23 ms·

Parenting Off-Balance

33 points by exolymph 3y ago

vvoyer 3y ago
Random parenting tidbit: I have two kids, and they had tantrums. When it was spiraling I took them outside. I have found the sound of nature calms them, weirdly. The change of setup maybe helps.
- nostrademons 3y ago
  This is sorta the logic behind time outs, which literally are supposed to be "time. out." Remove them from the setting where they're misbehaving, into an area where they can have big feelings safely but aren't exposed to stimuli which might intensify the tantrum. Eventually the feeling goes away because there's nothing to feed it. My kids have long memories, unfortunately.
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  Oh yes, I live directly next to a wild river valley, so just opening the window and hold them next to it would have (literally) cooled them. The wind, the sound of the water, the cool breeze. And if this was not enough, carrying them with a manduca on the back or front and walking outside was always working. Also sometimes in the middle of the night, giving the mother a rest. Now that they are bit older (and heavier) I only do this rarely. The trick is to have been outside enough with them in the first place. And if their head gets hot - literally cooling them with some water on the head helps very much.
- waynesonfire 3y ago
  Same. The rocking chair on the porch saved us countless number of times. The sounds of the neighborhood, the bicycles, cars,the wind, the lights of airplanes, learning about the neighbors brought her comfort and allowed her to fall asleep. Great tip
- itsboring 3y ago
  Two kids having some kind of competitive tantrum is so much more difficult than just one kid having a tantrum. They set each other off over and over in some kind of fucking feedback loop from hell. Sometimes the only strategy that works is to get them separated ASAP any way you can, which can be really hard if there’s only one grown-up home at the time and the kids’ bedrooms share a wall….
  - ninkendo 3y ago
    Two kids is just so much harder than one, it’s ridiculous. Like easily 10 times harder than just one kid. I have two boys aged 2.5 and 8mo, and I’m starting to wonder how any parent of two stays sane. Three or more must just be impossible. Can’t be done. My mother (3 of us under 4 years old) must have been some kind of super hero. Anyone who has been through this, does it ever get easier?
    - GiorgioG 3y ago
      It doesn't get easier. It just gets different. And then you become your parents' parents as they get old. Just get through it one day at a time.
    - itsboring 3y ago
      I know what you mean. I’ve got two girls, 5 and 6, who love to fight over the pettiest shit. Like, when they’re in the car, one will yell “she’s looking out MY window!” “NO I’M NOT” “YES YOU ARE” etc. The good news is that at their age right now I’ve been noticing more and more moments where they’re nice to each other, help each other out, etc. Still plenty of rivalry, but it seems to be on the decline in the past six months or so.
    - knicholes 3y ago
      I'm the youngest of seven kids. The older kids raise the younger kids.
      - koolba 3y ago
        People with small families simply don’t understand the economies of scale and free labor pool that comes with raising a soccer team.
    - earthboundkid 3y ago
      Those are the tough years, yes. Hold on. When they're 3 and 5, it will be easier to get them to go in the same direction. Especially when everyone is potty trained.
- kazinator 3y ago
  Yeah, except outside is where you want them to get all the screaming and horseplay out of their systems.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
> Some parents say that we should ignore her while she’s throwing a tantrum, so she learns that they don’t work. I just find that too sad, though. It seems to me like she is spiraling out and needs help regulating her emotions. I like to think that by staying calm and present instead, I can sort of link our nervous systems together, my still reservoir damping and absorbing her small violent waves. This is really dangerous. For your sake and her sake, learn how to calmly walk away (as long as she is in a safe place) and let her tantrum run its course. Otherwise, her small violent waves at just the right moment may cause large, violent waves in you. You are tying your emotions to her emotions. I have read too many stories of shaken baby syndrome or other abuse that would have been prevented just by walking away.
- nostrademons 3y ago
  Most people by the time they reach adulthood learn how to control their emotions, so that small violent waves become little ripples become calm stillness. For those where small violent waves still become large violent waves, yeah, this is probably not the safest approach for parent or baby. Those folks are going to have a tough time parenting to begin with, though.
- zrail 3y ago
