What are your unpopular parenting opinion?

[michellet86]

There is no right answer to all t he parenting chive we make daily. I'm interested to hear everyone's opinions

Mine is that you don't need to rush your kid to A&E for anything unless it's life, limb or loss of eye sight. A&Es are already packed with kids who don't need to be there

I'm rubbish with putting this into words but basically waiting/expecting child to learn everything at nursery/school is shameful, things as basic as getting dressed including shoes/zipping up jacket, being able to count to at least 15/20, shapes, colours, recognising name, recognition of some numbers (all this is for children that are not ND obviously) there is many more examples I could give.

Also believe that there is absolutely no need for the specific baby/toddler snacks - ellas/kiddylicious/organix nonsense - Ella's carrot puffs/blueberry wafers, WTF even are they? I made batches of some stuff myself, eat the same dinner as us and instead of a blueberry wafer they had breadsticks, cream crackers, pancake, dry cereal etc etc.

My DS behaved differently to the rest of his peers. He was never cruel or mean just irritating and a diplomatic way to put it is high spirited. I joked that we thought we were good parents until DS arrived. The school had him see every specialist going but I knew he was just immature. Every medical professional agreed nothing was wrong with him and once he entered KS2 he was a star. The SENCO said to me on his last day what a lovely boy he was. Some staff were pushing for a diagnosis and I consistently said, if you find something we’ll deal with it but we’re not looking to label him unnecessarily. Not ND just a bit of a pain who tested boundaries but consistency was key with DS.

If a child is assessed assessed, the professionals would have found he didn’t have any ND. Because people either have it or not and if you don’t meet the criteria, you don’t get diagnosed. I’m sure some people think you get diagnosed in 2 minutes in one appointment. They don’t give a diagnosis to people that have others pushing for a diagnosis, it’s just not how it works.

My teen daughter has fairly recently been diagnosed with ASD. She and we have had a lot of appointments with various doctors, psychologists and SALT. Hours of assessments, observation and developmental history being taken. Whether we were pushy (we weren’t) or not didn’t come into it.

With the exception of safety-related things, I think there is usually no right or wrong way of doing things - just look at how often guidelines change (as a previous poster said).

I hate all these buzz words and phrases like "breast is best", "baby-led-weaning" and "tummy time"... The whole tummy time thing in general actually. Both my girls absolutely hated it, so I didn't push it. And guess what, they have developed absolutely fine.

I cannot stand baby showers, I find them really tacky. I also think there are far too many "classes" and pressure to be doing activities every day with very young children, especially those under 1.

Screen time is fine in moderation and depending on the content. There are some amazing YouTubers we discovered during lockdown that taught my toddlers so much. Some of them are qualified speech and language therapists etc, and I don't think you could get much better if you paid for a session.

I also try not to stress about what my toddlers eat. I like to give them a variety of food with plenty of healthy options, and it's up to them what they eat. I think that making a big deal about it is only going to make them more fussy. If they're getting their daily vitamins and are generally healthy and happy, they're fine.

Probably my most controversial opinion is that very young children should be looked after by a parent or other close family member, rather than put in childcare (I know, many people don't have the option. I just think that's the ideal for the child). The thought of leaving my babies with a stranger before they can even communicate properly makes me shudder.

I agree. Notwithstanding children who have addition needs, I made sure my child was ‘ready for school’, regards toileting, eating, getting dressed etc. and they were youngest in the class. We had teachers visit us at home prior to reception year.

Also agree re. baby foods. Totally understand it’s a convenience so not judging but I’ve never bought a single jar of ‘baby’ food and worked FT from DC being 11 months. Small portions of what we ate and that was it. Seemed easier to me.

@onesadmama

I agree it's a very British dilemma.

I don't see parents where I am (US) assuming a relationship with teens necessarily has to be adversarial. Teens are expected to pull their weight around the house, to engage with school, to have a part time/ weekend job. They're not treated as a tribe apart. Certainly in the area where I live, you never see groups of teens traipsing around at night with nothing to do. The culture is more family oriented.

There's definitely a party scene in both the public and private schools. Some kids get very caught up in it. The sort of scenario where teens are sneaking off to have sex or trying to get older people to buy them alcohol isn't a scenario you find here. This is partly because there is so much pastoral support in schools, and family dysfunction gets flagged quickly and dealt with, and partly because the cultural tipping point where a teenage girl and her boyfriend would expect to be permitted to have sex under the family roof hasn't been reached yet. I know of no families where this topic would even come up. Teens are expected to

Teens are expected to head off to college after high school and to actively take steps toward financial independence. It's understood that there's an order in which milestones will be reached, and paying your own way is the cornerstone of the privileges of adulthood. Parents are very protective of the educational and financial prospects of their daughters in particular, and invest a huge amount of time and attention to girls' sports and other activities from early childhood up. The idea that some teenage boy would be allowed to sidetrack a young woman by means of a hot and heavy relationship, or God forbid, a baby, would be really unthinkable.

Wow yes there is definitely a very different alcohol culture which does not surprise me. I’ve travelled to europe at 16 and germany has booths where alcohol was just being passed out for free on the streets for christmas. I naturally took advantage! 😂

Kids do party here at a young age. But I don’t think I personally knew anyone who was openly drinking at 13/14 for anything other than religious purposes.

