AIBU to think a lot of people don't really think of children as people?

[weaningwoes]

So I am a softie and I know it. But so many threads on here have people (who are probably fine people and lovely parents in many ways) advocating such extreme 'briskness' with very young children who are struggling with their feelings that it borders on harshness to me.

Problems with sleeping, giving up bottles/dummies, 'tantrums' (or 'being overwhelmed by emotions' depending on how you feel about that word!), so often the solution seems to be "make them safe and then ignore". There's this fanatical devotion to the idea that "three nights of hell and then that was that" is a good enough outcome to justify what would amount to neglect if it was done to any other group of dependent, vulnerable person, say frail elderly or someone with developmental issues in a care home, and bloody cruel and cold at least if directed to, say, a partner who was crying for some reason.

It feels like a lot of people think their compassion for their children should just stop at 1 minute past bedtime, or the second their feelings or behaviour ceases to be convenient.

I know I sound a judgy bitch, and lots of people will be laughing at me for being so wet. But surely children are real people, even from babies, and there's no reason to imagine they feel what they feel any less truly than we adults do - just that they have far fewer tools to manage and rationalise those feelings!

I don't remember being a toddler but I do remember being a teenager and a small child - how my feelings would take me over and how utterly devastating it was to feel so much and be dismissed, overridden and ignored, even ridiculed for those feelings by adults I loved. Sure, they were right in the scheme of things that I needn't be as upset/passionate about x y z thing, but my feelings were nonetheless genuine. And they hurt!

Surely one doesn't have to agree with someone's assessment of a situation to sympathise with the strength of their emotions about it, especially when it's somebody dependent and helpless, who you love?

Prepared to be told IABVVVU.

It feels like a lot of people think their compassion for their children should just stop at 1 minute past bedtime, or the second their feelings or behaviour ceases to be convenient

Compassion doesn't stop if you sleep-train your child OP.

If I was upset as a child my parents couldn't be faster to tell me that being a kid was easy and amazing and just wait until you're older and have real problems.

Mine did that. It is not an aspect of their parenting I want to inflict on my children. They were pretty good parents in general, but they did have a deep-seated idea that children’s feelings didn’t really count like adult ones did, or the best way to manage children being sad/angry was to order them not to be.

My children are definitely people but tbh if you or anyone else thinks I’m going to have them crabby and exhausted and ill you can think again.

I think the level of torture non sleeping children can inflict on families is awful and letting them do it is akin to abuse.

We NEED sleep. We need it as much as water, food and shelter.

‘Sleep training’ covers a lot of things too. I wouldn’t think it was cruel if someone was doing controlled crying with a grumbling toddler who wanted to play all night. I would think it was cruel if people were just shutting the door on a 4-month-old and ignoring the crying, because a book told them it was okay.

Surely there is a middle ground. The while explaining thing is fine but when you are crossing the road with a toddler that is not the time for explanations. Sometimes they simply HAVE to put on their shoes and coats and get out. Thats life.
On the other hand I am happy to give them a lot of my time (I work almost FT) instead of scheduling ‘quality’ activities. Sometimes that just means lying on the floor, letting them chat nonsense at me and rolling all over me.

The dummy thing is mildly ridiculous though. See you can’t let a habit develop for so long, then want to stop it and expect absolutely no tears and a painless transition.

Same with going back to work. He cried with the nanny at the beginning, then settled down and is now 7 and thinks of her entirely as family. (The younger one was used to her from day 1 so didn’t have the same issues). Should I have given up work? Well I couldn’t. But I always explained I would be back, repeated it when I was back, and approached his fears fairly but firmly.

And of course toddlers can manipulate. Not in a complex way but in a simple way. If they scream and scream over something trivial which is a no go and you give in then eventually they will figure out that you will always give in. I do have friends who are afraid to make their children unhappy in any way or form and what they have are children who are not used to hearing ‘no’ and actually have no resilience at all.

YANBU. I have not read the full thread but I completely agree.

I think it was John Bowlby (an expert in psychoanalising children) who wrote about this very thing. He was of the opinion that you didn't have to be the best mother you could ever be whilst sacrificing your own needs, you just had to be "good enough". Things like providing a safe secure base from which your child can explore the world and come back to, no gaslighting, emotional abuse etc.

I was thinking about this myself the other day, and this now seems utterly outrageous, (I just accepted it at the time). My mother had a photo album which she'd take with us when we went to visit family friends. When I was about seven, she barged into my room while I was getting changed, bollock naked and took a photo, which was awful enough. To my utter dismay, this went in the fucking album. I would get so anxious in the lead-up to one of these visits, and work up the courage to politely ask to go for a walk so I didn't have the shame and embarrassment of being in the same room when the photo album with the picture of me in it was passed around. I lost count of the amount of times I took the photo, ripped it into pieces and flushed it down the loo. She'd get another one developed every time. I so wish I'd scrawled "Fuck off you big perverts!" on it.

So yeah, don't do the above.

I agree with a pp that there needs to be a middle ground. Certainly, there are some would-be hard-boiled "bring back the birch" types on MN. But equally, there are plenty of posters who insist on seeing any child of primary age or below as a "baby" rather than a unique, developing small person with complicated - and sometimes conflicting - needs. This seems equally dehumanizing to me.

For instance, a five year-old certainly needs comfort and reassurance. However, they also need a parent who sets consistent boundaries and helps them establish good sleep and dental hygiene habits to last them a lifetime, and they need to be supported in the process of working towards managing their own emotions. If (as I often see) they're so chronically overtired that they can't get through half an hour without sobbing or hitting, or so dependent on a dummy as an emotional crutch that they can't calm down without it, then their needs aren't being met. That doesn't mean I'm not sympathetic to the parents, because this parenting thing is bloody hard. But they need support, not the usual wailing of "but five is still only a baby. Why would you be so cruel when they're only little for such a short time?"