  > her small violent waves at just the right moment may cause large, violent waves in you. In my (admittedly limited) experience, this isn't really how it works, at least with little ones. They start having these really big feelings, don't know what to do or how to handle them, and they _need_ an adult present to help them regulate. Walking away can help them learn how to self-regulate, but the better play (again, IMO only) is to first teach them the skills on _how_ to regulate (deep breathing, butterfly hugs, distraction, etc). Walking away is a tool, just like any other, but it's a big tool for bigger kids IMO. Now of course this only goes so far, and if the parent starts getting to the point where it feels like they're going to explode, of _course_ leaving the room is the correct thing to do. Get up, say something like "I need to leave the room to calm my body down. I will come back in a little bit. I love you." and then follow through. Go scream into a pillow, punch the bed, deep breathe, whatever. The come back and try again, with the expectation that they won't have calmed down and may have accelerated. IME this isn't super successful at one but by the time they hit three or so they have enough awareness to understand what you're telling them. Also, to clarify, I'm not talking about infants. Infants can be absolutely infuriatingly frustrating, especially when you're operating on very little or no sleep. Putting them down in a safe space and walking away for five minutes so you can primal scream in the garage is 100% better than the alternatives.
vonnik 3y ago
Parenting young children taught me everything I know about bribery, threats and diversions. Negotiations get real fast when the kids don’t have the judgment to stay safe.
gilbetron 3y ago
My son is almost 15 now, but I still remember many of his tantrums. I don't know if I did the right thing, and I think we over weight our response in connection to their future personalities, thinking if we don't get it exactly right, we're going to significantly change how they turn out. I think there's some effect, but many other factors weigh far more. Walking away can help, but I also found just distracting them works, or sometimes getting mad with them can make them feel understood. Find what works and what you can live with, and if you see it happening more and more, then try different things to see what happens. Parenting is really tough (Rather than a cranky toddler, I'm dealing with a freshman that gets behind, procrastinates, and lies about it to us!) and just when you figure them out, they change! Hang in there and don't beat yourself over finding the "right" way.
parentcomment2 3y ago
[flagged]
- lbrito 3y ago
  Woah. Is there a demographic you would allow to voice their sage advices? Maybe 100-year-old, great-great-grandparents?
  - earthboundkid 3y ago
    It is a scientific fact that grandparents have forgotten every damn thing they learned about child rearing, because they never did any of this crap when I was a kid.
  - bruce511 3y ago
    Unsolicited Advice is mostly useless for two reasons; Firstly context matters. Since your context is different to mine, my advice may or may not be useful. For starters children are different, so what worked for me may not work for you. Advice -before- the first birth is even less useful. They have a plan. Your experience is meaningless in the face of the plan. When you hear the plan you don't need to comment on it. Smile, nod and agree. Don't worry, the plan won't last very long... Mostly parents don't need advice. They need support. An ear to listen. A voice to agree this is hard. A prediction that it gets easier (it does). A view that they're doing a good job (even when it doesn't feel like it.)
- itsboring 3y ago
  Honestly, I kind of agree. I’d be hard-pressed to think if any concrete advice I’ve received from other parents that was worth a good god damn, either from my generation or older. If you ever wander into any parenting forums, it gets so weird and culty very quickly. Now, I’ve had useful tips for infants since they’re basically a brain stem with a mouth and a butthole, but when they get older it’s my experience that kids are just too different to apply any one broad set of strategies to them all. I have a lot of respect for teachers, I don’t know how they command a whole room full of them.
earthboundkid 3y ago
One of the things you learn when you have more than one kid is that kids have their own personalities, and you have to adapt to them to a certain degree. With kid one, she would have terrible crying jags and she needed a lot of coaching to stop falling to pieces very easily. With kid two, he has a much better degree of control, but then the tantrums are more physical and less emotional. The other thing you learn is that no plan survives contact with the enemy.
- jancsika 3y ago
  > The other thing you learn is that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Or you learned that decades ago, modeled it for them, and they ran with it.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
fnordpiglet 3y ago
My advice to any non parent is do not judge parents until they’re been convicted by a jury of their peers. Parenting is the hardest task any human ever does, bar none.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- musicale 3y ago
  > My advice to any non parent is do not judge parents until they’re been convicted by a jury of their peers We do the same for murderers, so why not?
