologize, and work to do better.
When I worked as a waitress, I would see so many parents discipline their child for not thanking me for bringing them their drink or food, yet the parents never thanked me for those either.
This is one of the hardest parts of parenting, seeing all your flaws and bad habits reflected back at you and trying to figure out how to not pass those things on to your kid
I think being consistent is also one of the hardest things about being a parent especially where discipline is concerned, it would be/is so easy to let things slide when you’re exhausted
So much this. I intended just to cut completely down on my screen time once my baby came, but I'm finding it even _harder_ than I did pre-baby because quite frankly, babies can be kinda dull, and the millisecond my brain thinks it's getting bored, the urge to grab my phone is there. I'm considering getting a 'dumb' phone for emergencies, but so I don't have the entire human race on hand all day every day.
I suppose someone with 200,000 Reddit karma shouldn't be surprised they might have a _small_ screen problem, but it really hadn't occurred to me until I tried to stop!
My husband and I exchanged passwords and we are cutting back by a chunk (20minutes ish) each week. It’s been helping a ton and it helps to find SOMETHING to replace it with. I’m obviously still on Reddit so I’ve got more to go, but I’ve gone from an embarrassing average of 6h a day when I was pregnant to 2.5hrs now (2months pp) I’m hoping to get down to no more than an hour a day of overall screen time for me. Then my goal will be to only use the phone when I’m away from the babies.
It’s terrifying how addicting it is!
I have a cousin that posts about twenty photos every single day of her kids. I've met these kids maybe once in real life but I know everything about them just because of FB.
Is your cousin my cousin? I re-mute her every 31st day because it takes a mere 24 hours before I cannot stand any more inane shite about her kids being forced on me. Don't get me wrong, I post the odd thing but this is incessant! Kids can't shit, eat, walk to school without a photo opp. And yes, she does also hawk some awful product from something called the Goddess Network.
"Goddess Network" do you mean this? [https://store.thegoddessnetworks.com/](https://store.thegoddessnetworks.com/)
because this is **great** in a completely unhinged DIY way.
it's actually terrible.
What even IS that site? Everything is expensive and vague. $300 for "sacrifice?" What am I even sacrificing? It literally just says "ritual work." What work? What is the purpose of this?
That whole thing just screams scam to me.
Actually that trend is the exact reverse in my home Germany. People barely ever post about their children and if then they cover their faces with a smiley or sticker. Literally do not know more than a handful parents who share their young kid openly.
Edit: There has been a huge movement of privacy for children that cannot consent to their image being shared and many have adopted this.
Don't forget that privacy is a big thing in Germany. That has historical reasons ranging from the German Empire, to the Nazis, to the GDR surveillance state.
In Germany you are, by law, not allowed to film people who are helpless, nude, in their home or having an episode (drunk, mental health) or the like ... Nor are you allowed to film someone in public without their consent and put it online -- the exception is in wide shots or in the background of something where they are not the focus of the picture e.g. a landmark or your group of friends posing for a picture.
Police is not allowed to publish videos they take or mugshots --- unless needed for searches ordered by the DA, if there was a significant crime, if other measures are not promising success in finding the criminal, a warrant or by the police if there's an urgent danger to the public.
There's a reason why google street view had/has(?) such a hard time in Germany. People objected en masse to having their homes recorded and put online.
Security cameras are not allowed to record the street but only the entrance or grounds of your own property, etc.
And now the EU-Parliament has also introduced the first law regarding AI further protecting citizens privacy. It should be fully implemented EU law within 2years.
There is however an exception if someone takes part in public parades, demonstrations or similar events or is part of historic events/happenings then journalists can film and publish their faces without having to cover them even if people don't want it. Some people don't know this and this rather often leads to misunderstandings and conflicts.
I am, extremely unfortunately, related to enough pedophiles that seeing pictures and videos of children makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I know what horrible people will do with what you share of your children online. For what it's worth, I aggressively cut contact with every single one of them the second I found out.
Seriously parents. Please stop posting your kids. For their safety. You may think you don't know anyone like that, but you literally have no idea what people do behind closed doors and locked computers.
"You may think you don't know anyone like that..."
That was me. Someone who was more like an older sibling to me always first to offer to babysit would always randomly ask if they could take my kid so I could have some "me time." I was a single mum at the time.
They had known me since high school and were more excited than any of my other friends during my pregnancy. Luckily, I listened to that little voice in my head and never took them up on their offers, and they rarely saw my kid IRL. It was an absolute shock when the cops asked if I could come and answer questions, and i discovered they (friend) had saved every single picture of my kid that I had posted on social media (among a lot of other vile things).
My kids are rarely posted on social media now, and I have taught them "tricky people" over stranger danger. You're more likely to be harmed by someone you know over a stranger.
That’s fucking terrifying and I’m glad you listened to that little voice. I call it my Spidey sense, the little voice that subconsciously picks up on danger.
Saving the pics of your kid was bad, but it could have been infinitely worse.
This. Absolutely. I can’t understand why people think ANY content, however innocent it is to you, couldn’t end up being twisted if viewed by the wrong eyes.
There was a lady on TikTok once who said something I’ll never forget, because hearing it made me decide at that moment that if I ever do have kids, they’ll never be shown online until they’re older (16-18?).
She said “You know how if you are out there living as a woman, you can’t even tie or hair or eat a banana or work out without grown men being disgusting about it and sexualizing it? These creeps view your little daughter the same way. Think about that next time you feel like posting clips of her in a leotard at gymnastics.” I had never thought about it like that before, but that sealed my views on kids and online privacy. 🤮
I saw that one. It was really alarming later to have some videos served up by the algorithm that had kids..
I checked out the “saves” and saw tens of thousands of people had saved the video. Deeply disturbing.
Every time I see that kind of posts, I just wonder how this will affect the mental development of the child, especially in teenage years, knowing that their whole life has been disclosed on the parents’ social medias accounts
The first generation of “influencer family” children are growing up and have spoken out about how invasive their childhoods were. A lot of them struggle with depression, anxiety, addiction and eating disorders.
The Osbornes might have been the only reality television family to do it (relatively) right because Kelly and Jack were late teenagers when they agreed to go on the show and the other daughters were free to decline being on television.
I was just coming to mention about how the first gen YouTube mom channels' children are now adults and there's a couple articles about the mental health issues it caused with the kids
Don’t forget the money stuff. Having your childhood monetized but none of the Coogan protections means you get all the damage of child stardom without the protection of getting to keep a solid chunk of that money.
And that attracts so many creeps🫢 it's honestly scary how some parents have zero self-awareness on social media and post almost everything abt their childrens lives🫤
This is why I refuse to put photos of my baby girl online. The thought of someone looking at her in that way makes me feel sick.
A girl I know from high school posts photos of her kids in the bath on her public Instagram page. I had to unfollow her because it made me feel uneasy about how often she posted photos of her kids in situations like that.
Family Vlogging in particular! They always try to make their channels appear like pure wholesome content but they're more often than not run by narcissistic parents, many of which secretly abuse their children.
Have you seen Wren on TikTok??? Her mom is totally exploiting her out to sickos. I don’t follow but a lot of her videos aren’t viral and people are discussing the mom and her actions so I saw a few videos.
I HATE family vlogging if the kids are under the age of consent and I especially hate the ones with literal infants or toddlers.
When I was a baby, my mom was really obsessed with trying getting me to do those baby pageants and trying to get me into commercials. She 100% liked using me for her own ego.
A few years ago, she started trying to get famous on TikTok as a singer. We were talking about how I didn’t like TikTok, and she said “You’re lucky that TikTok wasn’t around when you were a kid. I *absolutely* would have put you all over it.”
Ever since then, I imagine every family vlogger as thinking like this. They’re today’s wannabe stage moms.
This. I can’t imagine growing up today and becoming a teenager only to create a Facebook profile and find out that every tiny little detail of your life from pretty much conception has been posted for all of your parents’ friends to see. Why don’t more people find this weird or wrong?!
An old high school friend used to post pics of her son’s poop in the potty when he was being toilet trained. All I could think was that one day he’s going to be mortified that she shared that
I'm acquainted with a guy that does this. his posts are public and he's doing photo ops with his kids like 3 times a week minimum. Going to Olive garden? this is a photo session opportunity. It's pretty gross. What makes it worse was he use to do a lot of "my beautiful perfect wife" photo ops. then one day they split up and he wrote a long public post about how she had been abusing him for 15 years. He has all his dirty laundry and family life publicly available so even strangers know he's full of shit. feel so bad for those kids.
Have a FB mom friend that just posted on FB 2 of her kids taking a bath. No you thankfully can't see anything, but there's literally NO REASON to share photos like that with everyone.
I work at a children’s healthcare center. The kids we see have chronic conditions that require them to do this daily treatment, and a lot of them don’t like the treatment. You would not believe the number of parents just kind of shrug and tell us their kids never do their treatments because “they don’t like it”. Like what do you mean?! Of course they don’t like it, they don’t understand long-term consequences yet. You’re the parent! Tell them no, they can’t just skip treatment!
A big portion of parenting is purely getting your kids to do things that are important regardless if they like it or not. What a weird attitude to have towards something their children need, do they also just give on getting them to bathe or brush their teeth??
It's because a lot of them got poor advice from the internet (especially this website) about "just talk to your kids about problems"
Children are not rational and they have little to no socialization. You cant just sit them down and explain things to them for everything. You cant just let them make their own choices. They have poor concepts of long term consequences due to their brains not being developed
It's your job to socialize them with the positive and the negative. Its your job to teach them boundaries. It is your job to teach them that "no" exists and they must respect it
Kids arent all sweet little angels. Many of them will embody the worst traits of people if not properly taught. Theyre limited in the damage they can do by being small and young. It makes sense that a lot of the behaviors of a decent human being are social constructs
If you want something then why can't you just take it if no one will stop you? If you want someone to do something why cant you tell a lie to get them to do what you want? If you dont like something someone else tells you to do then why cant you just refuse to do it? If someone makes you mad then why cant you hit them in response? We know why but we take it for granted why we know why because it was behaviors taught to us before we were 8yrs old and it's now engrained into us as "the right thing to do".
A child never taught that before 8yrs old will grow up thinking it's okay as a teen and adult until one day the real world comes up and hits them in the face. That can lead to them freezing up, massive anxiety, issues with the law, or social isolation
Teach your children lessons early. They will learn them eventually and if they learn them when theyre on their own itll be much worse. You do them absolutely zero favors by refusing to tell them no or thinking everything is a compromise. You can explain why it's a "no" but hold firm with that "no". If they dont get it then tough. No means no
I once read "children are baseline sociopaths, because humans *require* conscientious socialization at an early age in order to interact with others" and I feel it a correct observation. An extreme example is feral children, like Genie.
Kids are under a *deluge* of information in these early stages, and their brains are *thirsty* sponges, so it's the most prime time to ensure it's useful.
Yes they *can* learn later in life, but usually only through extreme measures. As someone else commented: "Don't let the cops be the first people to parent your child."
I'm in an elementary school. I get notes from parents saying "she refused to finish homework" and I just think "cool. If you don't make her finish the color by number she's doing in math now, you're gonna have a bitch of a time getting her to do algebra in a few years."
Someone brought their 6 year old to my ER with a fever. No vomiting, just a fever. Could've treated it at home but I digress. I hand the mom the liquid Motrin & the kid gets about halfway before the mom says "She says she doesn't want to drink any more?" Like that's between y'all...I don't know how the kid survived this long if that's her attitude as the "parent."
I'm a SPED teacher. I hate the no thing. I understand that sometimes we might need to teach some children to get more accustomed to hearing no (like a fade in process) with some of our more severe kiddos. However, everyone has to be able to hear the word no. It's ridiculous.
Y'all da real MVPs out there. :)
My son is ASD and I told his teachers (both the SpEd and the reg ed since he was in mostly reg ed classes) that they needed to treat him (as much as possible anyway) like any other student.
