Things That Shouldn’t Be Said To Children

[SunshineLollipopsAndRainbows]

I get quite upset hearing parents deal with sometimes really little children. For example, I was at work & a little girl was dawdling in the shop. Her dad said “ Ok we’ll leave you then”. Heard this so often & how awful for the child who doesn’t understand that the parent wouldn’t actually do that. When I worked as a nanny, one of the Mums used to threaten that “ Beryl” would come & get her 3 year old. I took her on the tube once & she was inconsolable when a woman near us called her friend “ Beryl”. However, it was sweet revenge when the Mum was attempting to dry the little girl’s hair & she was struggling, saying “No, I want Beryl to do it”!
I’ve also heard parents threaten their kids with the police & even that they would send them to hospital if they didn’t behave. Why don’t they think before they speak?

Playdate not playmate.

I do help tidy up the toys. And no, I don’t threaten to leave them. But if, when it comes time to leave, they don’t want to leave, then I don’t start dicking around negotiating over whether they want to skip out of the door or race me to the car.

Has anyone ever told their DC that they'll leave without them and the DC still not left on time? That's my fear with that one!

In the playground I gave a 10 minute then 5 minute warning, given by holding the relevant number of fingers up. So "we need to go now" wasn't a shock and again would aim to leave a good 10 minutes before we needed to.

I would have laughed at this as a child!

It's fine for dc to learn there are consequences to actions & sometimes you have to do things you don't like. I think it's much harder to learn those things as an adult.

It doesn’t work on DD at all, but more fool her, she responds to “You can have 10 more plays” so instead of a luxurious 10 minutes she races around doing a slide and a climb and a whatever, at warp speed, shouting “That’s one/two/three!” etc, done and dusted in three minutes, and we end up leaving much more quickly.

Under no illusions this will last. It’s like negotiating with terrorists, you have to use the latest expertise and change tactics. Once said we needed to leave the park before it got dark and the spooky monsters came out (thinking “This is playful and imaginative, then we’ll scurry home to the safely lit house having outsmarted those monsters!): she sat down to wait for them. Huge disappointment when none materialised.

As I said acknowledge thier feelings then withdraw attention.
Leave yourself plenty of time
Don't get drawn
It's not easy but elaborate threats are either terrifying or ineffective, bit like smacking really.
That all sounds lovely - and I do agree with acknowledging feelings and giving a short explanation but ultimately I’m their parent and there are times they need to get on with it whether they want to or not. I don’t have time to give every task double the time it should need. In reality the bus won’t wait for my child to decide they’d like to get on, the doctor won’t rearrange their schedule to suit my child’s mood, my boss isn’t going to let me finish early to cajole my child out of childcare in time for closing.

Those kids grow into adults who perpetually expect the world to bend to their wishes, are eternally late, never meet a deadline.

Parents need to be attuned to their child and pick strategies that are effective with their child on any given day. Children need to know there are some (as few as possible) absolutes, parents do their kids no favours endlessly negotiating over non-negotiable.

"I tried to kill myself because you don't love me enough"
My "D"M to me aged 6

My mum said to me when I was about 8-9 “you wasted all your smiles as a baby.” She swears I smiled at two weeks old and didn’t stop until I grew out of being a baby. I was a really shy child, relaxing and smiling just didn’t come naturally. She loved me I don’t doubt that at all. But that comment did stick with me.

I’ve done most of the ‘terrible’ parenting tactics on here. My two year old is resistant to them all! I don’t know where she came from. I once tried the “fine we are going,” thing as I had asked her about 20 times to get down by the door and she was still playing on the sitting room floor with some dinosaurs or something. I even turned off the lights, put her older sister in the car..came back in and she was still just happily playing. Said “bye mummy!” Couldn’t give a crap if we left 😂

To a previous poster who hates people telling kids there is no Father Christmas, this is easily resolved. Just tell the kids those people are on the permanent naughty list!

