Have we centred children too much?

[Changedusernameforthis2]

I have a friend- who has 2 sets of children- 20 years apart. 2 by her first marriage (now 30 and 28) and 2 by her second marriage (now 10 and 7)

I have been friends with her since her first child was 6 months old - and we had a really long talk last weekend as she feels totally wiped out. Some of it is age, but really interestingly, she believes she has made a rod for her own back and that parenting has changed so much. When her first two were younger, they were expected to do some colouring, join in if we were talking about child things but were not expected to interrupt her while she was talking. It was kind, caring , loving, they would be sitting on our laps etc but one of us might say " hang on a minute darling because mummy is talking, let us finish this and tell us in a minute" Then, we would finish , talk to them, them redirect them, and carry on chatting. When we were at her house, they were expected to play where we could see them, but not interrupt us. This was for a normal amount of time- say 45 mins - so not hours and hours.
Fast forward 20 years and her younger children need her CONSTANTLY. To the point where she is broken really. I took a takeaway over last Saturday and she ended up in tears, as despite prepping the kids, them having lots of toys/ things to do etc etc they would not stop coming into the room, interrupting her. One had a full tantrum because we wouldn't watch them playing a computer game. She feels she has brought it on herself as she allows them to interrupt, never redirects or makes them wait. She feels that the pressure to be more child centred has sort of seeped in, and she did it almost accidentally.
This is not a parent bashing or goady thread at all- it is intended for a genuine discussion

Just shout "SEVENNNN!" a la Len Goodman on strictly 😂

5 years on from the start of measures, not the end.
Keep kids at home, literally confined indoors for a year then very limited types of social interactions for another year or more after and it’s going to have an impact on their development and social skills.

Weird to try and argue with that.

It depends on the parents, I think. I tell mine to go away and leave me alone if I want a bit of peace. If I had a friend over and they were being annoying, I'd give them chocolate and screen time to bribe them to leave me alone. But then I don't aspire to be parent of the year.

Thing number 1:
A child only knows how you behave towards it. A child has no other reference points.
Thing number 2:
As parents you should decide on how you want to bring up your children and what you want for them.
Thing number 3:
You, as parents, need to facilitate thing number 2.
Thing number 4:
You are a parent and not your child's best friend, at least not until they are at least 30! You as a father or mother determine how your child evolves.

In response to your question…

As a society, I think we’ve all lost patience (are screens to blame?) I think pace of life is faster and people are less tolerant of little kids just being little kids. I notice tutting when my friend’s two year old tantrums in the supermarket which is totally developmentally normal. And I can vividly remember my 3 year old getting all kinds of eye rolls when grunting and making a loud fuss after his 3 year vaccinations, which are bloody painful. People are intolererant of older/elderly people too. Nowadays people live in their own little perfectly personalised bubbles and there’s no room for the inconvenience of kids and kids are inconvenient to put it bluntly. Mine ask questions and spill things all day long! Our capitalist society putting all emphasis on self and productivity at all costs hasn’t helped either.

My son is very into Shirley Hughes who wrote in the 80s when I was tiny and it strikes me how many little interactions Alfie has with kindly neighbours, milk men, window cleaners etc. I get that it’s idyllised a little but it’s lovely there are no phones and screens and people actually interact with kids. Hardly anyone interacts with my kids except the elderly. For all our lip service to over attentive adults, I think kids are ignored more than ever. Plus, Alfie wasn’t put into nursery school from 10 months for long hours every day like we do and then ignored as his parents stare at a phone after work, as happened to my eldest after nursery pick up today since my boss was emailing me non stop. Alfie is the exact same age as my son (4) and only goes to nursery in the mornings and spends the rest of the time with his mum and baby sister. My children are comparatively starved of attention.

Sorry for the essay!

ETA: the comment from @Ohbellayoubigtwat proves this point! People object to kids even being spoken to and accuse parents of performance parenting. I’m sure they’d prefer everyone stood around in stony silence or, better still, stared into their phones!

