What fairly normal things do you not let your DC do?

[Mayflyoff]

I won't let my DC have candles, my 14 yo is not impressed. I also don't let them go on fairground rides, though I'm OK with permanent rides at theme parks. Are there things you don't let your DC do, that their friends seem to do?

My 18 year old has just got a tattoo. When abroad in a developing country. Sod all I can do about it!

I was reminded of a line in a TV show "Eskimo Day" about parents learning to let go.

"I've a niece about your age (17). She's had her nose pierced. We're learning to live with it."

Yep.. the one I knew went off the rails at 16 was the vicars daughter 🙈

I let my 6 year old get his ear pierced yesterday haha.

Cartoons???

Power rangers where the thing when DS1 was small. Soon stopped that when he was copying their actions all the time.

Er yeah… why?

You'd struggle in east London then, the school run's like going on safari with all the leopard print 😂

Ok I get the sleepover fears but play dates??

Yes, but you can’t stop them if they wish to proceed

I don’t get this ‘play dates’ thing. When did kids stop just playing with their friends at their respective houses, parks, countryside? You know just knocking on the door and asking if their friend could come out to play?

When parents stopped letting them out on their own. Still happens in certain areas, but I've noticed the posher the area, the less likely you have children in the street without an adult.

Around 10 years ago and it spread more and more.

My mother banned Power Rangers! We used to watch it early on a Saturday morning when our parents were still in bed 😄 And everyone was playing Power Rangers at playtime in primary. I'm probably around the same age as your son.

Mine are 9 and 7
No fizzy drinks
No hard candy
No eating grapes unless they have been cut up
No going out of sight in the park
No crop tops/short skirts
No make up unless playing dress up
No high heels
No phones
No swearing
Absolutely no tiktok
No YouTube

I assume those will change - I can’t begin to imagine the response I would get from DD (16) about that.

but also some of them I assume you will soon to get your 9 year old ready

Yes of course they will change when they get to teenagers but right now that's the rules.

I find the no play dates (I hate the term but I have embraced it!) thing really sad. Apart from anything else, kids learn so much about how other families operate, what they eat, that there is a huge range of “normal”. I remember my DS coming home
from a friend raving about this “delicious white sauce” he had had. Turned out to be mayonnaise! It just wasn’t something we ever had. Another family said Grace. And another ate with their fingers and taught dd how to do it neatly and politely. So many other things….

Exactly this. Kids nowadays are growing up in anxious isolated bubbles. It’s awful.

Agree it’s awful. This dreadful suspicion of everyone else. Both I and my kids had lovely formative times at friends houses growing up. Honestly I fear for this generation with these weird isolated family only childhoods. Really throwing the baby out with the bath water.

But surely at 9 it is time to start thinking about high school and walking to and from school by themselves

11 is a huge age change as well Iwith the move from primary to secondary

Yes, we encouraged playdates as much as possible for these exact reasons, so the DCs could get used to different home set-ups, different food, different ways of doing things. It never occurred to me not to play hide and seek in the park either, we spent many a happy afternoon doing that (it was a smallish park).

Slightly off topic, but I always have a bit of an ick for adults who are exactly like their parents - do everything just like their parents did, and expect their new family to be exactly the same too.

It feels a bit wrong to have not chosen something outside of what your parents chose, even if it's just types of food or favourite TV etc.

My in laws think we're ever so odd for doing things differently to them, and I get the sense that conformist BIL is much more approved of. And we don't do anything outre - just don't watch the same TV and have cats rather than dogs etc!

When our DDs were in their early teens I wouldn't let them use any kind of text speak when they messaged me. If they used it, I just wouldn't engage with them (also insisted on them using correct punctuation too).

I had strict parents and I went absolutely wild.

But some of these posts make my Mum look like a New Age Hippie.

I'm glad MN is so unrepresentative of society otherwise we'd be expecting chaos in 10 years time.