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    You would be surprised how much judgement people carry around about parenting, especially from non parents. “Why don’t you just….” the words that set all parents teeth on edge. :-) Even the article nods to this - the author asked parents for their philosophy and was surprised when they were confused and didn’t have a clearly articulated parenting system.
    - kamikaz1k 3y ago
      Let’s be real here. Most people wouldn’t be able to articulate a system for any sort of activity. Unless it’s a question you get asked often, you have no reason to have an answer prepared. Also, for parenting, it’s clear that there actually needs to be more structure because millennials are simply drowning. The problem is lots of people haven’t figured out how to take/ask for constructive advice. And in all fairness, most advisors are quite bad at giving advice. My middle take is, people should be sympathetic to parents, and parents should try not to get offended by random opinions. Caveat: I don’t have a good a answer for family.
      - fnordpiglet 3y ago
        Curious did you read the linked blog? Their take was essentially they can’t articulate a clear philosophy because things change so much and so frequently that there is no monolithic philosophy that applies throughout. If you have children you know this already. What works for 6 months old doesn’t work for 8 months old, definitely doesn’t work for 3 years old. The issue isn’t that people can or can’t give or take advice. The issue is that someone who hasn’t raised a kid doesn’t realize the complexities involved and how varied each and every child is. They come along with some totally reasonable advice that sounds totally solid, but is based on a set of assumptions that are reasonable and solid. But your child is anything but reasonable and solid. They’re little balls of chaotic good energy pinballing around trying to form a coherent personality based on some Monte Carlo method of personality development. Parents are fine at accepting advice, and I would note that parents of the current generation are nothing like the parents of the millennial generation. This generation raised their kids through the pandemic and are late stage gen X. These kids were brought up with a much different style, focused intensely on personal responsibility to make the world a lot better place. There’s a lot of focus on building community, being kind, appreciating diversity, responsibility for your actions, and a kind of pervasive view we’ve broken the earth. (YMMV, rural Alabama is probably raising kids the “good old way” to be little psychopaths) But it’s not about being open to advice or not. It’s about people assuming because they understand their context they can understand all contexts. Let’s take parents who give their kids an iPad or whatever in public, like at a restaurant. You will get no end of non parents (or worse of all, people whose children are long grown up - they forget somehow and assume everyone’s children are some idealized version of their child as remembered 20 years on) condescending to instruct the parents who gave the iPad what a failure they are. They forget that when they had kids, or they were growing up, their parents would leave them with a baby sitter because baby sitters were really cheap back in the day. Now they cost more than the meal, and most parents can’t afford them - and even if they could, frankly, good luck finding one. The girl next door usually doesn’t baby sit any more for all sorts of reasons. And the reality is the goal is to teach the kid to sit calmly throughout a meal, even during the long stretches of waiting for menus and checks and food which is prime melt down times. By constructing a situation where the behavior is to sit calmly through those times rather than melting down and the parents struggling to salvage the situation, you create a learned pattern for behavior by engaging them with literally anything that is engaging. The quality of educational content for these devices is remarkable and engaging. I’m familiar with all the software (I play them through personally to be sure it’s good to go) and recognize what these kids are all doing on the iPad while the non parents sneer at the destruction of their child’s mind. In fact, they’re practicing phonics instead of bouncing off the walls and learning to bounce off the walls. Maybe learning phonics by iPad is only 60% as effective as 1:1 intensive with parents, but that’s not the alternative at that moment. Instead they’re learning to sit calmly in the restaurant - because that’s exactly what they are doing. The alternative is they’re learning to melt down because melting down captures the parents attention away from building a mutual bond during their date night (with kid because child care costs more than a college education). The child’s experience is calmly learning phonics and watching the parents build a grown up bond of love in a new context. Once they’re a little older then you take the iPad away and they already know what that time is for. It’s for calmly establishing a social relationship. Finally, parents can’t help but be offended by random opinions when they haven’t slept in four years.

