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I've never been past step 3 with my kids. A stern request will often invoke tears, but is usually effective. If not, I'll modify the environment, either by remo
by c22 8y ago
I've never been past step 3 with my kids. A stern request will often invoke tears, but is usually effective. If not, I'll modify the environment, either by removing the thing that's the focus of the problem or by removing the child to another location. When my oldest was very young she used to unfurl the toilet paper in all the bathrooms, so we kept it on a shelf she couldn't reach. When she started potty training we put it back and the unfurling started happening again. Someone would always stop her pretty quickly, but it was frustrating having to be constantly vigilant. I understand how satisfying it must be to watch the paper fly off the roll at speed and pile up on the floor and after all, you only live once, so one day I made a deal with her: I'd let her unfurl an entire brand new roll all the way down to the cardboard and then we'd never do it again. After that the rolls lived happily ever after on their dispensers.
I'm also hyper conscious about the media they consume. The girl began consistently saying please and thank you after watching The Busy World of Richard Scarry and we never prompted her or even explicitly taught her those words.
- ivanhoe 8y agoJust for the sake of all parents reading this and comparing it with their own experience, we need to remember that kids are all very different. And also that other parents usually don't tell the full story and try to show themselves and their kids in the best light (all us humans do that). One might be a great parent, or might just got lucky to have very cooperative kid. And the vice versa, if your kid is hard to handle you might be a bad parent, but it's also quite likely that your kid just has more stubborn personality. So don't be too hard on yourself as a parent - if you care enough to worry about being a bad parent, you're probably doing just fine.
- c22 8y agoI definitely didn't tell the whole story, but the anecdotes I picked are representative of my parenting technique, which is why I picked them. I think the most important trait when parenting is empathy--reconstructing the scenario in your mind from the child's perspective. I think a lot of people do this with other adults, but forget to do it with children, and especially small children. Perhaps because they assume the child's mind works radically differently from an adult's? I've also noticed that my kids are "easy" compared to many other children I've observed, but I've also wondered how much of this is luck of the draw and how much is a reflection of their environment. I also had almost a decade of experience interacting with small children in my job before I ever had any of my own and I still find parenting and maintaining patience to be the hardest thing I've ever done. No parent should ever be hard on themselves for the decisions they've made. The struggle is real and no parenting decision is "wrong." Without a diversity of parenting styles we would not have a diversity of people, which I consider integral to the survival of our species.
- c22 8y agoDownvoters: can you be more specific? Usually it's obvious on a reread when I've failed to contribute to the conversation and I'll take the downvotes gladly, but this one has me stumped. Do you just not agree with my opinions, or have I come off as too sanctimonious?
- hycaria 8y agoDoes it really matter ? (I didn't downvote, but votes don't matter).
- c22 8y agoNo, the votes don't matter. Ironically, in fact, I think I got pity upvotes for the plea, which are not really helpful. What does matter is that I'm expressing myself effectively and the votes usually operate as feedback to that effect. I'm still curious about the motivations of those downvoters. Also, I apologize for the meta discussion in this already off-topic thread.