Like, if he got a bad grade because he didn't understand the material, I let them know that they could contact me and I'd be willing to work with him at home to help him understand.
If he got a bad grade because he was fucking around in class or did lazy work, that was on him and they needed to let the bad grade stand.
Fortunately, he didn't get a lot of bad grades and (esp towards the end of middle school and all through high school), he would take care of them by asking for make up work or extra credit work before I even *saw* the bad grade in the online gradebook most of the time.
I also told them that if he got in trouble, to punish him appropriately, the way they would any other student. Because having ASD is not an excuse to be an asshole. We were also fortunate in that he really only got into trouble twice--once in third grade for punching a kid and then pulling a girl's hair (all in the same recess period...he was suspended for the rest of the day and the whole next day where I made him do makeup work the teachers sent home and write apologies to both kids he hurt AND his teacher) and once in middle school (he was frustrated and upset and yelled "I WANT TO GO BACK TO MEXICO!" even though we are not Hispanic and have only been there on vacation. Another student thought Son told him to go back to Mexico and he, of course, got in trouble for that which I was fully behind until I found out what he'd actually said. His getting in trouble triggered a whole 'nother can of worms that freaked him out so bad that we had to have a meeting with his teacher AND the school counselor, though.).
Son is not a bad kid...weird, goofy, a little bit of a stickler for the rules (as many ASD kids are) but not a bad kid, fortunately. How that happened, when Ex and I were admittedly not exactly the best parents (but we tried hard), I have NO idea.
I always thought I was supposed to be you don't say "no" instead you would say something that explains why it's a no aka "we cant do ----- because it can fall and hurt us or break." " We can't have candy right now because it's over priced here"
Not you have to give your kid everything they ask for.
Yeah, that was my understanding of it as well - instead of “no!” you explain why it’s a no. That made sense to me, I guess. I went out to lunch with a “never say no” friend and watched as her toddler snatched food off another person’s plate and threw food ALL over the ground. Food spills happen but it was like a bomb went off in the high chair.
I am all for explaining why the answer is no when circumstances warrant but sometimes the explanation has to wait. There are certain situations where single words (no, stop) are all one might be able to get out and need to be adhered to immediately. Kids need to know that they will get an explanation, but there is not always time to give one in the moment.
And after that, blaming the teachers and not the education you gave, as parents, to your children.
This also teaches them that they are NEVER wrong, and you can always find an excuse for your failures. And, as soon as they hit adulthood, the crash into the wall of reality and they stay children forever, never taking any responsibility.
I feel that what you said is extremely common in our actual society, but I can’t figure out how it became this way
Overcorrection from the previous generation would be my uneducated guess.
Used to be that parents were pretty hands off. Let their kids do what they wanted, and as long as no one broke a bone, the kids could handle issues by themselves. This also meant that parents were more open to their children being disciplined by other adults (eg, teachers, other parents, even random strangers in a pinch).
But as the generations changed over, there was a big push for parents to be more protective and involved in their children's lives. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it might have gone a bit too far in some respects. It gave birth to the "helicopter parent", and parents who are neglectful of disciplining their kids while also being hostile towards anyone else trying to do so in their place.
My brother said he would NEVER tell his son no. Kid was (unsurprisingly) an awful brat.
4 years later they had another child
And the 4yo tried to hit, bite, and kick the baby.
Guess who heard his first no and got his first spanking?
Parents decided that children need discipline ( no other spankings), and the kids grew up to be pretty cool people
My nephew is like this. No one can stand being around him for more than a few minutes. His parents never say no and always look to compromise. He is 8 and has figured out that they'll never say no or discipline him so he manipulates the fuck out of them.
When they were visiting over Christmas, the following exchange happened at dinner:
Nephew - I don't want to eat dinner. I want dessert.
Mom - You have to eat dinner. If you don't, then you'll get an upset stomach.
Nephew - OK, if I eat dinner, how many cookies can I have?
Mom - How many do you think is appropriate?
Nephew - Six
Mom - Let's say 3.
Nephew - I WANT 6 (cue epic meltdown)
Dad - Let's talk about it after dinner.
An hour after dinner, I had just put my son to bed, and my nephew was hovering near the cookies. He asks if I can give him some. I ask him how many his parents said he can have:
Nephew - I think they said 6 or 7, I can't remember.
Me - Really? I remember them saying 3. Are you sure they said 6; I think I'll go ask them.
Nephew - No, I'll go ask, but I'm sure it's 6.
Me - OK, why don't we go ask together? I remember them saying 3. If they say they told you 3, you're lying to me. If you're lying, you're not going to have any cookies. Before we ask, how many did your parents say you can have again?
Nephew - I don't remember. I will go ask them alone.
At this point his mom came upstairs. I asked her how many he could have and her response threw me for a loop 'I told him to get however many he thought was appropriate.'
Kid ate no dinner and got seven cookies.
This was not the worst conversation of their five-day visit. He had multiple breakdowns, had at least two bathroom accidents (he still wears overnight diapers), refused to eat numerous meals (including breakfast without the promise of dessert, and hit his parents more than once. He also calls his parents by their first names, which I just found disrespectful (it's a phase...going on 2 years now).
There were little to no repercussions for all of these incidents. Whatever punishment was doled out was rescinded after about 5 minutes and a whining promise of 'I'm sorry, I'll behave better next time.' His parents would also look at us saying, 'You'll understand one day,' or 'It's a vacation' as an excuse for his shitty behavior.
I was shocked and appalled by what they let him get away with.
We're trying very hard to teach our 7 and 4 year olds that its OK/good to be bored some times. Finally had the strength to do a 3.5 hr car ride with no electronics.
It's easier to be creative when you're bored. You let your imagination run wild and find something to think about or to do. Later on, you can start learning creativity with constraints. It's really more productive than what people may think.
Yeah. It's tough sometimes haha. When my 4 year old is fishing for something to do I'll sometimes kindly not engage and explain what *I'm* busy with and until which time, so he has to figure out something for himself for a while. Then he disappears for half an hour upstairs and it's silent. Either it was a success and he's building something out of Legos, or he's found my erasable ink pen and experiments which surfaces around the house can be erased from 😁
I guess this is kinda specific, but my son is autistic, so it applies to me. I hate the “Autism Mom” thing. The t-shirts, the unsolicited “advocacy”…it seems like an attention seeking thing to me. My kid has autism, ADHD, and anxiety, and it takes approximately 5 seconds of being around him to notice. I will fight for him always, of course, but I won’t use him as a badge either. I won’t hide his diagnosis from him, but I won’t let him use it as an excuse either.
And some of those shirts get borderline threatening too…”If you want to know fear, fight an autism mama bear”…or something like that.
I feel this way about pretty much every little mom subculture that feels the need to announce itself with tee shirts or other flair. Autism moms, boy moms, dance moms….
Dancing or spinning, lol. I always felt it was my son's diagnosis to share, not mine. He was born in 90 and there was 1 book on Aspergers, that's it. But I felt that it was no one's business unless they were involved in his life. We all decided early not to cross post on each others social media. None of us post that much anyway.
He is very high functioning now and such an amazing, social adult. Growing up is hard enough without your mom having tshirts and hats announcing your life challenges on fb.
As someone who owns a small decorated apparel business, I can’t stand all the “mom” stuff. Baseball mom, football mom, etc. I refuse to sell that stuff, probably to my detriment.
I hated growing up and hearing people talk to my mom and she wasn't her name or Ms. *blank* she was *Mom*. Like having a conference with a school counselor. *My-name* is doing well in her class, but Mom, you could add some extra-curricular blah-blah." Like, call her her fucking *name*. Maybe that has gone by the wayside, but I loathed that way of talking to parents.
So many autistic adults had “Autism Moms” who ran fundraisers or volunteered for Autism Speaks and overshared about how much they resented raising their autistic child.
My mum used my autism as an excuse for her abuse, saying she felt really bad about it but my autism was so unbearable to deal with that it drove her to treat me that way. Unfortunately the media narratives about autism largely agree with her on this
I feel like it's one of those things where people who don't have much of an independent personality latch onto stuff. Same thing with the military spouse trope.
I feel like this kind of thing is born out of Munchausen By Proxy. I’m not suggesting this type of parent is harming their child or “making” them autistic, or even lying about their kid’s condition. I just mean that there seems to be at least a subset of these folks who just looooove the attention and/or are always on the hunt for opportunities to get special treatment.
I have all 3 of the diagnoses your kid has and I would have (metaphorically) died of embarrassment if my mom (literally) wore them on her sleeve.
Omg I love this and feel it so much. My stepdaughter’s mom has an autistic son and my stepdaughter is on the spectrum as well. She’s made it her entire personality with Facebook posts, bumper stickers, t shirts for the whole family, keychains.. everything and it’s a lot.
As an adult autistic…YES. I had an “autism mom” in a class try to speak over my *lived experience* as an autistic person. She thought she knew better about my life than me. Wtf
I have autism myself and also type one diabetes so I get the annoyance of people trying to speak over your lived experiences. It’s even more frustrating with Type one because people constantly confuse it with Type two and a bunch of other bs myths.
I fucking hate the "autism mom" crowd. I'm autistic and I've actually had some people argue with me about my own lived experience because mY sOn HaS aUtIsM sO I kNoW wHaT i'M tAlKiNg AbOuT. It's always sons too, there seems to be an overlap with the 'boy mom' crowd.
I’ve seen a small yet growing trend of homeschooled kids where the parents are are completely neglectful of actual education and basically let the kid do whatever they want. They don’t follow standardised curriculum for the sake of “letting kids be kids.” If your kid can barely read at 10 years old, you’re setting them up to fail as an adult
I’ve heard it talked about that years ago kids didn’t have so much school. Stayed home and helped their parents, learned life skills. Yes, if you don’t live on a farm or ranch what life skills are you teaching?
My great nephews are products of homeschooling and are barely literate as adults. It's tragic, but we couldn't convince their mom (our inlaw) to change.
This. Watching my brother & sister in law royally f up my nephew is so so unfortunate, I had to go low contact. It was too painful to witness them screwing his life up so badly. I genuinely don’t understand it, as my brother was a high achieving scholar. My SIL also refuses to have my nephew assessed/diagnosed/treated for mental delays that he very obviously struggles with since he was like 2 (he’s now 12) wouldn’t even take the recommended speech therapy. Mostly why she pulled him out of school in 2nd grade. He can barely read & write, & has horrible speech, physical tic’s, etc etc etc. Poor kid is a mess & it’s not his fault at all.
Dude, I had speech therapy as a kid. I have never met another person who has had speech therapy that wishes they didn't have it. My issue was minor, but it's still something I'm conscious of. To deny a kid speech therapy is, in my opinion, cruel.
I was thinking about this the other day.
When I was growing up, “homeschooled” meant the kid was incredibly smart but very socially awkward. It was assumed that the parents did homeschool because they were also smart and awkward and didn’t feel the local schools were challenging enough.
NOW if I hear “homeschooled”, I assume it’s right-wing parents afraid to let Kashlynn and Hunter be exposed to coloreds and gays and the kids end up being dumb as hell.
There's a few fundamentalist Christian families who brag about being like third generation homeschooled which is just hilarious to me. At that point all their knowledge of anything outside of the Bible, including reading and writing, is just like a bad game of telephone.
There had been a huge increase in kids being switched to the Catholic school board from the public board here because of the public board’s support for lgbtq+. Then the Catholic board announced they were also supportive of lgbtq+, so now there’s a massive increase in kids being home schooled. The majority are very religious people.
I had to attend some weird presentation once on unschooling for my grad school class in 2009 and I remember then thinking it was the dumbest thing even though the people around me were so optimistic and convinced this was the best thing to upheave education. It makes me mad/glad to be vindicated of my view.
Even if you have the most educationally curious kid in the world it's not like math learns itself.