YANBU

I agree OP. It really got to me the other day with a post about a teenager who was on a summer camp but wanted to come home. So many posters saying too bad, you paid good money for that trip she needs to suck it up and get on with it. I hate the way some adults seem to relish the power trip they have over children.

Another
Brilliant post !

I have a friend who hates disappointing her kids. She cannot get her kids dressed and out of the house or to bed without serious stress. I asked her what happens in the morning and she said she cooks them breakfast to order each morning. (She also works FT). When I said this was bonkers and my kids get cereal, toast, fruit and yogurt every morning she seemed astonished and said, but what happens if they start crying and shouting they don’t like their food? And I said, I know they like these but it’s not my job to cater for their whims and fancies especially at 7:30 am. She just couldn’t wrap her head around how I can tolerate disappointing my kids if they say, ‘pancakes please’ on a Wednesday morning and I say no.

Similarly the last time we met she kept ‘explaining’ to her six year old why shoving and pushing my 18m old was not nice and how he was ‘much smaller’ and could get hurt. But there were zero consequences for him doing it again and again. Listen, at 6 he knows he’s bigger and stronger than the toddler. That’s why he was picking on the toddler not his older brother. He didn’t need ‘explaining’, he needed consequences. But she’s all about the patient explanations and the compassion and whatever else and not doing anything about his behaviour. Unsurprisingly she told me last week that he had zero friends in school and she simply couldn’t understand why. 🙄🙄🙄

I’m on the fence. I absolutely think of my children as human beings with very valid feelings but sometimes part of being a parent is doing something that upsets them but is for their own good.

I luckily never had to do any sleep training but I would have certainly considered a gentle version if I’d needed to.

My sister had (and still has) and awful sleeper. She openly judges people who have sleep trained and thinks of them as awful parents. Her 4 year old is allowed to stay up until 11pm if she wants to, she cosleeps and the 4 year old is waking several times a night and needs to be fed back to sleep. My sister complains about this constantly as if she has no say in the matter. Her behaviour is appalling because she is tired. Absolutely none of my business but I think she would be a much happier child if my sister had put some routines in place and had done some some gentle sleep training. It’s our job as parents to guide children and not just let them do whatever the hell they want.

Sometimes making sure a child is safe and leaving them alone ( which is not the same as ignoring) is what they need. It is the only thing that calms ds down. He needs his own space and other people trying to calm him upsets him more.

YANB in the slightest U

I think parents have to teach children how to manage their emotions. So that does not mean swooping in and comforting children every time straight away. You can make children more anxious and less resilient.

And kids emotions are listened to and respected far more than adults IME.

What were you hoping from this post OP? You are clearly a caring parent and that's great. But you do come across as somewhat judgemental, when the truth is that many many people manage to parent in a different way without traumatising their children.

I agree with you OP

Children are of course people, but not responsible until grown up.

Trying to treat them as mini-adults and explaining things to them at too young an age is pointless, unless they have the intelligence which many do not.

Without some framework of discipline they will grow up to be unpleasant and entitled adults.

Also I think some practices of gentle parenting causes far more long term pain for children. Being exhausted all the time is not good for children.

Problems with sleeping, giving up bottles/dummies, 'tantrums' (or 'being overwhelmed by emotions' depending on how you feel about that word!), so often the solution seems to be "make them safe and then ignore". There's this fanatical devotion to the idea that "three nights of hell and then that was that" is a good enough outcome to justify what would amount to neglect if it was done to any other group of dependent, vulnerable person, say frail elderly or someone with developmental issues in a care home, and bloody cruel and cold at least if directed to, say, a partner who was crying for some reason.

Do you really think if a partner was crying for 3 nights over trying to break a bad habit, that their partner would be very sympathetic? People will in general be more sympathetic to children in this situation than an adult, and rightly.

Of course children are people.

However, they are not capable of appreciating consequences or always understanding what is best for them.

My children are cuddled, laughed with, given good quality homemade food, read to, and taken to the playground or another treat every single day.

They also need to go to bed on time, brush their teeth when it's time, and take their vitamins.

If they protest about, say, brushing teeth, we'll have an explanation or make a game of it. They can try doing it themselves. These things work most nights. But on the night when they piss about when they've been asked 4-5 times and won't engage, then yeah, I'll hold them firmly on my lap and do it myself.

Because it needs doing and not doing it is negligence.

I agree with you OP.

mummy martyrdom

misogynist bollocks

It really isn't. Some mothers (and it really isn't the dads) do make a virtue out of being martyrs. The thing about not being able to go to the loo by yourself until your offspring is about 14 is a case in point. You just go and close the door. If they yell they yell. They'll do it a couple of times and then understand that mum needs the loo.

Didn't have to sleep train but would have absolutely done some version of it. I need my sleep and kids need theirs.

As with most things in life I think there is a balance.
I see plenty of parents that will do whatever they can with regard to their childs feelings - but are going so far the other way that there children are simply not able to cope with real life - where sometimes the answer is no, and that sometimes you will feel sad and upset but the children don't have the life skills to deal with that.
And then there are the families that you refer to in the OP that seem to expect more mature emotional behaviour from a baby or child than they could ever demonstrate themselves.
My problem is I don't seem to fit with either group/tribe because I am so far down the middle, with splinters in my arse that it looks like I have no idea!!!
But my kids I think are healthy, happy and I hope will be able to deal with the shitty world out there, but have the comfort of home, family and themselves to cope...