To think we overthink parenting these days??

[Waffle19]

I’ve just had my daily scroll on Instagram and been bombarded by parenting posts such as ‘imagine you’re 5 years old and trying to get dressed’ and ‘5 ways you’re abusing your child’ which includes things like yelling.

Now admittedly it’s easy to avoid this by just not going on social media but that and so many posts I see on here just make me think maybe we’ve overthinking things these days?

Is my four year old really going to be traumatised because I rush him to get his shoes on every morning?

Is my one year old really going to learn how to act safer because I say ‘what’s your plan here’ instead of ‘be careful’ every time?

I used to lap all of this and the whole gentle parenting thing up but I think I’m slowly realising what a ridiculous amount of pressure I’ve been putting on myself.

My kids are loved, fed, clothed, read to, seemingly happy, and I try not to yell too much. Surely that’s enough? Is this me emerging from the PFB bubble??

YANBU - get off social media and stop overthinking

YABU - you need to learn all this stuff else your kid will have issues later down the line

I feel absolutely paralysed with self doubt and that I’m not doing it right. It feels completely impossible to not traumatise them. Everything is trauma.

Saying “good girl” instead of “good job” focuses on external validation and creates anxiety
saying “you have to have one bite of vegetables” will cause an eating disorder
Rushing them to put their shoes on creates anxiety etc eyc

unfortunately my 4yo is an incredibly difficult child and I just feel like I’m failing.

🤣 I'm late 30's and even I make sure to show my 2 year old please and thank you and he isn't even talking yet😅 I'd rather be classed as old fashioned for that than come across as fucking rude like your niece and nephew. It's ridiculous the level of power some people put in their kids hands. They're kids, they can't handle power🤣

its the ‘don’t force them say sorry’ that gets me. Because it doesn’t teach them empathy.

no, empathy is a learned skill that they aren’t capable of til they are older. But they can learn how to apologise and take accountability!!

@Yotoyoto you're not failing. Some kids are easy some are hard and the advice for parenting isn't the same for them. Do what feels right to you. The fact you are worrying about it shows you're a great mom so don't get bogged down with all the bullshit touted as perfect parenting. Tbh I think we're all winging it to some extent 😅

I actually think it's the opposite. Some people don't think about parenting enough. They just unwittingly accept and follow whatever nonsense is spouted by the current trending 'expert' without applying any critical thinking or common sense.

I just think there isn't one way to parent. Kids need different types of parenting at different times. It's great we encourage kids to express their feelings now though.

I work in older adult mental health as a nurse (65+), and let me tell you, boy does that generation have a lot of repressed feelings and trauma. The men in particular from that generation struggle. I've genuinely had patients with multiple horrible traumatic events tell me 'I've been fine my whole life, those things weren't traumatic' when they're suddenly out of the blue depressed and anxious. It usually happens when they hit retirement and have more time to think, I guess! I think that generation was very much the 'buck up' generation. I was very much parented not to have feelings/show feelings (dad is 80, mum is 68), and it's caused me issues as an adult that have taken a long time to work on in therapy.

I've got an 8mo DD, and I think a lot about how I'll parent her. I want to empathise with her feelings and make sure she knows big feelings are okay, but I also want to teach her to problem solve. 'You're sad? What are we gonna do about that?'.

But equally, sometimes kids need authoritative parenting. I don't think everything needs a big lengthy discussion about feelings. Sometimes you have to do as your told even if you don't like it, and that's an important lesson to learn, as it holds true for school and the work place. People are ridiculous if they think rushing kids to get ready in a morning will cause trauma. Over the top authoritarian parenting, sure, but a kind, loving parent who holds very firm boundaries when needed? No.

@Skymadeofdiamonds thing is that gentle parenting if done well is all the things you mentioned. As pp have said, it is often confused with permissive parenting because due to upbringing, in people's heads hitting, shouting etc = discipline.

I was a young mum and the parenting social media posts weren’t as prevalent when mine were tiny. The only book I read was “what to expect when you’re expecting” and I couldn’t tell you a thing I learned from it. I’ve mostly muddled through, as a single parent. And I sometimes feel pangs of guilt when I see those kind of posts now, that I should have done this or that etc. But we’re a team, we figure stuff out together, we all own our mistakes and we learn things all the time. And I have two kind, happy kids who know how loved they are. I think that’s good enough

I did cloth nappies and some "baby wearing" 10+ years ago and found a lot of the "attachment style" crunchy parenting in the fb groups ridiculously idealistic, guilt inducing and not very grounded in reality. Fortunately instagram was not a thing then (and I hadn't made it to a smart phone). I also worked with young people which gave me a lot of confidence in what were reasonable expectations of children and how to manage behaviour.

Having been raised by parents who'd been raising children in the 60s & 70s, it just didn't seem logical that babies would be ruined so easily by things like crying for a few minutes while a shower was being finished or a sandwich being made so I've never felt guilty about not prioritising baby over meeting my basic needs. I haven't parented in the same way as my parents (no babies left to cry it out in the pram at the bottom of the garden), but a lot of the parenting of the early 2010s seemed too far the other way to the detriment of maternal well-being and with little extra benefit to the child.

I've made it to the teen years. They're not in therapy yet
They know what "no" means. Are pleasant to teach. Are well mannered. They know that if they do not co-operate with reasonable expectations and polite requests there will be consequences.