33 points by exolymph 3y ago

Random parenting tidbit: I have two kids, and they had tantrums. When it was spiraling I took them outside. I have found the sound of nature calms them, weirdly. The change of setup maybe helps.

nostrademons 3y ago
This is sorta the logic behind time outs, which literally are supposed to be "time. out." Remove them from the setting where they're misbehaving, into an area where they can have big feelings safely but aren't exposed to stimuli which might intensify the tantrum. Eventually the feeling goes away because there's nothing to feed it. My kids have long memories, unfortunately.
hutzlibu 3y ago
Oh yes, I live directly next to a wild river valley, so just opening the window and hold them next to it would have (literally) cooled them. The wind, the sound of the water, the cool breeze. And if this was not enough, carrying them with a manduca on the back or front and walking outside was always working. Also sometimes in the middle of the night, giving the mother a rest. Now that they are bit older (and heavier) I only do this rarely. The trick is to have been outside enough with them in the first place. And if their head gets hot - literally cooling them with some water on the head helps very much.
waynesonfire 3y ago
Same. The rocking chair on the porch saved us countless number of times. The sounds of the neighborhood, the bicycles, cars,the wind, the lights of airplanes, learning about the neighbors brought her comfort and allowed her to fall asleep. Great tip
itsboring 3y ago
Two kids having some kind of competitive tantrum is so much more difficult than just one kid having a tantrum. They set each other off over and over in some kind of fucking feedback loop from hell. Sometimes the only strategy that works is to get them separated ASAP any way you can, which can be really hard if there’s only one grown-up home at the time and the kids’ bedrooms share a wall….
- ninkendo 3y ago
  Two kids is just so much harder than one, it’s ridiculous. Like easily 10 times harder than just one kid. I have two boys aged 2.5 and 8mo, and I’m starting to wonder how any parent of two stays sane. Three or more must just be impossible. Can’t be done. My mother (3 of us under 4 years old) must have been some kind of super hero. Anyone who has been through this, does it ever get easier?
  - GiorgioG 3y ago
    It doesn't get easier. It just gets different. And then you become your parents' parents as they get old. Just get through it one day at a time.
  - itsboring 3y ago
    I know what you mean. I’ve got two girls, 5 and 6, who love to fight over the pettiest shit. Like, when they’re in the car, one will yell “she’s looking out MY window!” “NO I’M NOT” “YES YOU ARE” etc. The good news is that at their age right now I’ve been noticing more and more moments where they’re nice to each other, help each other out, etc. Still plenty of rivalry, but it seems to be on the decline in the past six months or so.
  - knicholes 3y ago
    I'm the youngest of seven kids. The older kids raise the younger kids.
    - koolba 3y ago
      People with small families simply don’t understand the economies of scale and free labor pool that comes with raising a soccer team.
  - earthboundkid 3y ago
    Those are the tough years, yes. Hold on. When they're 3 and 5, it will be easier to get them to go in the same direction. Especially when everyone is potty trained.
kazinator 3y ago
Yeah, except outside is where you want them to get all the screaming and horseplay out of their systems.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago

> Some parents say that we should ignore her while she’s throwing a tantrum, so she learns that they don’t work. I just find that too sad, though. It seems to me like she is spiraling out and needs help regulating her emotions. I like to think that by staying calm and present instead, I can sort of link our nervous systems together, my still reservoir damping and absorbing her small violent waves. This is really dangerous. For your sake and her sake, learn how to calmly walk away (as long as she is in a safe place) and let her tantrum run its course. Otherwise, her small violent waves at just the right moment may cause large, violent waves in you. You are tying your emotions to her emotions. I have read too many stories of shaken baby syndrome or other abuse that would have been prevented just by walking away.