Some days you'll say just about anything to stop them dicking about in public, especially when judgey people like the OP are around waiting to start MN threads about your shite parenting.

@AllThingsServeTheBeam , oh, FFS - obviously I wouldn’t include anyone who doesn’t celebrate Christmas anyway.
And I’d inflict particularly painful piles on those people who oh-so-virtuously talk of ‘not lying’ to children, and take it upon themselves to tell other people’s children that FC doesn’t exist.

@Timetochangetheoil , I did just that once, after a so-called friend told dd1, who was only 5! But since dd had witnessed this woman effing and blinding - loudly! - in public, I told her that X had probably been so naughty when she was little, that FC never came, so no wonder she didn’t believe in him.
Thank goodness it worked like a charm.

I do wonder if we have taken all that advice too literally about the importance of validating feelings and giving children choices so they feel they always have autonomy etc. It sounds good in theory but then there are all these teenagers that are unable to cope with life. Maybe that's just partly down to the way language has been watered down ("mentally ill", "abuse", "toxic" all have much broader uses than they did in the past) but it does also seem like young people lack resilience too.

I do think there is a place for the "your feelings are not valid, get a grip and do what you're told" style of parenting of the past.

Within reason, of course.

Brilliant

Georgeskitchen I posted that I have a 13 year old daughter. Why?

so why threaten leaving without them then?

You're not going to follow through. and if the kid calls your bluff, and you don't actually leave without them... then what?

well, your feelings on this matter are not valid. So stop taking part in this discussion.

I always internally eye-roll at threads like this on MN. But then I live in an area where a few delightful parents are known to shout things to their kids like - come on you cunt to dawdling 5 year olds. So things that the OP talks about do not even register.

We had a phone call or 2 from the bed police. Fortunately we managed to convince them that DCs were going to stay in bed and try and sleep so they never did come round 😊

I really hate the "lady in the shop will get mad at you". It's such terrible parenting. It sends mixed messages to the child that I think you're wonderful and cannot bear to discipline you properly so I'm blaming someone else. They wonder why the child won't behave at home.

@00100001 See, as an adult you have to accept that people won't agree or consider your views or feelings.

But the difference is I won't cry about being "invalidated" because I know my opinions on this topic are thoughtfully derived (same as everyone contributing to this thread) and so I'm resilient enough to handle an opposing view. On other occasions I'm able to accept that sometimes im irrational or center myself when I shouldn't and need to put myself back in a box.

See the difference with how some people advocate raising the youth of today?

This thread is great.

I would love some of you to have a go at parenting DT2.

The other day, she said she wanted to watch Liz Truss's speech to the Tory party conference because she had heard a grown-up talking about it.

She is 4.

I put it on, because, why not. Asked her after about 90 seconds if I should turn it off and reached for the button. She clearly heard the 'non-verbal prompt' and reacted to it.

By digging her heels in. Which is how she reacts to everything.

She watched the entirety of LT speech. Attentively. It is 37 minutes long, I can report. All 37 minutes. Because she could sense I was ready to turn it off.

When you've dealt with a child like that, who by the way is one of three, all young primary, and you are on your own with a demanding full-time job and other responsibilities.... Then you can come back and get all judgy about 'I'm off, byeee!' type comments.

I am betting none of the 'be kind' style people on this thread have twins, for a start 😂

Oh for goodness sake - I’m not saying any parents aren’t human or have to be perfect all the time! And again, yes I am a parent! I was just saying that sometimes people need to think what effect their words can have. What if you’d threatened to send your child to hospital if they misbehaved & then they actually had to go to hospital? What sort of place would they think it was?
I get the leaving thing, of course I do, but some children might not be old enough to understand or they might genuinely believe their parents are going to abandon them. It’s all fine asking if I’m a parent - seems like some posters can’t remember what it’s like to be a small trusting child in a scary grown up world.

That is hilarious.

I hate this too! My partner does it and it pisses me off so much.