Is modern parenting damaging to kids?

Well he's a mansplaining expert without kids isn't he!! Typical expert, thinking he knows everything but hasn't parented a literal day in his life.

Kids running around in packs is his preference? Does he have any idea the danger that can happen leaving kids to just run about unchecked. So many weirdos about.

This is very interesting. I tend to very much agree with your friend, and I came to this conclusion based on my won childhood experience + life of my friend and her sister.

My friend like me was born in the 90s, we both liked active play. I was a bit more feral, considering I was a girl, I much preferred playing with boys and playing rough. My friend is more girly, she liked barbies and fashion. Her sister is 18 years younger than my friend (large generational difference) and although brought up by same parents, she is complete crystal vase: expects everything done for her, can't defend herself verbally, gets upset about little nonsignificant things, very princess like and struggles to make friends!

I don't know how much of it is parenting, because both grew up in same household, but I certainly think that society is being too gentle on kids and should be expecting higher standards. In the 90s it was OK to receive a bit of 'bollocking' from a stranger on the street. But now apparently it is not, even if the child is disturbing the societal norms and peace.

We're already there. Managing uni leavers at work is already an epic nightmare. The lack of autonomy is crippling.

My problem is often not so much with the kids but rather the parents. They viewed things like scout leaders as their childcare and treated us like shit.

I quit not because of the kids but the entitled parents who thought their child could do no wrong. I have friends who are teachers and have described the exact same behaviour in parents.

Indeed there was a very funny thread where a parent decided her child's music teacher would continue to teach her child after she was rude to them. Ironically enough everyone called her out but I have delt with those parents in real life and honestly as a young women it can be quite overwhelming. I'm older now and have more of a backbone but I don't want to deal with asshole parents treating me like shit in my spare time. However as my kids are now approaching beaver age I will if o ly to make sure they have the same opportunities I had.

I agree with this but part of the reason they are crying out for volunteers is because of rude, uncooperative children and adults who believe their child is the only one that matters. It's bad enough having to put up with that when paid for but the number willing to do it for free is dropping g rapidly.

Ah yes, my late mother (born 1943) frequently used the term "stick my head in the oven", given that it had once been an option for suicide, indeed as a child growing up in the 80s, it was common to hear adults speaking about people they knew who'd done it.

One small point though, and interestingly I come at this angle from a backgound selling domestic appliances ad opposed to a clinical dimension, it wasn't the decline of gas ovens that would have contributed to a reduction in suicides from this method, rather it would have been due to the switch from coal gas to natrual gas, the latter being incapable of killing through inhalation (though of course a gas explosion could easily be rigged and kill).

UK homes were converted to natural gas over an 8 year period, from 1968 to 1976, I have just read on Google (I knew about the conversion but not the exact time in the 70s).

@Thedayb4youcame apologies if this has already been answered; I'm just halfway through the thread but my understanding is that broadly speaking men tend to choose a more violent method than women so it's more likely to 'work' if that makes sense. I read that when gas ovens were more of a thing, women's suicide rates were much higher because they often used those.

What I'm reading here is people don't seem to understand the difference between actual child abuse (beatings, nasty name calling, starving, saying things like child is useless, etc) to just parents being strict.

I don't hit my kids and never have, but I know of parents that will give a smack bum as a repercussion to their child being naughty. Or sending a child to their room for 'time out' when they just won't do as they're told - I have done that. That's not child abuse it's teaching a child to do as they're told or there will be consequences. That's life.

If you don't do as you should at work, or cause problems, you'll lose your job. If you are in a relationship and you're rude, or disrespectful, that relationship won't last.

Being strict and trying to ensure your child knows right from wrong, and there are repercussions to bad behaviour isn't child abuse, but society nowadays will have us believe it is and I think it causes too much stress on parents to try to be perfect and actually makes us more stressed and then worse parents.

I don't think toddlers having tantrums are to be punished at all, but an older child who just won't do as they're told or are deliberately doing something they know they shouldn't, or they've been told they shouldn't, should be punished imo. I'm not talking huge punishments but loss of toys/treats or time outs.

I often find myself feeling jealous of all the generations of parents who would have just parented and disciplined their children in the way their parents did because they didn't have all this information and other people's opinions all over the place. None of the mum guilt and angst we all experience. I'm not always convinced more information makes you more informed, sometimes it's an unhelpful overload.

@ExtrovertedIntrovert1 Oh my gosh, this is so true. I find myself paralysed by indecision in so many parenting "moments", with this reel of contradictory advice playing out across my mind and before I've decided what to do the moment has passed. And even when I do make a decision, I'm always second-guessing it!

Example: last night we had dinner at PIL's and got in late. Discussion in the car home about how late it was and that 4yo DS would need to start getting ready for bed straight away without any playing. When we got in, he remembered there were cherries in the fridge and wanted some cherries. (He had had a big dinner and pudding - he wasn't hungry.) I think I responded authoritatively by firmly but calmly repeating that it was time for bed, physically blocking him from opening the fridge, validating (briefly) that he was upset, and carrying him (squirming and shouting) up to bed. But the whole thing took longer than it would have taken him to eat a couple of cherries, and I was questioning throughout whether it was worth the power struggle, and whether I really had his best interests at heart or if it was just my ego, trying to feel like I was the boss.