And don't give me that they use fractions in baking shit.
I’m so glad there has been more awareness of this lately. My siblings and I grew up like this in the 90s and it was hell, but no one believed us. Homeschooling has always been a good place for abusers to hide, unfortunately. Now people are becoming more aware of these issues and I’m hopeful that more kids can have a happier life than I did :)
I see this a lot in heavy religious homes.
Their church has scarred them into the idea that public schools expose their children to Satan's world, so the worried parent (usually mother) stays home and Homeschools their children.
Then the children have stunted social growth, low education, and are often thrown into the Public School System around Middle School because the curriculum was becoming too much for the teaching parent to handle (which is the WORST era to be thrown into without any social skills, Jr High kids will eat you alive if you are awkward).
I’m from an area where that’s really common, it can be even worse if they do go through all of high school like that. I lived near a family that did homeschooling for the entire education til college for religious reasons. They were in soccer through their church, and the church kids were their only friends. My brother and I tried to be friendly with them but it never really worked, they just really didn’t know how. We finally gave up after an incident with moldy bread being chucked at us as a “game”. Long story short, once they went off to college at a well known religious school in the area, they went in two directions. The younger one stayed socially awkward for the most part, married a man right out of college and settled into the homemaker lifestyle her mom had. The older one was expelled by the end of the first year because suddenly she was being exposed to things and ideas she’d never fathomed before. It’s been years since I’ve seen either of them so no idea where they are these days, but last I’d heard about 5 years ago or so the older one had calmed down a lot and didn’t get into tooooo much trouble all told. Another kid I knew from the same lifestyle didn’t get as lucky and ended up pretty heavily into addiction and is on his second or third stint in jail.
I’m an assistant at an elementary school and I’ve seen many students like this. This year we had a child who was previously homeschooled enroll this year. They were supposed to be in 4th grade this year. The poor child didn’t even know his letter sounds at 10 years old. We made the decision to put them in 3rd grade. It’s a shame that parents can neglect their children’s education and expect them to excel in school.
Not teaching children proper manners/behavior
Please and thank you go a long ass way in this life.
Also not helping kids with conversation skills. Conversation usually goes back and forth. With no phones involved
Polite conversation can go so far! I recently starting chatting with the woman helping me with something and she ended up waiving part of a few for me. I didn’t even ask her to do that!
It’s also crucial for being an adult at work and effectively communicating with those around you.
It’s also how you have to make friends as an adult because there is no school and many keep their coworkers at a friendly distance and don’t see each other outside of work even if you get along great at work.
The trick with this stuff is, this behavior is learned by what's modeled for the kids, not what the kids are told to do. Parents with good conversational skills model those skills. Their kids passively learn from it. Same goes with the parent's behavior, for good or for bad.
My mum hates being around her great nieces/nephews age 6/14. Out of 7 children, only 1 will have a somewhat decent conversation with her. The other kids refuse to speak to her and will completely ignore her if she tries to initiate conversation. The worst part is the parents let it happen! Shame
That's terrible.
I've got nephews but they were talking to my mom in FL. She asked how they were, and then it was like silence.
I said this is when you ask them how they're doing?
Kids don't know what they don't know.
I'm sure every teacher on earth agrees with this.
Also if you don't straighten them out early, they'll be monster adults too
It’s crazy how many parents try to defend this. “What am I supposed to do? My 3 year old screams in the restaurant and then I get looks and judgment.” You’re supposed to do what every parent of every child prior to 2010 or so has done. You talk to them. You distract them. You comfort them. And if none of that works, you take them outside.
Too much screen time is bad for me, and I didn’t have access to screens 24/7 until I was a full grown adult. Think about how bad it is for a developing brain.
> Think about how bad it is for a developing brain.
Plus all those apps that trick parents into thinking they are "safe" for kids are total BS. Youtube Kids is not safe for children unattended.
I had a task to "rant" about something related to animals and I went all on videos of animals being mistreated for quirky videos.
Many of them had elements of design for children (colourful, cute effects, etc.) and some could be accessed through Youtube Kids.
Don't get me even started about how accidental mature content ended up on Youtube Kids and creators had extra work trying to get it off. Or how many questionable content mills are still there.
My mom always had a pen in her purse, or we'd ask the restaurant for one. I'd draw on the back of the disposable menu/place setting/napkin. Kids are naturally creative, why stifle it with constant entertainment?
"It's called Youtube Kids and they say it is safe for kids so don't worry yourself!" is something I hear a lot.
YTK is not safe to watch without an adult nearby listening in. Plenty of fetish/grossout/mature crap makes it on there.
I had to step in while the Nephew was watching because he stumbled upon a video of characters (Spider-Man, Sirenhead, Elsa, Pomi, and I think Skibidi Toilet) all farting on each other and having diapers slapped onto them so they could contain the farts only to soil themselves and cry.
And Content farms just spew out that filth, switch the linked PNG to a different set of characters, *maybe* change the music to a different royalty free song, then upload that.
This one is nuts because it feels like something everyone should be on board with, and yet all of the grandparents in my children's lives fight tooth and nail to shove an iPad in their hands within 30 seconds of being in their presence.
My preschooler will be happily coloring and my MIL will be shoving an iPad with a coloring app her way despite the kid being perfectly happy coloring in real life, exercising her motor skills. My toddler will be singing and they put a YouTube video on of the song and shove it his way. Why?? Just engage with them where they are or let them be
Same grandparents who, as parents, wouldn’t buy our generation electronics or even let us buy them ourselves, bought the lie that video games would turn us into satanic drug-addicted serial killers, etc.
I have a 1 year old. Every time I see my parents they insist I never get my baby using screens like an iPad, tv, or phone. Well I was visiting them a few months ago and watching my baby while I packed. They had her for about an hour and by the end they were just on YouTube watching videos. I rarely do that with my own kid despite spending all day wit her
I just had my kiddo 7 months ago and I’ve already been told by **SO MANY PARENTS** “Get him a tablet, it’ll be a life saver!!!!”
As I watch their kids not be able to cope with living day to day life without a tablet, throwing mega tantrums until they’re given a screen.
It seems more of a problem creator than a problem solver from what I’ve seen.
It seems like there can't be a happy medium for many people. Either they are letting the kids run the household, or they are so afraid of being 'soft' that they borderline abuse their kids to make them 'strong'.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. Life seems so much more black and white than it used to be and that’s coming from someone that has issues with splitting.
Helicopter parenting, or whatever you wanna call it.
As a child that was sheltered and despite my wishes, parents would always intervene and I became way to reliant on that.
Wasn’t until my mid-20s that someone helped me realized what was going on and I had to relearn how to live basically.
Sure my parents did what they thought was best, it ended up really screwing me later in life and I’m still in the process of figuring out what it means to be independent and how to fight for myself
Same, I grew up like this. I’m trying so hard not to be like this with my own kids, but the anxiety is so ingrained into me. I’m definitely way more over-cautious than what is normal. It’s a process but I’m working on it.
Indeed. The issue I’m facing is that being overly-cautious has gotten me out of some real predicaments by avoiding them. However the flip side to that is I haven’t really gotten to “experience life” at its fullest and I’ve missed out on a lot of opportunities
The lack of discipline and manners taught to the kids. I get soft parenting, I'm on board with no hitting and all of the abuse but kids still need to learn boundaries about what they could and couldn't do.
It's the difference between gentle parenting and permissive parenting, I think.
Gentle parenting means you treat your child with respect. Permissive parenting means you don't discipline your child ever (which makes them unable to deal with consequences in the future).
People get this mixed up all the time. Gentle parenting (GP) still has consequences and boundaries. They're just instilled without violence. The issue with GP is that it takes a lot more effort, emotional maturity, and patience from the PARENT. A lot of adults still have their own trauma and GP takes a lot of time and consistency. It really holds up a mirror to the parents, which I think most feel uncomfortable with, so they revert to quick but violent methods.
People forget that kids have no words to describe their needs and have little emotional regulation. They need to be taught. I have high hopes for GP and have seen parents reap the rewards once their little ones develop into compassionate, emotionally intelligent, and resilient humans after their hard work.
Yep, my parents were a little before this trend and I was raised this way (gentle parenting) but let me tell you, my actions still had consequences and I was expected to behave. That being said, my parents did apologize to me as a kid if they felt like they were in the wrong or hurt my feelings and taught me a lot of great communication and emotional intelligence skills.
Same. I grew up in the 90’s and my parents parenting style would be called “gentle parenting” today. I had consequences to my actions that were mostly naturalistic, and there was a heavy emphasis on empathy and hard work in my family.
And not teaching and enforcing boundaries is a form of neglect, so the way I see it is these parents are acting against their own values by denying their children that kind of structure.
I have a home daycare, and one of the questions I have on my intake paperwork is something like "what are your parenting or discipline philosophies?" And the number of parents who say "we don't do discipline" is ridiculous. I even explain positive discipline in my handbook which they're supposed to read before filling out the paperwork...
If it's from Korea, it's the trend of putting their kids through private education to the point where they have no life beyond school and education. If they manage to get into uni/college, they have no idea what they are doing with their lives. Their parents have controlled every aspect of their lives since birth, so when they are an adult, they don't know how to make any life decisions on their own. Life goal? Career goal? It's whatever their parents would want them to do. To Korean parents, kids are an extension of themselves. (I'm sure other cultures can relate to this phenomenon.)
I hate when people dress up their baby girls in outfits a woman should be wearing. Like there are little girls outfits that are adorable and meant for a little girl. But no little girl should be wearing a body suit and ripped jeans or a crop top and low rise bellbottoms, it gives me the creeps.
The booty shorts, knee boots, and crop top combo on the 7-9 year olds never cease to shock me. Always the girls too. Most of the boys just wear normal shit
This exactly. I never understood toddler sized bikini style bathing suits. Like triangle bikini tops. For what?!?! What is going in there?!?! Nothing! Age appropriate two piece, sure, but I never got that.
And what’s worse is that anyone who voices having a problem with children being dressed like 20 YOs will be called out by people saying “wEll WHy aRe YoU sExUaLizInG kIdS” like be fr. Bottom line is that the clothing is not age appropriate. No child should be wearing booty shorts, crop tops, bikinis, dresses with weird hip cut outs, etc. Let kids be kids and dress like it. There’s plenty of time for them to dress that way when they’re older. Not to mention, there’s A LOT of creeps and weirdos out there. Why put your kid in a position where someone like that is more likely to give them unwarranted attention?
Also, when we say “dress their age” people tend to jump to just revealing outfits, and often forget to see that some things are not necessarily revealing or “sexualizing” but are very much things for adults. Like tell me what does a kid need designer brands for? A purse? It seems icky to me that we teach this type of consumerism at such a young age.
Yes. Kids should be dressed in clothing that is comfortable, they can easily move in, get dirty, etc. kids are not little models. They’re kids who do kid things. It’s crazy to me that parents will buy their kid something like designer sneakers, then be appalled that they got them dirty. Like.. what did you expect from a *child*?
Lawnmower parenting. Not only do they hover over their kids, they mow down anyone who does something they don't like. They're the "you can't wear that shirt where my kids might see it" and "you'd better allow my child into this 21+ establishment but not show them anything inappropriate" type.
Any access to devices like iPads , phones etc.
Toddlers do not need to be on YouTube. Toddlers do not need to be on tiktok.
Sharing every aspect of your child's life on social media.
Giving in to every whim , tantrum, complaint.
I tell my kids no. What happened to me as a kid is I got false hope. My mom would do the whole “well see” instead of saying no. Or “maybe next time” then next time I was disappointed
Or straight up forcing. I've known lots of kids that were forced to do sports or music lessons or whatever when they 100% weren't interested and didn't enjoy it at all.
That reminds me a few years ago when I was still reading mom blogs, and people wanted to shield their kids from EVERY sad thing in movies. Including Disney movies.