nostrademons 3y ago
Most people by the time they reach adulthood learn how to control their emotions, so that small violent waves become little ripples become calm stillness. For those where small violent waves still become large violent waves, yeah, this is probably not the safest approach for parent or baby. Those folks are going to have a tough time parenting to begin with, though.
zrail 3y ago
> her small violent waves at just the right moment may cause large, violent waves in you. In my (admittedly limited) experience, this isn't really how it works, at least with little ones. They start having these really big feelings, don't know what to do or how to handle them, and they _need_ an adult present to help them regulate. Walking away can help them learn how to self-regulate, but the better play (again, IMO only) is to first teach them the skills on _how_ to regulate (deep breathing, butterfly hugs, distraction, etc). Walking away is a tool, just like any other, but it's a big tool for bigger kids IMO. Now of course this only goes so far, and if the parent starts getting to the point where it feels like they're going to explode, of _course_ leaving the room is the correct thing to do. Get up, say something like "I need to leave the room to calm my body down. I will come back in a little bit. I love you." and then follow through. Go scream into a pillow, punch the bed, deep breathe, whatever. The come back and try again, with the expectation that they won't have calmed down and may have accelerated. IME this isn't super successful at one but by the time they hit three or so they have enough awareness to understand what you're telling them. Also, to clarify, I'm not talking about infants. Infants can be absolutely infuriatingly frustrating, especially when you're operating on very little or no sleep. Putting them down in a safe space and walking away for five minutes so you can primal scream in the garage is 100% better than the alternatives.

vonnik 3y ago

Parenting young children taught me everything I know about bribery, threats and diversions. Negotiations get real fast when the kids don’t have the judgment to stay safe.

gilbetron 3y ago

My son is almost 15 now, but I still remember many of his tantrums. I don't know if I did the right thing, and I think we over weight our response in connection to their future personalities, thinking if we don't get it exactly right, we're going to significantly change how they turn out. I think there's some effect, but many other factors weigh far more. Walking away can help, but I also found just distracting them works, or sometimes getting mad with them can make them feel understood. Find what works and what you can live with, and if you see it happening more and more, then try different things to see what happens. Parenting is really tough (Rather than a cranky toddler, I'm dealing with a freshman that gets behind, procrastinates, and lies about it to us!) and just when you figure them out, they change! Hang in there and don't beat yourself over finding the "right" way.

parentcomment2 3y ago

[flagged]

lbrito 3y ago
Woah. Is there a demographic you would allow to voice their sage advices? Maybe 100-year-old, great-great-grandparents?
- earthboundkid 3y ago
  It is a scientific fact that grandparents have forgotten every damn thing they learned about child rearing, because they never did any of this crap when I was a kid.
- bruce511 3y ago
  Unsolicited Advice is mostly useless for two reasons; Firstly context matters. Since your context is different to mine, my advice may or may not be useful. For starters children are different, so what worked for me may not work for you. Advice -before- the first birth is even less useful. They have a plan. Your experience is meaningless in the face of the plan. When you hear the plan you don't need to comment on it. Smile, nod and agree. Don't worry, the plan won't last very long... Mostly parents don't need advice. They need support. An ear to listen. A voice to agree this is hard. A prediction that it gets easier (it does). A view that they're doing a good job (even when it doesn't feel like it.)
itsboring 3y ago
Honestly, I kind of agree. I’d be hard-pressed to think if any concrete advice I’ve received from other parents that was worth a good god damn, either from my generation or older. If you ever wander into any parenting forums, it gets so weird and culty very quickly. Now, I’ve had useful tips for infants since they’re basically a brain stem with a mouth and a butthole, but when they get older it’s my experience that kids are just too different to apply any one broad set of strategies to them all. I have a lot of respect for teachers, I don’t know how they command a whole room full of them.

earthboundkid 3y ago

One of the things you learn when you have more than one kid is that kids have their own personalities, and you have to adapt to them to a certain degree. With kid one, she would have terrible crying jags and she needed a lot of coaching to stop falling to pieces very easily. With kid two, he has a much better degree of control, but then the tantrums are more physical and less emotional. The other thing you learn is that no plan survives contact with the enemy.