I wouldn’t care if a man looked like he was ‘performing’. I’d just think it was lovely he gave a shit and his kid was loved.

When I was young and we went to mixed age parties with my parents, the kids would be stuck in a separate room with a big bowl of cheese puffs, a pack of biscuits and a film. When I have friends over, the kids are stuck in the living-room (we don't have a convenient "separate room" 😂) with a big bowl of fruit, a pack of popcorn and Netflix. I can't really see a huge difference.

I think the problem is less about paying too much attention to children, more about broken marriages as children suffer terribly when the family structure falls apart. Especially when they have to accept blended families and new step siblings, we underestimate the impact of divorce these days. So many couples seem to break up because they've fallen out of love/become bored/met someone else/were never well matched in first place. Then they wonder why the children aren't as secure and well behaved as in 'the old days' when people worked at keeping the marriage healthy for the children's sake. Obviously I'm not talking about relationships that involve abuse of any kind, just the number of parents who split these days.

Children need around 15-30 mins of a parent's attention every day. Undivided, uninterrupted individual attention. Yet most people I know say they don't have time for that! Or they play with phone and don't fully engage. Or have too many children to divide up the time.
Once that need is met, most children can be given activities while parents get on with their own activities. Mine sit for hours playing or creating comics, or drawing and painting. I deliberately don't play with my toddler all day, or she won't learn to entertain herself. As long as you set boundaries and provide help when needed, there's no need to play 'with' them for hours. Nowadays people seem to forget this. Playing is either too lengthy and involved, or they hand them tablets to keep them amused.

I agree. When I think about my childhood I would go out playing in the streets for hours while my parents got on with their weekend. Also watched a lot of adult tv as my parents didn’t let me have what I want on all the time. If we went to visit my parents friends I would go off and play.

im shocked now how I can meet up with friends and all we do is listen to their kids for the whole time. We barely talk. Friends also spend all weekend doing kid friendly activities and changing a load of already decided plans because one of their kids doesn’t want to do that or they worry it’s too boring for their kid. Madness, kids need to learn to be bored and entertain themselves.

My 5 year old’s school disco was held after school. For context, he goes to a fairly middle class school in an area where most parents have their children aged 38+. I couldn’t see the kids dancing, playing or having fun with one another because the dance floor was filled with parents helicoptering around their child, following them around the fairly small school hall. The kids didn’t enjoy the event with each other, just with whatever parent was stood right next to them the whole time.

I’m 27, and I recall when I was a child the parents would stand around the edges and watch the kids have fun with each other in the middle of the dance floor at these types of events.

I actually found the whole thing irritating. The parents seemed to ‘over-parent’ their child’s every move. I just don’t know why they couldn’t leave their kids to have fun without their direct input. It came across as very controlling.

YANBU

I remember having to get on with something and behave myself - and not interrupt. We had to respect adults. And other people.

Now everything seems catered around children and they don’t know how to behave because of it.

Screaming in the supermarket. The parents make no effort to do anything about it. Just ignore the shrieking and carry on. Don’t stop and tell them to stop it. Or district. Nothing.

Running in the isles. Running or even crawling in cafes. Not expected to behave as “they’re only kids”.

Same with excess noise and screaming when they’re playing in the gardens. Some residents here were horrified at their little screamers being told to pipe down.

I was in a restaurant recently where a toddler crawled around on the floor including right up to our table with staff having to avoid him. Then he pulled himself up and emptied a pot plant everywhere with the group of adults all just smiling and chatting away as though it was normal.

The thing is screen time is seen as evil and bad parenting. I am an only child and the tv was constantly on. I watched all the old movies, gaining an understanding of history, politics, crime and punishment, that hard work gets results and that you can fire a 6 shooter 157 times without reloading.

I invented games, I drew, I can play chess, monopoly and cards against myself.

Yes monitor what they are watching but there is so much more educational kids stuff out there. I accidentally watched 30 seconds of bluey the other day and was really impressed how it tackled cheating with the kids playing.

