To think "lazy parenting" is usually just inexperienced parenting?

[PuffedupPufferFish]

I have a 2yo DD so I am currently reading lots of stuff about parenting toddlers. In the past few weeks I have read various things described as lazy parenting - not being able to stop toddlers interfering with Christmas trees, not always being able to get toddlers to keep to quiet in certain public areas, not being able to always get toddlers to walk nicely alongside you etc.

I'm not denying that some parents are lazy and just leave their children to it, but I think most people really do care but are just inexperienced. I feel like I try so hard to get my DD to behave appropriately and lots of things she's so good about, but equally lots of things we have real struggles with. I am sure it is partly my parenting, but honestly I don't think I'm being lazy. I am just inexperienced, and have never done this before! You can read all you want but advice is often contradictory, and doesn't prepare you for the real thing. And I just feel like I've got a good response for a certain behaviour then everything changes.

It's just so demoralising and unsupportive when you read "parents whose children do X,Y and Z are just lazy parents" when I am trying so hard but obviously not always getting it right. I can't help thinking people who say it either had super chilled children, or took to parenting much more naturally than me or are on a second/third child and have the benefit of some previous experience (and their rose tinted spectacles on while remembering their first child).

I guess I just wish parents could be a little kinder to each other sometimes.

We're all just winging it, some are just better at looking like they know what they're doing
I don't necessarily want my children to be robots who conform to what busy bodies think they should be doing to be honest. Children need chance to explore and push the boundaries a bit, as long as they're safe then I think a bit of Christmas tree fiddling is ok 🤷🏼‍♀️

Mine are 8 and 5 now so not even toddlers anymore but other than stuffing socks in their gobs I still can't keep them quiet in public places

The people who use terms.like "lazy parenting" about people who are doing perfectly normal parenting are dicks. They insult other people's parenting to deflect from their anxieties about their own.

I'm an experienced parent and I agree with wishy-washy that we're all just winging it and hoping any fuck ups we make are small ones.

The good news is that all of the standard parenting styles (if one has to apply a style to it) result in the same end product of a more or less fully functioning adult so no matter how inexperienced you are at parenting, you're almost certain to be successful at it

Yanbu, little kids especially toddler do silly / annoying stuff all the time. Imagine being a toddler and seeing a Christmas tree, wouldn’t you want to go and touch all the shiny stuff?
absolutely no one gets it right all the time, so don’t worry!

Pretty sure there’s not a country in the world, not an era in history, not a family on earth where the toddlers are not incredibly trying naughtiness machines on a regular basis tbh. Sometimes it’s actually fine to pick your battles and be ...yeah lazy. Honestly I don’t think that it actually makes a difference to how they turn out as adults whether they were kept on a shorter or longer leash as kids. As long as you keep fostering good habits (even if they mess about, just have them around while you reinforce it) and giving them love and affection.

Not directed at you OP but in general I hate the term "lazy parenting". We're not martyrs! I'm a person too, I am also a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, kick ass at my job and a student to boot. Sometimes I do stuff regarding parenting that makes my life easier. Sue me. Be sure to serve the papers to someone who gives a fuck.

I'm sorry OP that attitude is far too mature, generous, reasonable and tolerant for MN, take it elsewhere please. :D
(Yanbu obviously!)

Stop reading this shit.

I find "lazy parenting" is more what long-term parents do actually.

You're a lot more confident that they won't maim themselves by the third and leave them to it.

It really depends on the child's temperament, ime. Some children are naturally more compliant/docile, and this will not be down to parenting techniques. I have more than one child, and they all have very different personalities - what works with one as a toddler wouldn't work with the other.

And besides, children aren't robots! Toddlers have a deep need to explore and touch and move and make noise. Learning how to redirect them can be tricky - my DC were able to figure out my distraction techniques quite quickly so I was always having to come up with new ideas on the hop!

