"stop being silly"

Within reason. No children get mental health issues from being told by grandma that they're being silly.

Exactly! And they wonder why there is a mental health crisis with children and young people… 🙄

Too many weak, avoidant adults pandering to their offspring instead of parenting.

Actually dialling down the angst and upholding strong (but kind) boundaries allows children to be psychologically safe, reassured that adults are in charge.

This is why I stopped teaching Higher Education. We had parents phoning in to get exam dates changed because they were clashing with the family ski holiday. Complaints about grades when their legally adult children hadn't done the coursework. Absolutely batshit.

'It's just hard to hand your child over to your village'

What a horrible thing to say.

Your child's loving grandmother is not doing anything wrong.

Gentle parenting is a load of crap unless you specifically want your child to grow up and be unable to cope with anything.

That’s why it’s important to a child’s wellbeing that their nearest and dearest do.

Children have to live in and grow up in the world. Not everyone will 'validate her feelings;' I promise you that.

Sorry but simply having feelings about something doesn’t make them valid.

Well if the OP wants her DD to play out then she can pay the £500 a month I guess for nursery! But it’s not reasonable to make demands of OP’s MIL. I imagine if she has a garden she will let her play there.

You know that some people live in flags don’t you? Or places with no usable outdoor space?

Honestly this world has gone mad if we think invalidating the feelings of a 21 month old might affect their mental health.
I despair of gentle parenting.
Sensible parenting has been around as long as time itself, why not just stick with this.

This is made up.

The causes of the rise in MH issues are known to be poverty, social media pressure, reduced support services, poor MH provision, increased insecurity about the future (both individual and global).

I wonder if @mnhq could do reward sticker sheets?....
What would we get them awarded for? 🤔

I think this summarises nicely why highly gentle parenting doesn’t work. Because people can’t look beyond that week. I get it / toddlerhood is like living in a bubble you think is never going to burst. But I don’t think people think so far ahead and they really should!

That thread cheered me up and made me say “enough internet for today” in equal measure

I can imagine loads of scenarios where a 2 year old can be told to stop being silly...because they are being silly!

That's normal behaviour for a 2 year old. It's the job of people around them to teach them what's appropriate and what's not.

If you don't like what the (free) caregiver you have chosen is doing, you can always or for an alternative (paid) caregiver.

I'd be more worried by the fact that you've clearly never encountered a situation where you had to tell your 2 year old to stop being silly.

Spot on. My sister and me were brought up in the 60s/70s. Always told we were being silly because we were. We were told to get up so an adult could have the seat: shock, horror. Parents parented kids back then and kids respected that. Fucking world has gone mad

Can she not take her out a bit more? Is she happy with the arrangement? I wouldn't be happy with that type of parenting with such a young child.

She rarely takes DD out so by 5pm she's running around the house with loads of energy

This would concern me. Why doesn't she take her out?

What does MIL do with your daughter all day long?

Reading/story telling, drawing/painting/artwork, baking, playing, games, doing puzzles, building duplo towers...... or what?

I hope the little girl isn't just parked in front of the TV or otherwise left to her own devices.

But this is exactly the point the previous poster made, for the last 10 years or so there have been vast amounts of children brought up using gentle parenting methods and kids mental health is worse than ever. It’s the ridiculous pandering to every whim that has cause kids to not be able to hope with any set backs as they get older.

This website is very anti giving a shit which is so odd given it's a parenting site but not given the incidence of mental health problems in young people.

You are not being unreasonable to be concerned about your child’s feelings being validated, no. Children who get taught that their feelings are irrelevant grow up to be people pleasers who let people abuse them.

OTOH your child’s most significant influences are you and presumably her father. Her Gm won’t have the same impact.

Apart from...you can't. Why do people always say this? A childminder or nursery will look after her kid the same as all the others and she will have no say in it. Unless she employs a nanny and even then it's going to be difficult unless there's a lot of choice of nannies and she managed to find one with the same style.

Maybe she identifies as a vampire.

Gentle parenting isn’t the reason those teenagers have no resilience. It’s likely passive or helicopter parenting, parents who never let their child feel sad or angry or disappointed and instead coddled them.

Validating feelings isn’t pandering it’s literally acknowledging ‘hey I know you wanted to keep watching bluey, tv is all done for the day, I know it’s hard’ and then just riding out the storm. Usually here it’s a couple of minutes, a hug, and then we go on with our day. Not sure why that’s being blamed for the state of society!

Your alternative would be a full time minder very specifically trained in your methods. I can guarantee you a nursery will not refrain from telling a child to stop being silly or stop crying for no reason. As often as not 'silly' is a code word for naughty and a nicer way of dealing with a child doing destructive things.

Example - child overturns something on purpose and makes a mess. The adult could leave them do what they want without consequence thus raising a difficult spoilt child, or get angry with them which is obviously not ideal. Instead the minder might say 'oh no, you made a silly mess, now you have to pick it up'. Child doesn't want to so starts to cry. Child is told to stop crying and pick up the things and not allowed do anything else until it's done (mostly by the adult but with some 'help'). A child that age doesn't cry just from sadness, they will just as easily cry when they have to do something they dont want. Child learns after a few attempts that creating a mess is not worth it and tears will not change the outcome. The result is a child who does not intentionally throw things around.

I would be frustrated that MIL isn't taking her out, I'm surprised the post is focusing on more minor issues like words used and not questioning the much bigger concern.

Your feelings are valid!

Remember as her parent you’re the key influence here even if she’s with MIL 2 days a week. So keep validating and letting her be upset or whatever, you can’t control what happens when she’s there but you can control what happens in YOUR home.

The silly thing would annoy me - toddlers are like dogs they need running and wearing out! And it’s less stressful and they make less mess if you get out of the house! Do you know why she doesn’t take her out? Is it anxiety or does she need encouraging to take her to playgroup/swimming/the park? All kill a couple of hours and mean (in my experience) afternoons are much nicer once we’ve all been out! Perhaps have a discussion about? Or DH can?