Of course it’s not. Five years is nothing in the grand scheme of things, and, as the PP said, early childhood is a critical development stage. You can’t not be impacted by such a significant societal shift at such a crucial point.

I think tv is different to phones and iPads though as with a tv you are still aware of the world around you and it can be a communal activity

Sorry I misunderstood the point/question OP in my previous response.

Yes it's a very accurate observation - ive definitely noticed that some parents centre their entire lives around their kids and what they want to do/eat etc. When I grew up we just did normal day to day life things with the odd treat scattered in (cinema once a year, 3 or 4 meals out per year etc). We wouldn't have had an opinion as to where we'd eat out, for example, but I've got friends whose kids will dictate where they will/won't go, and need entertaining every single day

Yes.

Lots of hovering over them, not leaving them alone. Arranging all leisure time on structured, child focused activities. Allowing them to constantly interrupt.

When they get older they’re driven everywhere, given money, not expected to get weekend jobs.

They end up being very immature teenagers and young adults, with poor self reliance.

I largely agree with you OP but the not interrupting thing is difficult. I have been telling mine not to interrupt adult conversations since they were toddlers and yet my 9 year old still does it sometimes! Also once you’ve spoken to the child to remind them not to interrupt because Mummy is already talking and they need to wait for a pause unless someone is on fire, you’ve lost the thread of your conversation anyway.

@Changedusernameforthis2 I think your friend has made a rod for her own back by having 4 kids with such a big age gap…those of us who have had our kids late got to enjoy all the fun stuff of travelling, career, relationships before we got to parenting…those who have one set of kids young get to have the energy of being a young parent but are then free of child rearing by the time they hit menopause! How you choose to rear your kids is irrelevant really. She has basically run out of steam to parent , by having the whole of her adult life dedicated to parenting young and school age kids, that’s not easy!!!

Of course it isn’t. Children were acting like this before lockdown.

I run a youth group and have done for 20 years. Since lockdown I have really noticed a lack of independence, resilience and focus.
We will give them an activity to do and they will either half heartedly rush to do it and then give up and talk or they will not do it at all. One or two will do the activity well and will be proud they have done so!

I feel they cannot cope with something that is not a quick dopamine hit.

I agree things have changed, Im the same age as your friend's eldest, and I have 2 young (under 5) children. I'm quite strict with my children compared to my peers, and I wouldn't say Im a gentle parent. However there are parts of our lives becoming child-centric that I think are positive, maybe it was just my own experience but I have very few memories of having fun with my mum, she never took me to the cinema/bowling/soft play/swimming etc and the days out were few and far between. I grew up feeling a bit like an inconvenience to her and it's definitely affected our relationship as adults. I enjoy spending time with my children and I want them to have fun with us, not to the extent of letting them do whatever they want, but I do think more of our spare time as a family is preoccupied with their wants and needs and honestly I prefer that. I wonder if some of this softer child-centric parenting is in opposition to our own upbringings.

YANBU op, I’m a children’s professional and I think we’ve gone to the opposite ends of child rearing. We have caused or children to be so reliant on constant attention and praise that they don’t know what to do when they don’t have it.

Is it better though?
There definitely seems to be a generation of kids who have zero resilience who thinks everyone's world revolves around them.
Rude, obnoxious and interrupting every 2 seconds.
I see it at work (healthcare).. ruddy rude kids butting in and talking over me when I'm having a conversation with the parent (the patient)
It shouldn't fall to me to tell them to shut up ... but it does because the parents are pathetic.

People are less independant these days that we used to be, from my point of view.
My own child, now 17, took much more attention to raise than myself. I mean keeping her entertained and playing with her. My own family did invest time on education and care (like school work and feeding/ clothing), but never have I told my parents I was bored. I found my own things to do since I can remember. Not my own child. She needed me to give her structure or play with her.
I can see teens and young (students on their 20s), they do need more support and attention than we did. They do less exploring and thinking on their own. Some can get quite angry if they do not get everything digested for them.

100% and it's very damaging