They're not angels and they certainly try their luck especially as they've got older, but it's healthy for them to know that other people have thresholds on what behaviour can be tolerated, where patience has a limit and that unreasonable behaviour has consequences to them (often fixed period tech bans if a natural consequence isn't appropriate). Today DS2 tried his luck at not wheeling the bin back when asked. That was fine, he could stay out in the front garden while I completed jobs in the car; it was his tech time he was missing 🤷‍♀️ Funny how within a minute he decided that it was worth bringing back the bin, and I decided that it was worth unlocking the house while he fetched it. I could have launched into a lengthy spiel about family and teamwork and feelings but that would have taken far longer to mind-numb him into submission.

He still ended up cuddling up on the sofa watching TV with me tonight, so he doesn't seem too damaged by the experience of manual labour and maternal stubborness matching his level of effort 😉

Children need boundaries. There isn't one-size-fits-all perfect method so there's no point in sweating over every minor detail. Some parenting advice sounds great in theory but doesn't match real world personalities or situations. I've got this far on winging it, and trial and error, and we're still going, love each other and functioning in line with society's expectations. (Double-win when dealing with ND children!)

This !! Mama 🙄....give me strength... Once your algorithm gets infiltrated with this nonsense its endless ! It's the role of the woman in this and how her needs just don't count for much..Job one is keep this baby content at all times. And the obsession with tiny babies , this bit is so short..the rest of it esp post 18 months what you need to get right but there is nowhere near the focus on that part. Kids needs boundaries and to feel safe but they need to take measured risks and not have someone fussing over them constantly. Please/thank you would be good too. Be aware of their surroundings and how their behaviour impacts others. Benign dictator/good enough parenting is a better direction to go.

You sound normal to me .

the mum came running over saying ‘oh kind feet, kind feet, we say kind feet don’t we’ I said it’s a bit bloody late he’s killed it. She said ‘yes well we don’t need to make him feel sad about it!’

^

She'll have problems when he's 15.

@Yotoyoto Yep all of that is exactly what I’m talking about, it’s so hard. My 4yo can also be incredibly difficult at times and I’m always wondering if it’s because of something we’ve done wrong.

The PP who said this generation is the most anxious generation imaginable hit it on the head. This new parenting isn’t working - too much begging and pleading to get children to behave and not enough just bloody telling them. And way way too much helicopter parenting. It’s been a fucking disaster and we need an urgent reset.

There are parents I don't know how they get out of bed in the morning without checking it is ok with either social media or a fake influencer they are feeling inadequate over

Mind you I am not sure social media or influencers can be blamed note the endless articles pick and chose bits from nor this endless 'society makes me do it' for people not thinking for themselves

What is worrying is these same people are raising the next generation

Yep. Very often followed up by them explaining they don't hit or scream at their kids, but they remove them from situations, take things off them that they're throwing/hitting with, explain things etc and I'm like... That IS gentle parenting... You are literally doing The Thing.

Shouting at your kids is abuse though.

Kind hands is my absolute worst phrase. It’s so ridiculous. I go to a toddler class and there is ann uncontrollable 2.5 year old - last week he slapped another child across the face and then bit him for absolutely no reason and the mum just simpered “kind hands Hugo”. I was gobsmacked. He unsurprisingly ignored her and went to shove over another kid. To this she said “be gentle when you hug your friends”. Absolute nutter. All the kids avoid him lil the plague and avoid the mum as well now as so sick of her not parenting her child. The poor teacher of the group spends half the class trying to stop him hurting other kids. Apparently he’s incredibly intelligent and “gifted” though according to the mum so that’s alright

I am mixed on this.

The insta posts you are seeing sound ridiculous, but then a lot of memes and clickbait on instagram are like this. Ignore those.

But overall, actively thinking about how you parent is a good thing, and parents are more encouraged to do that than they were in the past. Understanding child development, and how your child might experience your parenting, is a good thing.

There are lots of people who have some level of trauma or issues from the way they were parented, by parents who perhaps did their best at the time, but just didn't have the knowledge or understanding to parent well.

The more that parents think about what they are doing with their kids and the impact it might be having, the better.

It isn't. (unless I'm misreading sarcasm).

As a society, we aren't raising well adjusted kids at the moment. There's a distinct lack of boundaries in a sizeable minority, as teachers, they see it every day.

This thread is just full of people asserting that they parented right so therefore others are wrong with no acknowlegement that there could be more than one right or acceptable way. It’s just another mother/women bashing thread.

I think ‘think of the children’ can lead to parents over sharing with children and forcing them to make decisions only parents can and should make- sometimes kids need to be told what to do or made do something. I’ll be honest I hate shouting because it generally means everything has gotten out of hand and only results in shouting back, but it’s life, things get out of control sometimes or we wouldn’t be human

@Globusmedia it might have changed in the few years since I first heard it (mine is 5 now) but I remember when he was a baby/young toddler it was used IN ADDITION to "no hitting, it hurts".

The idea was to show what we Should Do, instead of just what we shouldn't, if that makes sense? So like when he was really young and just flailing around or over excited I'd say No Hitting, it hurts, but add "we use kind hands, like this" then demonstrate stroking the cat nicely and say "see, he likes that" or whatever.

I only used it when he was tiny though, like that weird stage where we wanted to start teaching behaviour but he was a bit too young to fully understand things.

I was talking to dd (17) the other day about shouting at kids. Her dad is a bit of a shouter, I am not. If I ever have lost my temper I apologise for it whereas he saw it more as a parenting tool. Dd was saying how anxious his shouting made her. Guess who now has a much better relationship with her? (It’s me). I’m not permissive but I am gentle.

I like “benign dictatorship”. A family with under 18s is not a democracy.

My bug bear is that all this overthinking (and I have been and still am guilty of this) is the abdication of parenting to children, handing over difficult decisions for them to make (and take responsibility for) and the adultification of children in doing so.

Just stop it. You’re the adult, you’re the parent.