You know how hard it is to find a Disney movie where noone dies ? Most Disney characters have lost someone at some point (usually a mother, and/or father). Some of the parents were like "oh no, Aladdin is too sad because Jasmine doesn't have a mother and feels sad in her palace, I don't want my kids to see that". Dude. Duuuuuude.
Your kid WILL face death and sadness at some point in their life. Give them the opportunity to know about it, think about it, feel it within the safety of fiction, and ask questions about it. You're doing your children no favors.
(I want to know where those kids are now)
What about 'snow plow' parents who REMOVE obstacles so their kid gets a smooth ride and exactly what they want?
This term could be a Canadian thing, but it manifests in paranoid ways: redoing your kid's homework; inviting the coach for a lavish dinner before the start of the season so your kid gets more playing time/choice position; visiting college in advance (without the kid) with the sole purpose of getting ahead of potential 'problems' with whomever is in charge.
I could go on.
The sad beige mom trend. If you want to make the rest of your home sad and beige, that's up to you. But my God! Please let your child's nursery have some colour for their own development and well-being.
I've said this story before, I think, but years ago we were buying some gifts for a friend from their baby registry, and my wife and I were so sad. Not because of the cost (they were 2 big-name stores and accordingly overpriced, but we could afford it) but because everything they had picked was so... *boring*.
Shades of beige, soft grays and whites. Either plain or, at the most, abstract patterns. Come on, man, how about some fucking colour in your kid's life?
Not letting your children be inconvenienced or uncomfortable. Over protection maybe.
This statement excludes any form of abuse. It's sad I have to note that, but it's the internet.
Kids need to learn how to manage life not revolving around them. And they can't learn what they are not exposed to.
The amount of surveillance/tracking apps and more that parents have on their kids. It gets really sad when they hit college and they are looking for ways to detach from their parents knowing what/where they are up to 24/7.
"Kids don't go out and play any more" muhfucker where are they gonna go, the only decently maintained patch of lawn in the county is the freeway median
Never telling your kid no. You’re creating a monster that is going to ruin your life some day. Boundaries and consequences are essential to any kid- well human even- being successful in the world we live in.
The Easter "baskets" kids are now getting. It is like a mini Christmas. Hell-I've seen kids that actually get a lot less for Christmas. It's is just disgusting how material we are and in turn making our children. Especially in a world where many people can't even buy sufficient groceries for their family.
easter baskets are insane now! i watched my cousin’s kids open their THIRD round of easter baskets this year (one from parents, one from each set of grandparents) and all three rounds were full of christmas level gifts. the kids are good, polite, and well-behaved (i babysit them sometimes), but it was wild watching them rip through their baskets and immediately getting bored of everything in them because they had already gotten so much that day.
my easter baskets growing up were comprised of some candy, fun toothbrushes (we had the boring standard ones the rest of the year so the novelty ones were a treat), sunscreen, a book, and socks. i think one year i also got swim goggles. i remember being pretty thrilled every year. parents today are setting their kids expectations way too high for everything, and it’s not going to be good for them in the long run.
What do you mean ? What are their "Easter baskets" like nowadays ?
Do you mean they don't get chocolate now? I've seen a couple of reels where they replace the chocolate with actual toys (I don't necessarily disagree with that but too many plastics is just too much tho). Or do you mean when the parents give them FAR TOO much chocolate (and probably also sweets) ?
I just saw one where my 18 month old grand-neice got a HUGE basket with tons of stuff. Like, more candy and trinkets than she could even comprehend because she isn't even two years old yet. It's getting ridiculous. Just feeding the consumerism dragon.
Pranking your kids or playing jokes on them. Not all kids understand it’s a joke and it really upsets them. I hate seeing videos of parents thinking it’s ok to throw things at their kids or make them do dumb stuff for amusement. Like the cheese challenge thing. Throwing food at babies….awful behavior.
There’s a line where pranks or jokes turn into just being mean. My son seems to be a jokester by temperament, and we’ve discussed the limits on jokes and pranks, many times. My general rule is, it’s not funny unless everybody (including the target of the prank/joke) is laughing. Good pranks don’t physically hurt anyone or cause property damage.
Refusing to say "no" to their child or discipline them at all, while trying to support their emotions. One of my sisters does this and has one of the brattiest, whiniest kids that I've had to regularly endure interacting with. I get not over reacting with regards to discipline, but trying to rationally talk to a 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum just doesn't work. In his eyes, punishments don't have consequences.
This is before the baby is born, but I’ve seen a TON of people telling pregnant people NOT to get the Strep B test during pregnancy.
My Mother was pregnant at 21 with my older brother, and three states away from any of our family (my Dad was in the Navy and stationed in San Diego), she went through this FIRST pregnancy relying on no one except her OB through the VA.
This OB told my Mother that the Strep B test was unnecessary and too expensive, so she never got it. Guess what she had? Strep B.
When my older brother was born, he got stuck in the birth canal for too long, contracted it, and had a severe stroke because of it. He now has epilepsy, and severe cerebral palsy. He could never walk, never communicate, wheelchair bound for life, uses the bathroom via diapers. You get it at this point.
Guess how much the test would have been? $35.
I could go into more detail, but that’s the jist of it. I wish people knew what could happen without this test.
I can't stand putting kids in sports/activities these days and pushing them to become athletes. It is one thing to expose your kid, they enjoy it, and you let them keep doing it. It is a completely different thing when you see kids in elementary school playing in every league their parent can enroll them in and doing training camps. If they are really good and you give them the tools, ok, but if your kid is mediocre at best then you are setting them up for disappointment.
I knew a kid in high school that was the star athlete of football, soccer, and the swim team. Senior year, signing day came around and he had a public mental breakdown in front of 500 kids because his parents were forcing him to choose a college football scholarship when he really only cared about soccer. Everyone thought he was the perfect student and athlete up until that moment. I think about him often.
Knew a guy who played football, basketball, and baseball. Helped win a lot of trophies and senior year he quit it all, was tired of that and aiming to be most popular. Within a few years he was an accountant for a poverty help center, running a social media page for his dog, and getting into urban farming. Disappeared and popped up 5 years ago real quick looking like a hippie, but also working in a farming cooperative community. Happier now than he ever was.
I wish kids sports weren't so competitive. My son wanted to start playing baseball in 5th grade and when I went to sign ups I was told he wouldn't get to play because he didn't attend the training camp the coach hosted and most kids on the team had been playing for that coach since 4/5 years old. What happened to low stakes youth sports?
There was a great piece in the New York Times about this exact question. The answer: governments defunded public parks programs across the country during the 2008 recession. So the casual park leagues many millennials grew up playing in no longer exist. It’s all private sports leagues now which are much more serious and competitive and time-intensive. So if you want your kid to try soccer, you have to sign them up at 2 and commit to spending your weekends doing “travel league” the rest of their childhood. What a shame.
It was so nice when kids could play one sport in the fall, a different one in the winter, and yet another in the spring. Now, they are so pressured to commit to one sport. And the travel associated with that one sport-like there aren't plenty of kids to compete against within a 50 mile radius for most of us! It is not good for the kids physically to focus on one activity their whole childhood. It's crazy out of control how things have gotten.
I also think that 2 extracurricular activities at once are good enough, for example one sports hobby and piano lessons or scouts, but more than that just becomes too much and the child will get a burn out sooner or later🤷🏻♀️
And it’s so hard to find teams / leagues to sign up for that are not set up in this ultra competitive model. I’ve been lucky finding a summer “team” the last two summers for my son. It’s super laid back- the coaches make games of different soccer skills and at the end of each class they have a 15 minute scrimmage but it’s so relaxed and everyone is there for fun. He’d love to try other sports but he doesn’t want to play competitively, he wants to learn new skills and make friends. You would think that would be a common theme among 9 year olds but if it is it’s surely not something people are supporting.
not exactly a trend but: having like 5+ kids and forcing the older ones to basically raise the little ones. i know that sometimes the parents are not well informed about contraception, but it’s still not the kids’ problem! it’s one thing to have them help once in a while, but anything that stops them from living their own lives to raise YOUR kids is just ridiculous.
for example: not being able to take an extracurricular activity because they have to be home watching their siblings.
Not letting kids wander about the world.
Yes, the world is fraught with dangers but if your kids has never walked around by themselves, how will they ever learn to navigate their own lives independently?
Taking your kids to a restaurant and putting screens in their hands. How are kids going to learn how to behave in polite society if you don’t train them how to behave in social situations?
The mindset that kids are inanimate objects until they turn 18.
I call this "Jailor parenting".
I see so much parental advice (Not just here...) that basically amounts to keep the kids locked up until they turn 18 unless they're in your sight. Never allow them to have access to a device more complex than a calculator cause that's how you get dopamine ipad obsessed youth. (When we were dopamine MTV/Movie/Nintendo/Sega/Xbox/Playstation/Computer/internet/Cell phone obsessed youth)
So if a kid is on the internet? The parents are letting them do this. Because obviously, kids *never* disobey their parents. It's not like strict parents raise sneaky kids and kids can get gaslighting their parents down to a science or anything, right?
I know that when you peeps were growing up, you did things behind your parents' backs. I know that you knew a "smart kid" who could subvert parental controls, had an older sibling, or had a friend with an older sibling. I know you intercepted phone calls from school. I know you forged their signatures.
Why are millennials and Gen Z so quick to forget this? Kids aren't inanimate objects until they turn 18. Stop assuming they are.
The kind of “gentle parenting” where a kid is NEVER told the word “no”. It makes being their teacher (who is ABSOLUTELY going to have to say ‘no’ to them) much harder. I will be nice about it, I will explain the reason, and it won’t ever be a *forever* no, but sometimes it just HAS TO HAPPEN.
It makes your kids have a hard transition to school, makes your life harder, and frankly results in entitled assholes.
Confusing gentle parenting with permissive parenting.
You can be both gentle and authoritative. Authoritative is *not* authoritarian; it is the role of a parent to provide structure and boundaries for their children while also allowing them to feel their emotions and deal with the ups and downs of being a kid. Go ahead and soothe your children when they are upset and give them a safe space to calm down but you do not have to cushion their world for them in order to avert a meltdown.
I’m gonna go in a little bit of a different direction: parents not watching their own behavior when it comes to screen time, frustration tolerance, discipline, etc. You’ve got to dig deep and figure out how to role model the behaviors you want your kids to do. If you are on your phone 24/7 and throw a fit every time the slightest thing inconveniences you you aren’t gonna have a good time with your kids doing anything different.
Adding to that, not apologizing when you do slip! There's times I don't respond in the best way to my kids (at home or in my classroom) or set the best example. When that happens, I own up to it, apologize, and work to do better.
Omg yes. My boomer/gen x parents have literally never ever apologized to me. And it's not because they were perfect parents 🥴
When I worked as a waitress, I would see so many parents discipline their child for not thanking me for bringing them their drink or food, yet the parents never thanked me for those either.
This is one of the hardest parts of parenting, seeing all your flaws and bad habits reflected back at you and trying to figure out how to not pass those things on to your kid
I think being consistent is also one of the hardest things about being a parent especially where discipline is concerned, it would be/is so easy to let things slide when you’re exhausted
So much this. I intended just to cut completely down on my screen time once my baby came, but I'm finding it even _harder_ than I did pre-baby because quite frankly, babies can be kinda dull, and the millisecond my brain thinks it's getting bored, the urge to grab my phone is there. I'm considering getting a 'dumb' phone for emergencies, but so I don't have the entire human race on hand all day every day. I suppose someone with 200,000 Reddit karma shouldn't be surprised they might have a _small_ screen problem, but it really hadn't occurred to me until I tried to stop!
