#parenting :)

[drferox]

So part of parenting is slowly exposing the small child to various pieces of media.

There’s a balancing act between trying to present media that I loved at that age and allowing space to explore it, and becoming acutely aware of confronting content in ‘kids’ media. The child’s brain is like a sponge and I have no idea what’s going to be absorbed on any given viewing.

For example, going from Disney’s Frozen to Disney’s Cinderella is confronting and kind of scary for a little kid, because we jumped from one idea of what ‘sisters’ are to wicked ones. Like yeah, I have to agree in context that it’s scary.

But Sleeping Beauty, with the monsters and dragon and fire, is only ‘pretend scary’. It does, however, cause questions to be raised about kissing. (Because, being a single mum, the child doesn’t see me kiss anybody so has no context for that)

But anyway, now we’re finally grasping more complex stories and while we’re nowhere near developing a moral code yet, kiddo is currently obsessed with The Last Unicorn movie!

And I am so happy about it!

It was a movie I first saw at about that age, though I nowhere near understood it at the time.

You gotta be careful about what words you let I be your brain because some of them will re-write your mind. The Last Unicorn was one of those influences for me and I’m delighted to be passing it on.

[bicokun]

I think it also just comes down to the fact that stories thrive on conflict. It’s for the same reason that if a couple gets together at the end of a story means that if a sequel comes along they’ve broken up or are at least on the rocks. Having a story about the next generation where there’s not a conflict between them and the older generation would probably strike a lot of writers as a missed opportunity. And it is interesting to have the prior protagonist have some kind of failing in raising their child. Even if the prior protag isn’t alive at the time, it can also be interesting for there to be unresolved angst that the new protag needs to work through, possibly with siblings. That said, it also comes from fandoms tending to take what are sometimes pretty minor character flaws and magnifying them to become all-encompassing.

Like, you look at Aang playing a little more favorites with Tenzin which caused Kya and Bumi to become resentful and people start saying he was a neglectful and distant parent. Except the text never says or even implies that. Dude just paid a bit more attention to his airbender son to make sure he was trained sufficiently to carry the entirety of airbending culture to the next generation, which he had on his own shoulders as well.

I won’t defend Naruto, though. To be fair he also kind of sucked as a child.

Generational spin-off media is like “okay, what would be the most in-character way for the previous show’s protagonist to comprehensively fail as a parent?”

[hidden-snow]

Adding on as another parent and previous victim of this; parents, you are not protecting your child if you do this. You’re turning them into sneaky, mistrusting individuals.

Parents should not be reading your journals

Parents should not be searching through your trash 

Parents should not be snooping on your private social media messages 

Parents should not be taking your bedroom door off 

Parents should not be invading your privacy 

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[animentality]

[thehmn]

A lot of people around me are having kids and every day it becomes more apparent that hitting your children to punish them is insane because literally everything can be a horrible punishment in their eyes if you frame it as such.

Like, one family makes their toddler sit on the stairs for three minutes when he hits his brother or whatever. The stairs are well lit and he can see his family the whole time, he’s just not allowed to get up and leave the stairs or the timer starts over. He fucking hates it just because it’s framed as a punishment.

Another family use a baseball cap. It’s just a plain blue cap with nothing on it. When their toddler needs discipline he gets a timeout on a chair and has to put the cap on. When they’re out and about he just has to wear the cap but it gets the same reaction. Nobody around them can tell he’s being punished because it’s in no way an embarrassing cap, but HE knows and just the threat of having to wear it is enough.

And there isn’t the same contempt afterwards I’ve seen with kids whose parents hit them. One time the kid swung a stick at my dog, his mother immediately made him sit on the stairs, he screamed but stayed put, then he came over to my dog and gently said “Sorry Ellie” and went back to playing like nothing happened, but this time without swinging sticks at the nearby animals.

[astridhobbit]

There's a thing these days about a "Halloween fairy" who trades most of the kid's candy for like, I dunno, a stuffy or something. I've seen it in parenting groups.

My kids, by contrast, have Only Candy day. It takes place the day after Halloween (or closest weekend day, as needed.) The rules are:

1) You can eat as much candy as you want.

2) You do not have to eat anything BUT candy if you do not want to.

3) If any child pukes as a result, we will revisit these rules.

Any candy left is doled out usually one or two a day.

I remember a study from a psych class back in college. Something about how if kids hardly ever had cookies at home and were then given free access to cookies, some would gorge themselves. On the other hand, if they regularly had cookies and were allowed to have as many as they wanted, they usually stopped at one or two.

Sometimes you gotta help a kid manage their sweets intake. Mostly you don't, and it's probably better to start with "yeah, go nuts" and scale back from there.

This is a controversial take that everyone will hate but it's one thing to feed your kid better, more wholesome food than twinkies and hot pockets daily, it's another thing to force them to adhere to a crunchy granola beige colored diet where they cant share the snacks their peers are eating or have a normal childhood or have fun. None of you were raised like that and if you were you know what im talking about.

[anexperimentallife]

I love this.

[cpericardium]

seems reasonable

[sadfransisko]

[ID: Tweet by @ graxemeda posted on 20 Nov 24 that reads: "Fatherless behavior" no this is the combined effort of both my parents stop erasing women /End description]

[happyherringbonkpickle]

[wordswithloveee]

[dragoneyes618]

This Is My God by Herman Wouk points out that while it's the easiest thing in the world for a raised-religious adult to drop religion, it's quite difficult for a raised-ignorant-of-religion adult to learn religion in adulthood. Parents will teach and raise their kids the same things that they themselves do and believe in, but to specifically not raise them as whatever religion they are on the grounds that they can just decide for themselves when they're grown up isn't realistic.

People who claim that parents raising their children into their religion is indoctrination are dumb. Like of course a parent will teach the same beliefs, values, religion, worldview, etc. they believe to be true. That's common sense. What are they suppose to teach then? The beliefs of someone else? Whatever that is popular or trendy? The ideology that is promoted by the current government?

[typhlonectes]

[drmajalis]

Too good to stay on twitter