It's a minefield!

Agree fully.

It’s only in recent human history that we know what is going on outside of our local area.

Our biology is not meant to know what is going on everywhere in the world! In fact in most of human history we wouldn’t have known what was happening outside of our very local village/community.

This is especially true for children.

100 per cent agree.

My husband comes from an unnamed country in EU. Some of his friends let their 6-8 year olds walk or take public transport to school, shops, etc.

Any opinions on why this is seen as unacceptable in the UK? Kidnappings by a stranger are extremely rare, obesity and depression are much more of a risk to their lives. The only actual risk I see is for children to be hit by a car, as they're so small, drivers can't see them so well and they're not as predictable. Howecer, having children walk or commute massively decreases the number of cars around schools.

I think there is a lot we can do as adults to help our young people develop the skills and resilience that people seem to thing they are missing.

There are lots of fantastic organisations, uniformed and otherwise that provide opportunities for leadership, personal development and skills for young people - NCS, Cadet Forces, Scouting and Guiding, Boys and Girls brigades, Nature organisations, youth groups.

They are all crying out for volunteers - so if you want to help young people, do something useful and give up your time.

If you do you will find that actually most of our young people today are pretty great, even when they are struggling with things that are really tough - when they are given the opportunities to show it.

Yes, parents are babying children for too long and that means they can't assess risk on their own and do stupid things. We've noticed that more than ever are rude. We had a friend over yesterday for my DS (5) and we're shocked by the lack of manners and respect. He was throwing things, not listening and had no manners. From this experience, we decided, our house, our rules. We also decided to invite other friends and stick with those who behave nicely! Our DS has dropped his manners lately and have been very clear that he needs to find where he lost them! We have used his favourite thing - desert - to get the message through. We haven't had to remove it but he knows we will so the please and thank yous are back! That points to another parenting issue of no follow through. We actually unplugged the TV for a week and put it in the hallway one time. He believed we were putting it in the bin 😂 He also had to miss the school fete once so he knows we are serious! Time out worked week too - we did it twice and now only have to mention it and he changed his behaviour 🙌🏻

As a child of the seventies (born in the sixties) and with children born in the nineties and growing up in the noughties, I am finding this discussion very interesting. There have always been good and bad points about every generation, but I think the biggest problem with many of this generation is that they have not been able to find things out for themselves - ferried from A to B, enrolled in far too many activities and not hearing the word no enough. They are also exposed to adult things too soon. As a child, l had strict parents and this was generally repeated at school with the teachers, but we had a lot more freedom than today's children. We walked to school by ourselves or with friends from the age of around seven. We played outside without supervision from a young age. Older children were in charge. I caught a bus by myself at the age of eight to go to the next village for my piano lesson and by the age of ten was going out for bike rides all over the countryside with my friend. From the earliest age, we were expected to take responsibility for ourselves. Yet rules were strictly enforced. Helping with household chores were a must and I had to practise the piano for half an hour every day from the beginning. By the time I was thirteen, I was babysitting other people's children. My own children didn't have the same amount of freedom, but we made sure that they had time to go out with their friends unsupervised and learned to accept failure as well as success.

I have nkt read the thread so my reply is to the op.

I do sort of feel this my son has autism. He is sensitive. He's extremely quiet whwnvge talks he puts his head down and sort of mutters so that's the sort of child he is.

He has an ehcp on this one of the things is M must be given extra time to think about what's been said. His teacher really shouted at him for not doing something fast enough. Ds told me about it abd he said he cried quietly behind hid hands 😭. I did think wtf . Buy I also thought I can't protect him from everything there's going to be people that upset him it's how the world is. So I just said maybe he was having a bad day . Let's see hiw he is tomorrow. And ds was fine the next day said his teacher was kind.

He does fall out with friends and some children take the piss out of him because he's behinde most others. I just tell him sometimes people are not very kind . But we all think your amazing . And your friends at school think your great to that's why you have had them same friends for so long .

If I protect him from everything I would be holding him back

Thank you. It’s also in the moment, what to do? We made a joke at first, then I said it wasn’t kind and was hurtful etc, but she kept it up ALL day (said it was because he was a boy - not at all a romantic connection btw, but as it’s a man, I certainly don’t want to force her into being “nice” to him).

I think I needed to be more “scary” - she wanted to wear something to school today and when I said no, ignored me. I got very serious and stern, she burst into tears saying her life was terrible, I’d hurt her feelings, why couldn’t she have a nice mum etc (she’s 5). I held fast and she was right as rain afterwards. So yes, I do wonder if my authority wasn’t authoritative enough, verging into permissive until I snap.

I think this question has been asked since Cain and Abel. Probably there was a bit of questionable parenting there. My view is that parenting and the lot of kids has generally got better over the years. One thing I would point out to the older generations (as it is generally they who I hear complaining about young parents, as they did directly to me as a young parent) is that in the 1970s and 1980s parents were regularly so lax that a long series of public information films had to be made, anything from not letting your kids play on the railway line, climb pylons or swim in quarries, not to let very young kids run across the road to the ice cream van, not to go off with strangers offering sweets or to see some puppies or play with matches at home. All things that would be utterly fucking obvious to 99.9% of modern parents, who are apparently "babying" their kids if you actually know they are playing out in the garden or across the street and are not playing chicken in the road or climbing pylons.