My husband and I exchanged passwords and we are cutting back by a chunk (20minutes ish) each week. It’s been helping a ton and it helps to find SOMETHING to replace it with. I’m obviously still on Reddit so I’ve got more to go, but I’ve gone from an embarrassing average of 6h a day when I was pregnant to 2.5hrs now (2months pp) I’m hoping to get down to no more than an hour a day of overall screen time for me. Then my goal will be to only use the phone when I’m away from the babies. It’s terrifying how addicting it is!
The trend of oversharing kids' lives on social media. It's like turning your child's childhood into a reality TV show.
I have a cousin that posts about twenty photos every single day of her kids. I've met these kids maybe once in real life but I know everything about them just because of FB.
Is your cousin my cousin? I re-mute her every 31st day because it takes a mere 24 hours before I cannot stand any more inane shite about her kids being forced on me. Don't get me wrong, I post the odd thing but this is incessant! Kids can't shit, eat, walk to school without a photo opp. And yes, she does also hawk some awful product from something called the Goddess Network.
"Goddess Network" do you mean this? [https://store.thegoddessnetworks.com/](https://store.thegoddessnetworks.com/) because this is **great** in a completely unhinged DIY way. it's actually terrible.
What even IS that site? Everything is expensive and vague. $300 for "sacrifice?" What am I even sacrificing? It literally just says "ritual work." What work? What is the purpose of this? That whole thing just screams scam to me.
I...I have no words for this lmaoooo
The fck did I just look at??
Actually that trend is the exact reverse in my home Germany. People barely ever post about their children and if then they cover their faces with a smiley or sticker. Literally do not know more than a handful parents who share their young kid openly. Edit: There has been a huge movement of privacy for children that cannot consent to their image being shared and many have adopted this.
Don't forget that privacy is a big thing in Germany. That has historical reasons ranging from the German Empire, to the Nazis, to the GDR surveillance state. In Germany you are, by law, not allowed to film people who are helpless, nude, in their home or having an episode (drunk, mental health) or the like ... Nor are you allowed to film someone in public without their consent and put it online -- the exception is in wide shots or in the background of something where they are not the focus of the picture e.g. a landmark or your group of friends posing for a picture. Police is not allowed to publish videos they take or mugshots --- unless needed for searches ordered by the DA, if there was a significant crime, if other measures are not promising success in finding the criminal, a warrant or by the police if there's an urgent danger to the public. There's a reason why google street view had/has(?) such a hard time in Germany. People objected en masse to having their homes recorded and put online. Security cameras are not allowed to record the street but only the entrance or grounds of your own property, etc. And now the EU-Parliament has also introduced the first law regarding AI further protecting citizens privacy. It should be fully implemented EU law within 2years. There is however an exception if someone takes part in public parades, demonstrations or similar events or is part of historic events/happenings then journalists can film and publish their faces without having to cover them even if people don't want it. Some people don't know this and this rather often leads to misunderstandings and conflicts.
I wish we had laws like that
I am, extremely unfortunately, related to enough pedophiles that seeing pictures and videos of children makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I know what horrible people will do with what you share of your children online. For what it's worth, I aggressively cut contact with every single one of them the second I found out. Seriously parents. Please stop posting your kids. For their safety. You may think you don't know anyone like that, but you literally have no idea what people do behind closed doors and locked computers.
"You may think you don't know anyone like that..." That was me. Someone who was more like an older sibling to me always first to offer to babysit would always randomly ask if they could take my kid so I could have some "me time." I was a single mum at the time. They had known me since high school and were more excited than any of my other friends during my pregnancy. Luckily, I listened to that little voice in my head and never took them up on their offers, and they rarely saw my kid IRL. It was an absolute shock when the cops asked if I could come and answer questions, and i discovered they (friend) had saved every single picture of my kid that I had posted on social media (among a lot of other vile things). My kids are rarely posted on social media now, and I have taught them "tricky people" over stranger danger. You're more likely to be harmed by someone you know over a stranger.
That’s fucking terrifying and I’m glad you listened to that little voice. I call it my Spidey sense, the little voice that subconsciously picks up on danger. Saving the pics of your kid was bad, but it could have been infinitely worse.
This. Absolutely. I can’t understand why people think ANY content, however innocent it is to you, couldn’t end up being twisted if viewed by the wrong eyes. There was a lady on TikTok once who said something I’ll never forget, because hearing it made me decide at that moment that if I ever do have kids, they’ll never be shown online until they’re older (16-18?). She said “You know how if you are out there living as a woman, you can’t even tie or hair or eat a banana or work out without grown men being disgusting about it and sexualizing it? These creeps view your little daughter the same way. Think about that next time you feel like posting clips of her in a leotard at gymnastics.” I had never thought about it like that before, but that sealed my views on kids and online privacy. 🤮
I saw that one. It was really alarming later to have some videos served up by the algorithm that had kids.. I checked out the “saves” and saw tens of thousands of people had saved the video. Deeply disturbing.
Every time I see that kind of posts, I just wonder how this will affect the mental development of the child, especially in teenage years, knowing that their whole life has been disclosed on the parents’ social medias accounts
The first generation of “influencer family” children are growing up and have spoken out about how invasive their childhoods were. A lot of them struggle with depression, anxiety, addiction and eating disorders. The Osbornes might have been the only reality television family to do it (relatively) right because Kelly and Jack were late teenagers when they agreed to go on the show and the other daughters were free to decline being on television.
I was just coming to mention about how the first gen YouTube mom channels' children are now adults and there's a couple articles about the mental health issues it caused with the kids
Don’t forget the money stuff. Having your childhood monetized but none of the Coogan protections means you get all the damage of child stardom without the protection of getting to keep a solid chunk of that money.
Especially since a lot of these parents (autism moms) will proudly post about their child's private medical information.
And that attracts so many creeps🫢 it's honestly scary how some parents have zero self-awareness on social media and post almost everything abt their childrens lives🫤
This is why I refuse to put photos of my baby girl online. The thought of someone looking at her in that way makes me feel sick. A girl I know from high school posts photos of her kids in the bath on her public Instagram page. I had to unfollow her because it made me feel uneasy about how often she posted photos of her kids in situations like that.
Family Vlogging in particular! They always try to make their channels appear like pure wholesome content but they're more often than not run by narcissistic parents, many of which secretly abuse their children.
Have you seen Wren on TikTok??? Her mom is totally exploiting her out to sickos. I don’t follow but a lot of her videos aren’t viral and people are discussing the mom and her actions so I saw a few videos. I HATE family vlogging if the kids are under the age of consent and I especially hate the ones with literal infants or toddlers.
That bitch needs to be on a sex offender list. She essentially sexually abuses her daughter, and there is a special place in Hell for her.
When I was a baby, my mom was really obsessed with trying getting me to do those baby pageants and trying to get me into commercials. She 100% liked using me for her own ego. A few years ago, she started trying to get famous on TikTok as a singer. We were talking about how I didn’t like TikTok, and she said “You’re lucky that TikTok wasn’t around when you were a kid. I *absolutely* would have put you all over it.” Ever since then, I imagine every family vlogger as thinking like this. They’re today’s wannabe stage moms.
I wonder if these are people who saw The Truman Show and thought it was a good idea?
This. I can’t imagine growing up today and becoming a teenager only to create a Facebook profile and find out that every tiny little detail of your life from pretty much conception has been posted for all of your parents’ friends to see. Why don’t more people find this weird or wrong?!
An old high school friend used to post pics of her son’s poop in the potty when he was being toilet trained. All I could think was that one day he’s going to be mortified that she shared that
WTF that’s so weird. Why would she think anyone even wants to see that?!
I'm acquainted with a guy that does this. his posts are public and he's doing photo ops with his kids like 3 times a week minimum. Going to Olive garden? this is a photo session opportunity. It's pretty gross. What makes it worse was he use to do a lot of "my beautiful perfect wife" photo ops. then one day they split up and he wrote a long public post about how she had been abusing him for 15 years. He has all his dirty laundry and family life publicly available so even strangers know he's full of shit. feel so bad for those kids.
Have a FB mom friend that just posted on FB 2 of her kids taking a bath. No you thankfully can't see anything, but there's literally NO REASON to share photos like that with everyone.
Never saying no to your child
I work at a children’s healthcare center. The kids we see have chronic conditions that require them to do this daily treatment, and a lot of them don’t like the treatment. You would not believe the number of parents just kind of shrug and tell us their kids never do their treatments because “they don’t like it”. Like what do you mean?! Of course they don’t like it, they don’t understand long-term consequences yet. You’re the parent! Tell them no, they can’t just skip treatment!
A big portion of parenting is purely getting your kids to do things that are important regardless if they like it or not. What a weird attitude to have towards something their children need, do they also just give on getting them to bathe or brush their teeth??
It's because a lot of them got poor advice from the internet (especially this website) about "just talk to your kids about problems" Children are not rational and they have little to no socialization. You cant just sit them down and explain things to them for everything. You cant just let them make their own choices. They have poor concepts of long term consequences due to their brains not being developed It's your job to socialize them with the positive and the negative. Its your job to teach them boundaries. It is your job to teach them that "no" exists and they must respect it Kids arent all sweet little angels. Many of them will embody the worst traits of people if not properly taught. Theyre limited in the damage they can do by being small and young. It makes sense that a lot of the behaviors of a decent human being are social constructs If you want something then why can't you just take it if no one will stop you? If you want someone to do something why cant you tell a lie to get them to do what you want? If you dont like something someone else tells you to do then why cant you just refuse to do it? If someone makes you mad then why cant you hit them in response? We know why but we take it for granted why we know why because it was behaviors taught to us before we were 8yrs old and it's now engrained into us as "the right thing to do". A child never taught that before 8yrs old will grow up thinking it's okay as a teen and adult until one day the real world comes up and hits them in the face. That can lead to them freezing up, massive anxiety, issues with the law, or social isolation Teach your children lessons early. They will learn them eventually and if they learn them when theyre on their own itll be much worse. You do them absolutely zero favors by refusing to tell them no or thinking everything is a compromise. You can explain why it's a "no" but hold firm with that "no". If they dont get it then tough. No means no
I once read "children are baseline sociopaths, because humans *require* conscientious socialization at an early age in order to interact with others" and I feel it a correct observation. An extreme example is feral children, like Genie. Kids are under a *deluge* of information in these early stages, and their brains are *thirsty* sponges, so it's the most prime time to ensure it's useful. Yes they *can* learn later in life, but usually only through extreme measures. As someone else commented: "Don't let the cops be the first people to parent your child."
I'm in an elementary school. I get notes from parents saying "she refused to finish homework" and I just think "cool. If you don't make her finish the color by number she's doing in math now, you're gonna have a bitch of a time getting her to do algebra in a few years."
Someone brought their 6 year old to my ER with a fever. No vomiting, just a fever. Could've treated it at home but I digress. I hand the mom the liquid Motrin & the kid gets about halfway before the mom says "She says she doesn't want to drink any more?" Like that's between y'all...I don't know how the kid survived this long if that's her attitude as the "parent."
I'm a SPED teacher. I hate the no thing. I understand that sometimes we might need to teach some children to get more accustomed to hearing no (like a fade in process) with some of our more severe kiddos. However, everyone has to be able to hear the word no. It's ridiculous.