Sex was pretty taboo in my home too though sadly we were more progressive than the people in our town! My mother dared to inform me about what sex was and tell me about condoms STDs and birth control! gasp! our friends thought it was totally scandalous! In 12th grade several girls became mysteriously pregnant and dropped out though. I grew up in a very small town in texas where the people were heavily protestant. So um I’m not sure my experience is a normal american example. I know it is just one of many.

I’m not religious anymore as I couldn’t tolerate the hypocritical judgment of others. 😩 Three generations of pregnant teens but ironically still hardly judging pregnant teens? lmao. I couldn’t stand it anymore! I was the first of my family to break the cycle. Now in my 30’s I have a daughter and I’m trying to figure out a healthy balance. I’m breaking several generational patterns so it’s hard you know?

I’m kind of in uncharted territory. Is this what parents mean when they say they wish their kids came with a manual?

The community I live in is a very progressive one, an intensely blue area in a state that is solidly blue. It's racially integrated and there's a wide range of incomes, occupations, national origins. There's a wide variety of belief systems, with many organised religions represented. I would say where religious participation is concerned, the majority are non participants.

Sometimes when American teens and family inclusivity are discussed on MN, people assume families whose teens stay home at night, don't drink, and don't have sex must be members of some weird conservative sect, but actually the families I see day in and day out are very ordinary and very likely to be very secular.

There's a nursery in the public high school for babies and children of staff and the odd student, and the local community can send babies and children there too subject to availability of spaces. Students doing high school baby and child care courses spend time there doing hands on coursework.

I think while in general there's a strong feeling that kids should be focused on studies and jobs, etc, there's also a strong feeling that the community has to provide for all its members - this is reflected in the public facilities (provided by local property taxes) and also in the amount of broadly 'social service' support for community members who are struggling for whatever reason or facing a challenge. The local schools are also renowned for their excellent SN provision.

@RudsyFarmer my parents had this approach and it caused me a lot of trust issues and significant upset. Please reconsider before they get to teen age!

"And don't tell me I wouldn't smack an adult. Adults don't roll around having tantrums on the floor in supermarkets. Children aren't adults...."

Some adults do have behaviour like this but we don't manage the behaviour by hitting them.

@PissedOffAmericanWoman teenage pregnancy rates are higher in the US than the UK from the statistics I saw which suggests teenagers are still having sex in the US just less safely

I’ll report back in 10 years 👌

My parents were like that too, all it did was teach me to cover my tracks and be careful to hide things. It also taught me not to reach out to them for help even if I was in difficulty because I knew they'd be interfering and overbearing.

Sorry that was more for @mathanxiety

OMG TEENAGERS HAVE SEX?!

Just kidding. I’m not sure I follow your comment as I never denied that teens have sex in any country. It was more a debate of inviting them to have sex at home or not. Thanks for being so informative I guess…?

That lot of parents are being abused by their children and it's not ok. Children do not need electronics to learn tech. Teens do not need ultimate freedom or complete privacy. The entertainment industry has extremely loose morals and the age rating is questionable at best, yet parents continue to let young kids play violent and scary games and talk to strangers online.

My main unpopular opinion though is people no longer parent, they blame.

I find the following fine
Gaming
Controlled crying
Potty training at under 2
Not being your child’s friend.

I can believe that. I would be interesting to see a breakdown by state. I'm American and I'm guessing there are quite a few areas and possibly states where the sex ed curriculum is abstinence-based, and we all know how well that works.

It's fine to be angry/ express disappointment with your DC if they fuck up their GCSE's/ A-levels because they did no homework/ revision/ dicked around at school etc. Yes, their lives might turn out fine, but they just made it a whole lot harder for themselves. There is literally no upside to getting bad exam results and lack of effort becomes a hard habit to break.

Divorcing fucks kids up. It really does. I can spot kids who come from parents who are separated instantly. Having multiple random step parents/siblings/2 different houses is not good parenting.
obviously things do go wrong, but don’t kid yourself that the kids are fine with it. They’ll tell you that because they don’t want to upset you, but unless your relationship is so dangerous you have to leave, then it’s better to stay together

Extrapolating this- kids aren't as resilient as everyone bangs on about (to make themselves feel better no doubt!)

They have no choice but to accept things thrown at them.

I say this as child of divorced parents and a divorced solo parent myself !

I wish my parents had divorced. An unhappy home with 2 people who stayed together "for the kids" isn't better. It's never for the kids.

I can guarantee that staying together for the sake of the kids fucks them up even more and gives them a huge burden of guilt. Imagine being the reason your mum wastes the best years of her life with an emotionally manipulative fuckwit when she could have been happy instead?

This is really interesting. So the 'party scene' you describe doesn't seem to involve alcohol or sex? (if I read your post correctly!) And yes how does that square with the fact that the teenage pregnancy rate is higher than in Europe? I went to the States as a young teenager and was shocked at all the sex talk by my peers (may have just been all talk of course, and this was in the 90s so things may have changed!)

Yes, there's alcohol and sex. And drugs. There's nothing like the British drinking culture all the same.

But the US is a big place with wide regional variations in rates of teen pregnancy. Many here on MN assume the US is culturally monolithic but this is a mistake. The rate is 13.6 births to women aged 15 to 19 per 1000 births in my state, but 27.9 in Mississippi.

There's a broadly North/ South divide, and within the divide there are racial and ethnic differences. Women of Asian descent have the lowest teen pregnancy rate (something like 3 per 1000) Native American, Hispanic, and African American women have the highest teen pregnancy rates. There's a class divide too.