It's just so demoralising and unsupportive when you read "parents whose children do X,Y and Z are just lazy parents"

Honestly, some kids are just, ahem, "spirited". You see it with the attachment parents and the military parents and the Tiger parents, and the helicopter parents. All doing something different, all get the same product at the end. Whatever you do some kids will be very good from the start and some will be little nobs.

All you can really pray for is one that sleeps.

All you can really pray for is one that sleeps.

Amen.

As a mother of older teens - I can now look back and say in all honesty I was ‘lazy.’
I loved them though. Lots.
Good thing is that they’ve turned into bright, wonderful young people. Nowt to do with me. (Well if you follow what you ‘should’ do anyway.)

What are you reading??
Surely the only thing to read is whatever strikes a cord/backs up what you already think is the way to go 😜

It's not the parents, it's the children! Just like adults , some are more biddable than others , some like screaming down the street while others sit in quietly with a book.

What are you reading??
Surely the only thing to read is whatever strikes a cord/backs up what you already think is the way to go 😜

More to the point why are reading?! You could be sleeping!

Surely the only thing to read is whatever strikes a cord/backs up what you already think is the way to go

This is definitely my plan from now on! I think I had just been feeling a bit rubbishy about my parenting after reading a couple of threads on here and a couple of blogs. She is very spirited and and I feel like I spend my life trying to "find the right approach".

So I will let myself off for having to drag her kicking and screaming away from the Christmas tree in the shop to stop her from rearranging all of the decorations onto the floor! Or in the (seemingly otherwise silent) GP waiting room hollering "what that person name?" every time some one new came in no matter how hard I tried to stop her.

Thank you for all the reassurance!

Lazy parenting? No such thing! Parenting is bloody hard work up to adulthood. Calling parents lazy for not conforming to what a parenting book says is disgusting. Parenting books represent only the experience of the author, every single person, child or adult is unique, there is no 'one size fits all', it's trial and error and success and happiness. Terms like 'lazy parenting' make parents feel shit and who the hell would want to do that?

I see regular examples of "lazy parenting " (toddlers running riot in coffee shop for example) but I think you are taking this too personally. There's certainly no simple correlation between effort put in and behaviour of the child (esp in supermarkets ime ).

Surely it's only lazy parenting if you aren't bothering to try and stop them. I mean the parts of the brain that govern impulse control aren't fully developed until the mid twenties, it's to blame mum because a toddler wants to play with a shiny Christmas tree

I've had four of the little buggers and I winged it from day one. Youngest is autistic and I was accused of lazy parenting when he was 'running riot' in a supermarket with me screeching after him.

I find "lazy parenting" is more what long-term parents do actually.

^I agree

Have a second child. Then you’ll stop giving a shit about the sort of things that are written in PFB Monthly or whatever it is.

And you’ll actually discover what lazy parenting is. People helicopter over their first, by the second it’s like ‘Oh he’s playing with a lawnmower in a box of knives, didn’t notice. Silly me.’

Letting them make a nuisance of themselves is lazy though. If they are making noise or mess good parents either stop it if they can or take them home if they can’t.

Youngest is autistic and I was accused of lazy parenting when he was 'running riot' in a supermarket with me screeching after him.

Aaaaaargh this is my absolute pet hate. If you see another parent struggling, why on earth would you say something bitchy to them instead of helping if you could? Regardless of ASD every parent in the world will have to deal with a public megatantrum, it’s horrible and hard. Why on earth would someone want to make it worse than it already is? Really super cunty.

Lazy parenting, for me, was ignoring all the bullshit stuff regularly spouted in the latest must-buy parenting book and just doing what seemed easiest at the time eg baby lead weaning was not a 'thing' when my DD was little, but it's what I did and almost nobody else did - let her help herself to what she wanted from my plate (obviously nothing chokeable etc) as it was less effort than the then trend of Annabel Karmel spend hours cooking pureeing and freezing in ice cube trays only for little Archie to spit it out.