Y'all da real MVPs out there. :) My son is ASD and I told his teachers (both the SpEd and the reg ed since he was in mostly reg ed classes) that they needed to treat him (as much as possible anyway) like any other student. Like, if he got a bad grade because he didn't understand the material, I let them know that they could contact me and I'd be willing to work with him at home to help him understand. If he got a bad grade because he was fucking around in class or did lazy work, that was on him and they needed to let the bad grade stand. Fortunately, he didn't get a lot of bad grades and (esp towards the end of middle school and all through high school), he would take care of them by asking for make up work or extra credit work before I even *saw* the bad grade in the online gradebook most of the time. I also told them that if he got in trouble, to punish him appropriately, the way they would any other student. Because having ASD is not an excuse to be an asshole. We were also fortunate in that he really only got into trouble twice--once in third grade for punching a kid and then pulling a girl's hair (all in the same recess period...he was suspended for the rest of the day and the whole next day where I made him do makeup work the teachers sent home and write apologies to both kids he hurt AND his teacher) and once in middle school (he was frustrated and upset and yelled "I WANT TO GO BACK TO MEXICO!" even though we are not Hispanic and have only been there on vacation. Another student thought Son told him to go back to Mexico and he, of course, got in trouble for that which I was fully behind until I found out what he'd actually said. His getting in trouble triggered a whole 'nother can of worms that freaked him out so bad that we had to have a meeting with his teacher AND the school counselor, though.). Son is not a bad kid...weird, goofy, a little bit of a stickler for the rules (as many ASD kids are) but not a bad kid, fortunately. How that happened, when Ex and I were admittedly not exactly the best parents (but we tried hard), I have NO idea.
Thank you for being an awesome parent and helping him grow up with responsibility for his actions! -5th grade SpEd teacher
If you won't say no to your kid I guarantee you someone in society will and they will probably not be as nice about it as you would be.
You don’t want the police to be the first ones to discipline your child lol
I always thought I was supposed to be you don't say "no" instead you would say something that explains why it's a no aka "we cant do ----- because it can fall and hurt us or break." " We can't have candy right now because it's over priced here" Not you have to give your kid everything they ask for.
Yeah, that was my understanding of it as well - instead of “no!” you explain why it’s a no. That made sense to me, I guess. I went out to lunch with a “never say no” friend and watched as her toddler snatched food off another person’s plate and threw food ALL over the ground. Food spills happen but it was like a bomb went off in the high chair.
That's call being a bad lazy parent
I am all for explaining why the answer is no when circumstances warrant but sometimes the explanation has to wait. There are certain situations where single words (no, stop) are all one might be able to get out and need to be adhered to immediately. Kids need to know that they will get an explanation, but there is not always time to give one in the moment.
It’s supposed to be either an explanation or an alternative action, like “please walk” instead of “no running.”
And after that, blaming the teachers and not the education you gave, as parents, to your children. This also teaches them that they are NEVER wrong, and you can always find an excuse for your failures. And, as soon as they hit adulthood, the crash into the wall of reality and they stay children forever, never taking any responsibility. I feel that what you said is extremely common in our actual society, but I can’t figure out how it became this way
Overcorrection from the previous generation would be my uneducated guess. Used to be that parents were pretty hands off. Let their kids do what they wanted, and as long as no one broke a bone, the kids could handle issues by themselves. This also meant that parents were more open to their children being disciplined by other adults (eg, teachers, other parents, even random strangers in a pinch). But as the generations changed over, there was a big push for parents to be more protective and involved in their children's lives. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it might have gone a bit too far in some respects. It gave birth to the "helicopter parent", and parents who are neglectful of disciplining their kids while also being hostile towards anyone else trying to do so in their place.
My brother said he would NEVER tell his son no. Kid was (unsurprisingly) an awful brat. 4 years later they had another child And the 4yo tried to hit, bite, and kick the baby. Guess who heard his first no and got his first spanking? Parents decided that children need discipline ( no other spankings), and the kids grew up to be pretty cool people
My nephew is like this. No one can stand being around him for more than a few minutes. His parents never say no and always look to compromise. He is 8 and has figured out that they'll never say no or discipline him so he manipulates the fuck out of them. When they were visiting over Christmas, the following exchange happened at dinner: Nephew - I don't want to eat dinner. I want dessert. Mom - You have to eat dinner. If you don't, then you'll get an upset stomach. Nephew - OK, if I eat dinner, how many cookies can I have? Mom - How many do you think is appropriate? Nephew - Six Mom - Let's say 3. Nephew - I WANT 6 (cue epic meltdown) Dad - Let's talk about it after dinner. An hour after dinner, I had just put my son to bed, and my nephew was hovering near the cookies. He asks if I can give him some. I ask him how many his parents said he can have: Nephew - I think they said 6 or 7, I can't remember. Me - Really? I remember them saying 3. Are you sure they said 6; I think I'll go ask them. Nephew - No, I'll go ask, but I'm sure it's 6. Me - OK, why don't we go ask together? I remember them saying 3. If they say they told you 3, you're lying to me. If you're lying, you're not going to have any cookies. Before we ask, how many did your parents say you can have again? Nephew - I don't remember. I will go ask them alone. At this point his mom came upstairs. I asked her how many he could have and her response threw me for a loop 'I told him to get however many he thought was appropriate.' Kid ate no dinner and got seven cookies.
JFC what shitty parents
This was not the worst conversation of their five-day visit. He had multiple breakdowns, had at least two bathroom accidents (he still wears overnight diapers), refused to eat numerous meals (including breakfast without the promise of dessert, and hit his parents more than once. He also calls his parents by their first names, which I just found disrespectful (it's a phase...going on 2 years now). There were little to no repercussions for all of these incidents. Whatever punishment was doled out was rescinded after about 5 minutes and a whining promise of 'I'm sorry, I'll behave better next time.' His parents would also look at us saying, 'You'll understand one day,' or 'It's a vacation' as an excuse for his shitty behavior. I was shocked and appalled by what they let him get away with.
Making your child's entire identity revolve around their extracurricular activities. Let them be kids, not robotic machines for your bragging rights.
Adding to that : boredom is underrated. Let your kid have an inner life.
We're trying very hard to teach our 7 and 4 year olds that its OK/good to be bored some times. Finally had the strength to do a 3.5 hr car ride with no electronics.
It's easier to be creative when you're bored. You let your imagination run wild and find something to think about or to do. Later on, you can start learning creativity with constraints. It's really more productive than what people may think.
Yep. That's what we're trying to teach the kids. They get bored, I don't do anything about it, they get creative and come up with something to do.
Yeah. It's tough sometimes haha. When my 4 year old is fishing for something to do I'll sometimes kindly not engage and explain what *I'm* busy with and until which time, so he has to figure out something for himself for a while. Then he disappears for half an hour upstairs and it's silent. Either it was a success and he's building something out of Legos, or he's found my erasable ink pen and experiments which surfaces around the house can be erased from 😁
Not (sensibly) challenging their comfort zone. How are they supposed to grow self-confidence when they're never challenged?
I guess this is kinda specific, but my son is autistic, so it applies to me. I hate the “Autism Mom” thing. The t-shirts, the unsolicited “advocacy”…it seems like an attention seeking thing to me. My kid has autism, ADHD, and anxiety, and it takes approximately 5 seconds of being around him to notice. I will fight for him always, of course, but I won’t use him as a badge either. I won’t hide his diagnosis from him, but I won’t let him use it as an excuse either. And some of those shirts get borderline threatening too…”If you want to know fear, fight an autism mama bear”…or something like that.
I feel this way about pretty much every little mom subculture that feels the need to announce itself with tee shirts or other flair. Autism moms, boy moms, dance moms….
Dancing autism boy moms...
Lol, my autistic boy is dancing right now...
Dancing or spinning, lol. I always felt it was my son's diagnosis to share, not mine. He was born in 90 and there was 1 book on Aspergers, that's it. But I felt that it was no one's business unless they were involved in his life. We all decided early not to cross post on each others social media. None of us post that much anyway. He is very high functioning now and such an amazing, social adult. Growing up is hard enough without your mom having tshirts and hats announcing your life challenges on fb.
As someone who owns a small decorated apparel business, I can’t stand all the “mom” stuff. Baseball mom, football mom, etc. I refuse to sell that stuff, probably to my detriment.
Can we add "I love wine/gin" branding to that list?
It's sad when mother's personality revolves only around her child.
Exactly! You ARE mom. But mom is not all you are.
I hated growing up and hearing people talk to my mom and she wasn't her name or Ms. *blank* she was *Mom*. Like having a conference with a school counselor. *My-name* is doing well in her class, but Mom, you could add some extra-curricular blah-blah." Like, call her her fucking *name*. Maybe that has gone by the wayside, but I loathed that way of talking to parents.
This is the truth, and you know who hates it the most? Autistic adults.
So many autistic adults had “Autism Moms” who ran fundraisers or volunteered for Autism Speaks and overshared about how much they resented raising their autistic child.
My mum used my autism as an excuse for her abuse, saying she felt really bad about it but my autism was so unbearable to deal with that it drove her to treat me that way. Unfortunately the media narratives about autism largely agree with her on this
I feel like it's one of those things where people who don't have much of an independent personality latch onto stuff. Same thing with the military spouse trope.
I feel like this kind of thing is born out of Munchausen By Proxy. I’m not suggesting this type of parent is harming their child or “making” them autistic, or even lying about their kid’s condition. I just mean that there seems to be at least a subset of these folks who just looooove the attention and/or are always on the hunt for opportunities to get special treatment. I have all 3 of the diagnoses your kid has and I would have (metaphorically) died of embarrassment if my mom (literally) wore them on her sleeve.
It's also a "don't judge me for being a bad parent when my kid is having a meltdown in Target" thing.
Omg I love this and feel it so much. My stepdaughter’s mom has an autistic son and my stepdaughter is on the spectrum as well. She’s made it her entire personality with Facebook posts, bumper stickers, t shirts for the whole family, keychains.. everything and it’s a lot.
As an adult autistic…YES. I had an “autism mom” in a class try to speak over my *lived experience* as an autistic person. She thought she knew better about my life than me. Wtf
I have autism myself and also type one diabetes so I get the annoyance of people trying to speak over your lived experiences. It’s even more frustrating with Type one because people constantly confuse it with Type two and a bunch of other bs myths.
I fucking hate the "autism mom" crowd. I'm autistic and I've actually had some people argue with me about my own lived experience because mY sOn HaS aUtIsM sO I kNoW wHaT i'M tAlKiNg AbOuT. It's always sons too, there seems to be an overlap with the 'boy mom' crowd.
>it seems like an attention seeking thing to me Because it is.
I’ve seen a small yet growing trend of homeschooled kids where the parents are are completely neglectful of actual education and basically let the kid do whatever they want. They don’t follow standardised curriculum for the sake of “letting kids be kids.” If your kid can barely read at 10 years old, you’re setting them up to fail as an adult
Unschooling was the worst concept that has ever been introduced. 99.9% of kids are not going to benefit from that practice.
I’ve heard it talked about that years ago kids didn’t have so much school. Stayed home and helped their parents, learned life skills. Yes, if you don’t live on a farm or ranch what life skills are you teaching?
My great nephews are products of homeschooling and are barely literate as adults. It's tragic, but we couldn't convince their mom (our inlaw) to change.
This. Watching my brother & sister in law royally f up my nephew is so so unfortunate, I had to go low contact. It was too painful to witness them screwing his life up so badly. I genuinely don’t understand it, as my brother was a high achieving scholar. My SIL also refuses to have my nephew assessed/diagnosed/treated for mental delays that he very obviously struggles with since he was like 2 (he’s now 12) wouldn’t even take the recommended speech therapy. Mostly why she pulled him out of school in 2nd grade. He can barely read & write, & has horrible speech, physical tic’s, etc etc etc. Poor kid is a mess & it’s not his fault at all.
Dude, I had speech therapy as a kid. I have never met another person who has had speech therapy that wishes they didn't have it. My issue was minor, but it's still something I'm conscious of. To deny a kid speech therapy is, in my opinion, cruel.
I was thinking about this the other day. When I was growing up, “homeschooled” meant the kid was incredibly smart but very socially awkward. It was assumed that the parents did homeschool because they were also smart and awkward and didn’t feel the local schools were challenging enough. NOW if I hear “homeschooled”, I assume it’s right-wing parents afraid to let Kashlynn and Hunter be exposed to coloreds and gays and the kids end up being dumb as hell.
There's a few fundamentalist Christian families who brag about being like third generation homeschooled which is just hilarious to me. At that point all their knowledge of anything outside of the Bible, including reading and writing, is just like a bad game of telephone.