jancsika 3y ago
> The other thing you learn is that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Or you learned that decades ago, modeled it for them, and they ran with it.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

fnordpiglet 3y ago

My advice to any non parent is do not judge parents until they’re been convicted by a jury of their peers. Parenting is the hardest task any human ever does, bar none.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
musicale 3y ago
> My advice to any non parent is do not judge parents until they’re been convicted by a jury of their peers We do the same for murderers, so why not?
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  You would be surprised how much judgement people carry around about parenting, especially from non parents. “Why don’t you just….” the words that set all parents teeth on edge. :-) Even the article nods to this - the author asked parents for their philosophy and was surprised when they were confused and didn’t have a clearly articulated parenting system.
  - kamikaz1k 3y ago
    Let’s be real here. Most people wouldn’t be able to articulate a system for any sort of activity. Unless it’s a question you get asked often, you have no reason to have an answer prepared. Also, for parenting, it’s clear that there actually needs to be more structure because millennials are simply drowning. The problem is lots of people haven’t figured out how to take/ask for constructive advice. And in all fairness, most advisors are quite bad at giving advice. My middle take is, people should be sympathetic to parents, and parents should try not to get offended by random opinions. Caveat: I don’t have a good a answer for family.
    - fnordpiglet 3y ago
      Curious did you read the linked blog? Their take was essentially they can’t articulate a clear philosophy because things change so much and so frequently that there is no monolithic philosophy that applies throughout. If you have children you know this already. What works for 6 months old doesn’t work for 8 months old, definitely doesn’t work for 3 years old. The issue isn’t that people can or can’t give or take advice. The issue is that someone who hasn’t raised a kid doesn’t realize the complexities involved and how varied each and every child is. They come along with some totally reasonable advice that sounds totally solid, but is based on a set of assumptions that are reasonable and solid. But your child is anything but reasonable and solid. They’re little balls of chaotic good energy pinballing around trying to form a coherent personality based on some Monte Carlo method of personality development. Parents are fine at accepting advice, and I would note that parents of the current generation are nothing like the parents of the millennial generation. This generation raised their kids through the pandemic and are late stage gen X. These kids were brought up with a much different style, focused intensely on personal responsibility to make the world a lot better place. There’s a lot of focus on building community, being kind, appreciating diversity, responsibility for your actions, and a kind of pervasive view we’ve broken the earth. (YMMV, rural Alabama is probably raising kids the “good old way” to be little psychopaths) But it’s not about being open to advice or not. It’s about people assuming because they understand their context they can understand all contexts. Let’s take parents who give their kids an iPad or whatever in public, like at a restaurant. You will get no end of non parents (or worse of all, people whose children are long grown up - they forget somehow and assume everyone’s children are some idealized version of their child as remembered 20 years on) condescending to instruct the parents who gave the iPad what a failure they are. They forget that when they had kids, or they were growing up, their parents would leave them with a baby sitter because baby sitters were really cheap back in the day. Now they cost more than the meal, and most parents can’t afford them - and even if they could, frankly, good luck finding one. The girl next door usually doesn’t baby sit any more for all sorts of reasons. And the reality is the goal is to teach the kid to sit calmly throughout a meal, even during the long stretches of waiting for menus and checks and food which is prime melt down times. By constructing a situation where the behavior is to sit calmly through those times rather than melting down and the parents struggling to salvage the situation, you create a learned pattern for behavior by engaging them with literally anything that is engaging. The quality of educational content for these devices is remarkable and engaging. I’m familiar with all the software (I play them through personally to be sure it’s good to go) and recognize what these kids are all doing on the iPad while the non parents sneer at the destruction of their child’s mind. In fact, they’re practicing phonics instead of bouncing off the walls and learning to bounce off the walls. Maybe learning phonics by iPad is only 60% as effective as 1:1 intensive with parents, but that’s not the alternative at that moment. Instead they’re learning to sit calmly in the restaurant - because that’s exactly what they are doing. The alternative is they’re learning to melt down because melting down captures the parents attention away from building a mutual bond during their date night (with kid because child care costs more than a college education). The child’s experience is calmly learning phonics and watching the parents build a grown up bond of love in a new context. Once they’re a little older then you take the iPad away and they already know what that time is for. It’s for calmly establishing a social relationship. Finally, parents can’t help but be offended by random opinions when they haven’t slept in four years.