"stop being silly"

Im a grandparent. My gentle daughter spends about half an hour gently discussing why they need to leave the house with 2 yr old GS whenever they go anywhere and validating any objections he raises based on his own preference to stay in and watch dinosaur programs. I'm baffled by this, but I respect this is how the younger generation parent. And GS also gets that when he leaves the house with me, I just tell him where we're going and that we must get our shoes on and go. Kids are inherently good at learning different people and different situations have different rules.

You're lucky to have a MIL who is able and willing to look after your child, even if she's not confident to go out much herself, extra nice of her to expend the energy that childcare requires, and hopefully they have their own lovely bond as a result, it'll just be different to yours.

@Katemax82 - PFB- precious first born-

What's a pfb?

Children tend to cope fine with the fact that different people have different ways of relating to them - it's all part of learning about life and people. I would not worry about this.

Wise parenting lesson from Battery Sergeant Major Williams

🤣🤣🤣

By child number 3 you will be laughing at all of this and will be so grateful to have a MIL (with a garden for outdoor play) willing to look after your kids for nothing.

I think I get it ... and it's not what OP thinks it is.

I regret the many, many times I've told a child "You're not cold/hungry/tired!" The only person who knows how the child feels is the child. Since belatedly learning about this, I'm more likely to say "How much does it hurt? Big hurt or just a tiny hurt? Yes, it looks like a very little hurt. Tsk. Never mind, eh. All better now?"

It's a miniscule amount more effort than saying "Nah, that doesn't hurt!" and respects the child's own experience while guiding her/him to be a bit sensible about it.

Behaviour isn't a feeling, however. Being silly is being silly. There are times when silly behaviour isn't appropriate, and kids depend on their adults to help them learn about this.

"Don't be upset" is a less than ideal response to signs of distress, but it's still better than making a five-course emotional banquet out of a weepy little side-dish. There's a LOT of value in "Oh dear, never mind" type statements!

Wise parenting lesson from Battery Sergeant Major Williams 😏

Your very high parenting skills that mean dropping your dd off with your MIL who doesn’t take her out all day sometimes and tells her not to cry when she is upset . You clearly don’t have the high standards to adder this ! You just need free care so are using a sub-stand service . Send your DD somewhere decent !

So yes acknowledging emotions and having clear boundaries and expectations is a good thing. But your DD won't get this 'ideal' carer experience all the time. If it's most of her experience (with you) then then I wouldn't sweat it. If she was spending 60% of her life having interactions that told her she wasn't upset or cold or whatever when she was then maybe this would be a thing...

I don't see anything wrong. But little kids are like dogs. They need to be walked daily.. keeping toddlers cooped up doesn't end well. But it's only 2 days a week so shouldn't hurt.

I agree with this. Not everyone handles having their arse handed to them so well!

It amazes me how many people think that permissive or uninvolved parenting is gentle parenting. They’re very different from one another.

Honestly - yes. Sometimes you need a metaphorical slap in the face/handed a grip. It hasn’t harmed you in this thread afterall, I feel you’ve taken in what people have said and haven’t got upset about the comments. It’s absolutely fine to tell a child they’re being unreasonable or over reacting. They need to be able to have a measured viewpoint to prepare them for the big wide world. Better that you tell them that than the first time being a teacher when they’re 4 (because they will).

It’s sad that your MIL isn’t confident enough to go out. This is common with people of that age, and the other posters sneering about it may wanna remember they will be in their 60’s one day!

"But basically I'm worried DDs being invalidated and it'll impact her mental health in the future."

You're way overthinking it. She's with her 2 days a week.

Relax. Your child will be fine.

You're focusing on entirely the wrong thing. 2 days a week for a 2year old barely leaving the house is the bit I'd worry about!

These stories of “I was called silly once and it upset me”….in 20 years time I’ve no doubt that our own kids will identify a fuck up in our parenting that we thought was a good idea at the time, and will be moaning online. The expectation of perfection or else you were mistreated is (please don’t come for my by using this word) quite silly

@AliceAbsolum you have responded well in this thread. I really recommend now that you hide this thread and go and do something else. As it's in Active you're going to get another 100 comments reacting only to your initial post, and this can feel really brutal. It's just the undertow of the platform design and forum culture - it's not personal at all.

Go cuddle your baby and feel better. Your MIL is fine. You're fine. Your baby is fine. Good luck to you! 💐

But how is never checking her behaviour validating her feelings?

Seriously some of you will shit yourselves when your kids start secondary school and other kids will call them stupid cunts because they got in their way in the corridor (I live in an affluent area BTW, this is from an outstanding school)

I don't really like the whole 'stop being silly' thing about behaviour that isn't actually silly, like a child being upset about something. It was a favourite phrase of my gran and I still remember specific situations she used it in. She was very much of that 'Now now, stop being silly' school, but she had her own deeply entrenched issues related to emotions that I think really shaped how she treated me. It wasn't out of unkindness but I think her childhood had not allowed for any 'silliness' and it was a trigger for her.

That said, while I wouldn't really like that kind of language being used, I probably wouldn't say anything because at the end of the day she's doing two days a week of childcare. It's the problem with family childcare really, you have to be grateful so can't ever really complain or feel like you can do anything in the way you would if you were paying a third party.

They are SOME causes, that list is not exhaustive.

Child poverty is not a new thing.

The MIL isn’t parenting she’s babysitting

It’s abuse to tell a child to stop being silly

Blimey you’d positively faint at what I’ve said to my kids in the past.

I like to think I parent gently but I would never have validated that a turning off a TV show was a hardship for them. It’s bedtime, that’s life get a grip. That IS overly gentle. How are they gonna cope with actually hardship if they think not being able to watch TV is traumatic?

Honestly this “mustn’t upset the children” mentality is so annoying and selfish. Like those wanker parents who let their kids climb up the slides at the park and do nothing about when other kids who queued the right way fair and square. A mum in my NCT group was like this and now homeschools because the school apparently can’t meet her kids’s needs

I’m pretty sure one of these mums was at my local indoor funfair at half term too. Took DS into one of those fun houses and at the very end it has a hamster wheel type thing that goes round by itself. There was a child splayed out across it just lolling about as it turned, but because he stretched the whole length of it it would have been impossible to step over him as we’d have fallen on him as the wheel moved. I was looking around for a parent, there were a few standing nearby obviously waiting for their kids to come out. The problem was that behind us was an escalator and loads of people were appearing. I was the only adult on that side and and a loads of kids asked “can we step over him” like I worked there or something. I realised how dangerous this was to have a load of kids potentially stuck on a moving escalator so I said “Excuse me sweetheart can you move please”. He did nothing, just kept giggling, and I could see the next kids coming down the elevator were gonna be stuck in about 0.5 seconds so I made a snap decision. I picked the boy up and hurried him to the other side so the stuck kids could one out the attraction. It turns out his mum was one of the women standing nearby the whole time!! She told me not to touch her child (🙄) I said if I hadn’t picked him up a load of kids would have been trampling on him or been injured themselves and she ought to thank me. She just said I have no right to touch her child. Idiot