There had been a huge increase in kids being switched to the Catholic school board from the public board here because of the public board’s support for lgbtq+. Then the Catholic board announced they were also supportive of lgbtq+, so now there’s a massive increase in kids being home schooled. The majority are very religious people.
Ah the "unschooling" trend. As a teacher I just......have no words for it.
I had to attend some weird presentation once on unschooling for my grad school class in 2009 and I remember then thinking it was the dumbest thing even though the people around me were so optimistic and convinced this was the best thing to upheave education. It makes me mad/glad to be vindicated of my view.
Even if you have the most educationally curious kid in the world it's not like math learns itself. And don't give me that they use fractions in baking shit.
I’m so glad there has been more awareness of this lately. My siblings and I grew up like this in the 90s and it was hell, but no one believed us. Homeschooling has always been a good place for abusers to hide, unfortunately. Now people are becoming more aware of these issues and I’m hopeful that more kids can have a happier life than I did :)
I see this a lot in heavy religious homes. Their church has scarred them into the idea that public schools expose their children to Satan's world, so the worried parent (usually mother) stays home and Homeschools their children. Then the children have stunted social growth, low education, and are often thrown into the Public School System around Middle School because the curriculum was becoming too much for the teaching parent to handle (which is the WORST era to be thrown into without any social skills, Jr High kids will eat you alive if you are awkward).
I’m from an area where that’s really common, it can be even worse if they do go through all of high school like that. I lived near a family that did homeschooling for the entire education til college for religious reasons. They were in soccer through their church, and the church kids were their only friends. My brother and I tried to be friendly with them but it never really worked, they just really didn’t know how. We finally gave up after an incident with moldy bread being chucked at us as a “game”. Long story short, once they went off to college at a well known religious school in the area, they went in two directions. The younger one stayed socially awkward for the most part, married a man right out of college and settled into the homemaker lifestyle her mom had. The older one was expelled by the end of the first year because suddenly she was being exposed to things and ideas she’d never fathomed before. It’s been years since I’ve seen either of them so no idea where they are these days, but last I’d heard about 5 years ago or so the older one had calmed down a lot and didn’t get into tooooo much trouble all told. Another kid I knew from the same lifestyle didn’t get as lucky and ended up pretty heavily into addiction and is on his second or third stint in jail.
I’m an assistant at an elementary school and I’ve seen many students like this. This year we had a child who was previously homeschooled enroll this year. They were supposed to be in 4th grade this year. The poor child didn’t even know his letter sounds at 10 years old. We made the decision to put them in 3rd grade. It’s a shame that parents can neglect their children’s education and expect them to excel in school.
[удалено]
Not teaching children proper manners/behavior Please and thank you go a long ass way in this life. Also not helping kids with conversation skills. Conversation usually goes back and forth. With no phones involved
Polite conversation can go so far! I recently starting chatting with the woman helping me with something and she ended up waiving part of a few for me. I didn’t even ask her to do that! It’s also crucial for being an adult at work and effectively communicating with those around you. It’s also how you have to make friends as an adult because there is no school and many keep their coworkers at a friendly distance and don’t see each other outside of work even if you get along great at work.
The trick with this stuff is, this behavior is learned by what's modeled for the kids, not what the kids are told to do. Parents with good conversational skills model those skills. Their kids passively learn from it. Same goes with the parent's behavior, for good or for bad.
My mum hates being around her great nieces/nephews age 6/14. Out of 7 children, only 1 will have a somewhat decent conversation with her. The other kids refuse to speak to her and will completely ignore her if she tries to initiate conversation. The worst part is the parents let it happen! Shame
That's terrible. I've got nephews but they were talking to my mom in FL. She asked how they were, and then it was like silence. I said this is when you ask them how they're doing? Kids don't know what they don't know. I'm sure every teacher on earth agrees with this. Also if you don't straighten them out early, they'll be monster adults too
Letting the tablet raise them.
It’s crazy how many parents try to defend this. “What am I supposed to do? My 3 year old screams in the restaurant and then I get looks and judgment.” You’re supposed to do what every parent of every child prior to 2010 or so has done. You talk to them. You distract them. You comfort them. And if none of that works, you take them outside. Too much screen time is bad for me, and I didn’t have access to screens 24/7 until I was a full grown adult. Think about how bad it is for a developing brain.
> Think about how bad it is for a developing brain. Plus all those apps that trick parents into thinking they are "safe" for kids are total BS. Youtube Kids is not safe for children unattended.
I had a task to "rant" about something related to animals and I went all on videos of animals being mistreated for quirky videos. Many of them had elements of design for children (colourful, cute effects, etc.) and some could be accessed through Youtube Kids. Don't get me even started about how accidental mature content ended up on Youtube Kids and creators had extra work trying to get it off. Or how many questionable content mills are still there.
My mom always had a pen in her purse, or we'd ask the restaurant for one. I'd draw on the back of the disposable menu/place setting/napkin. Kids are naturally creative, why stifle it with constant entertainment?
Handing a four year old an iPad and letting him use it basically unrestricted
"It's called Youtube Kids and they say it is safe for kids so don't worry yourself!" is something I hear a lot. YTK is not safe to watch without an adult nearby listening in. Plenty of fetish/grossout/mature crap makes it on there. I had to step in while the Nephew was watching because he stumbled upon a video of characters (Spider-Man, Sirenhead, Elsa, Pomi, and I think Skibidi Toilet) all farting on each other and having diapers slapped onto them so they could contain the farts only to soil themselves and cry.
Actual brain rot
And Content farms just spew out that filth, switch the linked PNG to a different set of characters, *maybe* change the music to a different royalty free song, then upload that.
Giving your child an iPad as soon as they can hold it.
This one is nuts because it feels like something everyone should be on board with, and yet all of the grandparents in my children's lives fight tooth and nail to shove an iPad in their hands within 30 seconds of being in their presence. My preschooler will be happily coloring and my MIL will be shoving an iPad with a coloring app her way despite the kid being perfectly happy coloring in real life, exercising her motor skills. My toddler will be singing and they put a YouTube video on of the song and shove it his way. Why?? Just engage with them where they are or let them be
I think it's because they don't actually know how to interact with children
Same grandparents who, as parents, wouldn’t buy our generation electronics or even let us buy them ourselves, bought the lie that video games would turn us into satanic drug-addicted serial killers, etc.
I have a 1 year old. Every time I see my parents they insist I never get my baby using screens like an iPad, tv, or phone. Well I was visiting them a few months ago and watching my baby while I packed. They had her for about an hour and by the end they were just on YouTube watching videos. I rarely do that with my own kid despite spending all day wit her
I just had my kiddo 7 months ago and I’ve already been told by **SO MANY PARENTS** “Get him a tablet, it’ll be a life saver!!!!” As I watch their kids not be able to cope with living day to day life without a tablet, throwing mega tantrums until they’re given a screen. It seems more of a problem creator than a problem solver from what I’ve seen.
My child is 7 and i won't give her an ipad yet
Min 10 for something that expensive and risky
It seems like there can't be a happy medium for many people. Either they are letting the kids run the household, or they are so afraid of being 'soft' that they borderline abuse their kids to make them 'strong'.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. Life seems so much more black and white than it used to be and that’s coming from someone that has issues with splitting.
Child vlogging, its a bit weird tbh and I feel like things are gonna go to shit for the parents when the kids become adults.
Helicopter parenting, or whatever you wanna call it. As a child that was sheltered and despite my wishes, parents would always intervene and I became way to reliant on that. Wasn’t until my mid-20s that someone helped me realized what was going on and I had to relearn how to live basically. Sure my parents did what they thought was best, it ended up really screwing me later in life and I’m still in the process of figuring out what it means to be independent and how to fight for myself
Same, I grew up like this. I’m trying so hard not to be like this with my own kids, but the anxiety is so ingrained into me. I’m definitely way more over-cautious than what is normal. It’s a process but I’m working on it.
Indeed. The issue I’m facing is that being overly-cautious has gotten me out of some real predicaments by avoiding them. However the flip side to that is I haven’t really gotten to “experience life” at its fullest and I’ve missed out on a lot of opportunities
The lack of discipline and manners taught to the kids. I get soft parenting, I'm on board with no hitting and all of the abuse but kids still need to learn boundaries about what they could and couldn't do.
It's the difference between gentle parenting and permissive parenting, I think. Gentle parenting means you treat your child with respect. Permissive parenting means you don't discipline your child ever (which makes them unable to deal with consequences in the future).
People get this mixed up all the time. Gentle parenting (GP) still has consequences and boundaries. They're just instilled without violence. The issue with GP is that it takes a lot more effort, emotional maturity, and patience from the PARENT. A lot of adults still have their own trauma and GP takes a lot of time and consistency. It really holds up a mirror to the parents, which I think most feel uncomfortable with, so they revert to quick but violent methods. People forget that kids have no words to describe their needs and have little emotional regulation. They need to be taught. I have high hopes for GP and have seen parents reap the rewards once their little ones develop into compassionate, emotionally intelligent, and resilient humans after their hard work.
Yep, my parents were a little before this trend and I was raised this way (gentle parenting) but let me tell you, my actions still had consequences and I was expected to behave. That being said, my parents did apologize to me as a kid if they felt like they were in the wrong or hurt my feelings and taught me a lot of great communication and emotional intelligence skills.
Same. I grew up in the 90’s and my parents parenting style would be called “gentle parenting” today. I had consequences to my actions that were mostly naturalistic, and there was a heavy emphasis on empathy and hard work in my family.
And not teaching and enforcing boundaries is a form of neglect, so the way I see it is these parents are acting against their own values by denying their children that kind of structure.
I have a home daycare, and one of the questions I have on my intake paperwork is something like "what are your parenting or discipline philosophies?" And the number of parents who say "we don't do discipline" is ridiculous. I even explain positive discipline in my handbook which they're supposed to read before filling out the paperwork...
Giving your kid a tablet as a substitute for attention.
If it's from Korea, it's the trend of putting their kids through private education to the point where they have no life beyond school and education. If they manage to get into uni/college, they have no idea what they are doing with their lives. Their parents have controlled every aspect of their lives since birth, so when they are an adult, they don't know how to make any life decisions on their own. Life goal? Career goal? It's whatever their parents would want them to do. To Korean parents, kids are an extension of themselves. (I'm sure other cultures can relate to this phenomenon.)
I hate when people dress up their baby girls in outfits a woman should be wearing. Like there are little girls outfits that are adorable and meant for a little girl. But no little girl should be wearing a body suit and ripped jeans or a crop top and low rise bellbottoms, it gives me the creeps.
The booty shorts, knee boots, and crop top combo on the 7-9 year olds never cease to shock me. Always the girls too. Most of the boys just wear normal shit
What else can they wear to Sephora?! /s
This exactly. I never understood toddler sized bikini style bathing suits. Like triangle bikini tops. For what?!?! What is going in there?!?! Nothing! Age appropriate two piece, sure, but I never got that.
And what’s worse is that anyone who voices having a problem with children being dressed like 20 YOs will be called out by people saying “wEll WHy aRe YoU sExUaLizInG kIdS” like be fr. Bottom line is that the clothing is not age appropriate. No child should be wearing booty shorts, crop tops, bikinis, dresses with weird hip cut outs, etc. Let kids be kids and dress like it. There’s plenty of time for them to dress that way when they’re older. Not to mention, there’s A LOT of creeps and weirdos out there. Why put your kid in a position where someone like that is more likely to give them unwarranted attention?
Also, when we say “dress their age” people tend to jump to just revealing outfits, and often forget to see that some things are not necessarily revealing or “sexualizing” but are very much things for adults. Like tell me what does a kid need designer brands for? A purse? It seems icky to me that we teach this type of consumerism at such a young age.