On the local FB pages, there are quite a few posts from parents looking for part time/summer jobs for their children. Surely those teenagers should be the ones finding out for themselves whether there are vacancies, asking in shops etc. The boy who advertises car cleaning seems to be the only one who has taken some initiative and is trying to help himself.

Probably because on my local village forum you have to be a member for three months before you can post anything, as one parent explained about a returning university student.

The young person may well be asking themselves elsewhere and have no idea what the parent is doing on Facebook. Most young people don't use Facebook. But in any event a parent asking people on Facebook is simply casting the net wider, in the way that well-connected parents get internships for their kids or jobs in their companies or those owned by their mates by word of mouth. Facebook is just another network. I got my first part time job washing up in a pub because my mate already worked there. All of my mates got jobs like that in the 1990s, no-one went up and down the street at 15/16 handing in their CV to shops. FWIW DD1 didn't get a job in that way two years ago with a national restaurant chain, she applied off her own back aged 16 and went to interviews.

Thankyou I will give that a try. Especially after looking at it on Amazon and seeing that the chapters of the book are literally named after my most used phrases!!!

Read this. Despite the title, it's an excellent book for parents on why teens behave the way they do, and how to manage your own feelings and expectations and talk to them constructively.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0241403146?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

On the local FB pages, there are quite a few posts from parents looking for part time/summer jobs for their children. Surely those teenagers should be the ones finding out for themselves whether there are vacancies, asking in shops etc. The boy who advertises car cleaning seems to be the only one who has taken some initiative and is trying to help himself.

There seems to be a learned helplessness and difficulty in performing everyday tasks. My grandson, working in a fast food restaurant, asked a new starter to sweep the floor. She didn’t know how.

I was teaching when mobiles became commonplace. As a head of year at the time, there were daily issues I had to resolve, when a dispute at break time or lunch time, resulted in a parent turning up at school demanding that I ‘sort it’ immediately. Children and teenagers fall out, become friends, fall out again, become friends again. Friendship groups evolve, just as they do with adults.

If, as has been said, university students are not able to cope independently, they’re certainly not going to be able to manage in a workplace where the expectation is that you perform the role for which you are paid and that will include doing tasks you’d probably rather not.

There is a difference, obviously, between this learned helplessness and children and young adults who have different needs. The difficulty is that their needs are not regularly being met and the edges are becoming blurred.

He is right. We now have young adults that are as mature as the 12 year olds 20 years ago.

@BodyKeepingScore @Thedayb4youcame
In my mental health First Aid training, i heard of a study where researchers interviewed people who survived after jumping from Golden Gate Bridge (this is rare) They said that, as they were falling, they realised that in fact they wanted to survive

Agree about men generally using more violent methods

But the survival instinct is v strong

Edited = this may be what I was thinking of https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/11/19/us/golden-gate-bridge-suicide-safety-net

I agree with op.

After reading a couple of pp and thinking back to what I have read on here re problems with neighbours, neighbours having problems with games played on the street etc, are we worried about upsetting neighbours rather than letting our children do what they did when they were younger? Are neighbourly relations more important than our children being allowed to play games on the street?

Im only the first couple of posts, I read that when pp were younger they never left the street, was always out with friends but I don't see this anymore, anywhere. My elderly neighbours certainly don't like to see or hear children playing outside their houses. Why was it ok for older generations to do it but not now? Are we teaching our children that we can't do natural things like playing outside with friends incase they upset somebody?

Interesting topic.

I'm not really sure of the answer but I'm suspicious a lot of the answer lies in the easy access we have to a wealth of opinions and information (that is not always accurate or applicable to our situation)

One example.
I have trouble with my kid in the mornings....old enough to be responsible for getting themselves ready. They get up plenty early enough because I get them up. They then spend 1.5 hours dawdling and messing about doing god knows what, and end up being late for school. This is despite having numerous clocks in her room, me telling her how long she has to get ready at regular intervals, I help and get things out for her like lunchbox, bag, shoes etc.

What do I do? I Google. Google says she probably has ADHD so I go down that rabbit hole. I shouldn't be shouting at her, it's probably not her fault. Maybe she's depressed.. I read "procrastination is the byproduct of depression"

But what if it IS her fault? What if she is just lazy and spoilt... Thinks she has all the time in the world and that I'll drive her to school if she's running late. Authority and strict regime Vs understanding, kindness, visual ques etc...

Without the world of information at my finger tips I would not be questioning which path to go down (would probably go down the absolutely losing my shit and telling her she will have to drag her sorry self in to school and apologize for being late)

Similar with letting kids out to play. People's opinions on this are just... There... On your phone.. 24/7... Kids go missing...story on social media... 500 comments saying "omg I would never let my kid out at that age/at that time/in that place"

It's not how it used to be and I don't know if it's good or bad but it's certainly very different to what my parents went through....