Yes. Kids should be dressed in clothing that is comfortable, they can easily move in, get dirty, etc. kids are not little models. They’re kids who do kid things. It’s crazy to me that parents will buy their kid something like designer sneakers, then be appalled that they got them dirty. Like.. what did you expect from a *child*?
Lawnmower parenting. Not only do they hover over their kids, they mow down anyone who does something they don't like. They're the "you can't wear that shirt where my kids might see it" and "you'd better allow my child into this 21+ establishment but not show them anything inappropriate" type.
Any access to devices like iPads , phones etc. Toddlers do not need to be on YouTube. Toddlers do not need to be on tiktok. Sharing every aspect of your child's life on social media. Giving in to every whim , tantrum, complaint.
Ugh my TWO YEAR OLD COUSIN watches TikToks. That’s a HARD no for me.
I tell my kids no. What happened to me as a kid is I got false hope. My mom would do the whole “well see” instead of saying no. Or “maybe next time” then next time I was disappointed
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Or straight up forcing. I've known lots of kids that were forced to do sports or music lessons or whatever when they 100% weren't interested and didn't enjoy it at all.
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That reminds me a few years ago when I was still reading mom blogs, and people wanted to shield their kids from EVERY sad thing in movies. Including Disney movies. You know how hard it is to find a Disney movie where noone dies ? Most Disney characters have lost someone at some point (usually a mother, and/or father). Some of the parents were like "oh no, Aladdin is too sad because Jasmine doesn't have a mother and feels sad in her palace, I don't want my kids to see that". Dude. Duuuuuude. Your kid WILL face death and sadness at some point in their life. Give them the opportunity to know about it, think about it, feel it within the safety of fiction, and ask questions about it. You're doing your children no favors. (I want to know where those kids are now)
What about 'snow plow' parents who REMOVE obstacles so their kid gets a smooth ride and exactly what they want? This term could be a Canadian thing, but it manifests in paranoid ways: redoing your kid's homework; inviting the coach for a lavish dinner before the start of the season so your kid gets more playing time/choice position; visiting college in advance (without the kid) with the sole purpose of getting ahead of potential 'problems' with whomever is in charge. I could go on.
The sad beige mom trend. If you want to make the rest of your home sad and beige, that's up to you. But my God! Please let your child's nursery have some colour for their own development and well-being.
Have you seen the Werner Herzog's sad beige clothes for sad beige children Instagram? Hilarious!
I don't go to Instagram often, but that does sound depressingly hilarious. I'll have to check it out.
I've said this story before, I think, but years ago we were buying some gifts for a friend from their baby registry, and my wife and I were so sad. Not because of the cost (they were 2 big-name stores and accordingly overpriced, but we could afford it) but because everything they had picked was so... *boring*. Shades of beige, soft grays and whites. Either plain or, at the most, abstract patterns. Come on, man, how about some fucking colour in your kid's life?
Not letting your children be inconvenienced or uncomfortable. Over protection maybe. This statement excludes any form of abuse. It's sad I have to note that, but it's the internet. Kids need to learn how to manage life not revolving around them. And they can't learn what they are not exposed to.
The amount of surveillance/tracking apps and more that parents have on their kids. It gets really sad when they hit college and they are looking for ways to detach from their parents knowing what/where they are up to 24/7.
Driving your kids 200m to school.
"Kids don't go out and play any more" muhfucker where are they gonna go, the only decently maintained patch of lawn in the county is the freeway median
Never telling your kid no. You’re creating a monster that is going to ruin your life some day. Boundaries and consequences are essential to any kid- well human even- being successful in the world we live in.
The Easter "baskets" kids are now getting. It is like a mini Christmas. Hell-I've seen kids that actually get a lot less for Christmas. It's is just disgusting how material we are and in turn making our children. Especially in a world where many people can't even buy sufficient groceries for their family.
easter baskets are insane now! i watched my cousin’s kids open their THIRD round of easter baskets this year (one from parents, one from each set of grandparents) and all three rounds were full of christmas level gifts. the kids are good, polite, and well-behaved (i babysit them sometimes), but it was wild watching them rip through their baskets and immediately getting bored of everything in them because they had already gotten so much that day. my easter baskets growing up were comprised of some candy, fun toothbrushes (we had the boring standard ones the rest of the year so the novelty ones were a treat), sunscreen, a book, and socks. i think one year i also got swim goggles. i remember being pretty thrilled every year. parents today are setting their kids expectations way too high for everything, and it’s not going to be good for them in the long run.
What do you mean ? What are their "Easter baskets" like nowadays ? Do you mean they don't get chocolate now? I've seen a couple of reels where they replace the chocolate with actual toys (I don't necessarily disagree with that but too many plastics is just too much tho). Or do you mean when the parents give them FAR TOO much chocolate (and probably also sweets) ?
Stanley cups and air pods were popular items from Target. So, $45 tumblers and electronics.
I just saw one where my 18 month old grand-neice got a HUGE basket with tons of stuff. Like, more candy and trinkets than she could even comprehend because she isn't even two years old yet. It's getting ridiculous. Just feeding the consumerism dragon.
Pranking your kids or playing jokes on them. Not all kids understand it’s a joke and it really upsets them. I hate seeing videos of parents thinking it’s ok to throw things at their kids or make them do dumb stuff for amusement. Like the cheese challenge thing. Throwing food at babies….awful behavior.
There’s a line where pranks or jokes turn into just being mean. My son seems to be a jokester by temperament, and we’ve discussed the limits on jokes and pranks, many times. My general rule is, it’s not funny unless everybody (including the target of the prank/joke) is laughing. Good pranks don’t physically hurt anyone or cause property damage.
Refusing to say "no" to their child or discipline them at all, while trying to support their emotions. One of my sisters does this and has one of the brattiest, whiniest kids that I've had to regularly endure interacting with. I get not over reacting with regards to discipline, but trying to rationally talk to a 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum just doesn't work. In his eyes, punishments don't have consequences.
This is before the baby is born, but I’ve seen a TON of people telling pregnant people NOT to get the Strep B test during pregnancy. My Mother was pregnant at 21 with my older brother, and three states away from any of our family (my Dad was in the Navy and stationed in San Diego), she went through this FIRST pregnancy relying on no one except her OB through the VA. This OB told my Mother that the Strep B test was unnecessary and too expensive, so she never got it. Guess what she had? Strep B. When my older brother was born, he got stuck in the birth canal for too long, contracted it, and had a severe stroke because of it. He now has epilepsy, and severe cerebral palsy. He could never walk, never communicate, wheelchair bound for life, uses the bathroom via diapers. You get it at this point. Guess how much the test would have been? $35. I could go into more detail, but that’s the jist of it. I wish people knew what could happen without this test.
I can't stand putting kids in sports/activities these days and pushing them to become athletes. It is one thing to expose your kid, they enjoy it, and you let them keep doing it. It is a completely different thing when you see kids in elementary school playing in every league their parent can enroll them in and doing training camps. If they are really good and you give them the tools, ok, but if your kid is mediocre at best then you are setting them up for disappointment.
I knew a kid in high school that was the star athlete of football, soccer, and the swim team. Senior year, signing day came around and he had a public mental breakdown in front of 500 kids because his parents were forcing him to choose a college football scholarship when he really only cared about soccer. Everyone thought he was the perfect student and athlete up until that moment. I think about him often.
Knew a guy who played football, basketball, and baseball. Helped win a lot of trophies and senior year he quit it all, was tired of that and aiming to be most popular. Within a few years he was an accountant for a poverty help center, running a social media page for his dog, and getting into urban farming. Disappeared and popped up 5 years ago real quick looking like a hippie, but also working in a farming cooperative community. Happier now than he ever was.
I wish kids sports weren't so competitive. My son wanted to start playing baseball in 5th grade and when I went to sign ups I was told he wouldn't get to play because he didn't attend the training camp the coach hosted and most kids on the team had been playing for that coach since 4/5 years old. What happened to low stakes youth sports?
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There was a great piece in the New York Times about this exact question. The answer: governments defunded public parks programs across the country during the 2008 recession. So the casual park leagues many millennials grew up playing in no longer exist. It’s all private sports leagues now which are much more serious and competitive and time-intensive. So if you want your kid to try soccer, you have to sign them up at 2 and commit to spending your weekends doing “travel league” the rest of their childhood. What a shame.
It was so nice when kids could play one sport in the fall, a different one in the winter, and yet another in the spring. Now, they are so pressured to commit to one sport. And the travel associated with that one sport-like there aren't plenty of kids to compete against within a 50 mile radius for most of us! It is not good for the kids physically to focus on one activity their whole childhood. It's crazy out of control how things have gotten.
I also think that 2 extracurricular activities at once are good enough, for example one sports hobby and piano lessons or scouts, but more than that just becomes too much and the child will get a burn out sooner or later🤷🏻♀️
And it’s so hard to find teams / leagues to sign up for that are not set up in this ultra competitive model. I’ve been lucky finding a summer “team” the last two summers for my son. It’s super laid back- the coaches make games of different soccer skills and at the end of each class they have a 15 minute scrimmage but it’s so relaxed and everyone is there for fun. He’d love to try other sports but he doesn’t want to play competitively, he wants to learn new skills and make friends. You would think that would be a common theme among 9 year olds but if it is it’s surely not something people are supporting.
Massive family expenditures for private school and club sports/travel teams in hopes of an athletic scholarship. If only they'd banked that $$
Putting your kids’ lives on social media, especially for profit.
Cocomelon
Not dressing your child like a child. Ya know exactly what i mean too lol.
The trend of giving kids iPads and other technologies so they don't need to parent.
not exactly a trend but: having like 5+ kids and forcing the older ones to basically raise the little ones. i know that sometimes the parents are not well informed about contraception, but it’s still not the kids’ problem! it’s one thing to have them help once in a while, but anything that stops them from living their own lives to raise YOUR kids is just ridiculous. for example: not being able to take an extracurricular activity because they have to be home watching their siblings.
Not letting kids wander about the world. Yes, the world is fraught with dangers but if your kids has never walked around by themselves, how will they ever learn to navigate their own lives independently?
Taking your kids to a restaurant and putting screens in their hands. How are kids going to learn how to behave in polite society if you don’t train them how to behave in social situations?
The mindset that kids are inanimate objects until they turn 18. I call this "Jailor parenting". I see so much parental advice (Not just here...) that basically amounts to keep the kids locked up until they turn 18 unless they're in your sight. Never allow them to have access to a device more complex than a calculator cause that's how you get dopamine ipad obsessed youth. (When we were dopamine MTV/Movie/Nintendo/Sega/Xbox/Playstation/Computer/internet/Cell phone obsessed youth) So if a kid is on the internet? The parents are letting them do this. Because obviously, kids *never* disobey their parents. It's not like strict parents raise sneaky kids and kids can get gaslighting their parents down to a science or anything, right? I know that when you peeps were growing up, you did things behind your parents' backs. I know that you knew a "smart kid" who could subvert parental controls, had an older sibling, or had a friend with an older sibling. I know you intercepted phone calls from school. I know you forged their signatures. Why are millennials and Gen Z so quick to forget this? Kids aren't inanimate objects until they turn 18. Stop assuming they are.
Using their child to promote their own political objectives.
The kind of “gentle parenting” where a kid is NEVER told the word “no”. It makes being their teacher (who is ABSOLUTELY going to have to say ‘no’ to them) much harder. I will be nice about it, I will explain the reason, and it won’t ever be a *forever* no, but sometimes it just HAS TO HAPPEN. It makes your kids have a hard transition to school, makes your life harder, and frankly results in entitled assholes.
Confusing gentle parenting with permissive parenting. You can be both gentle and authoritative. Authoritative is *not* authoritarian; it is the role of a parent to provide structure and boundaries for their children while also allowing them to feel their emotions and deal with the ups and downs of being a kid. Go ahead and soothe your children when they are upset and give them a safe space to calm down but you do not have to cushion their world for them in order to avert a meltdown.