we had LOUD Parenting, now welcome "teaching parenting"

[FluffyMummy123]

you know the type, where EVERY LIVING MOMENT is a chance to instruct, inform and assess.
where they kid cant say "i like blue" without giving a reasoned assessment of the pros and cons of red and pink.
Where everyone hears the kid being taught ( viz loud parenting)

WHere kids sigh as the parent instructs and gives kids benefit of life skills.

SUre - talk to your kid, teach em stuff, but let them CHILL and just be sometimes.

Ha, I suspect I do loud and teaching parenting. I think I tend to do it when I am distracted and not actually engaging with what's going on (like when on MN - 'you made a digger ds, yeah, great, diggers are great aren't they? what are you going to dig? dig dig dig')

I don't really notice what other parents do though - ooh no, i do notice empty threats and ridiculous consequences. My fave being 'if you don't come now, we are NEVER GOING TO DO ANYTHING FUN AGAIN' (sadly said utterly seriously. Though I do now say it to dd as a joke)

PS point of my post was that the dd has been taught all about her father's job and what he does (does she understand it? does she my arse) but has the wit to poo her pants to show her parents up.

This thread reminds me of the kid in Parenthood (Rick Moranis's dd) who is pushed academically, while Steve Martin's kid crashes into stuff with a bucket on his head.

Go, buckethead boy, go!

These are great (not so much for the kids obviously!).

DH and I saw a Dad in the park who evidently has a Very Important Managerial Job and has been on too many teambuilding exercises. His kid was struggling on a rope ladder for about ten minutes and was crying. Dad just kept shouting instructions and telling him that he could do it and to work it out. Fair enough, but for that long? I was cringing and had to restrain myself from helping him myself.

Eventually the kid did manage it and then the Dad asked him 'so Warren, how did that feel?' Fucking annoying I would have thought!

a bit of life coaching there

poor warren

haha yes! this thread reminds me of the real wives of new york where francois parents make him order his drink in french. it's hilarious, he's only four

It is a great source of Schadenfreude to me that such parents do not tend to see their children getting into elite universities. Kids have to learn to ask good questions in order to build brain power. Poking knowledge in there won't do it for them.

On another note, a next door neighbour of mine who was a fellow academic, but a bit intellectually snobby, refused to let her kids watch telly, play on computers and consoles, and so on, in the expectation that they would grow up bigger and cleverer than everyone else's children. So what did they do when her back was turned? Usually kick the shit out of each other in the back garden, throw stones at my toddler, or spirit into the house and lock their mother out of the house whilst taunting her. So much for encouraging their creativity.

Ds went to a play date a few years ago. They didn't have a television and spent all day either doing homework or playing chess. Great garden though. Kids were very bright, not sure if this was because of all of the study they had to do though.

The Boff anti-guide to building brains:

"If you go to choir regularly we will pay you a wage for it, you could double your pocket money"

"Fix your own computer, I am not stripping it down yet again. It's your fault for downloading crap in the first place. Here are the system disks, off you go."

"If you don't like this software find your own open source equivalent. I am not buying Microsoft products just to make life easier for you and your school"

"I need you to be able to speak German so I can send you over to your cousins and get a fortnight's peace, so get on with it."

"I can't do modern maths so if you want me to help with your homework you will have to do it my way and then flip it around so it looks like the kind of thing the school wants to see"

"I don't see why you weren't allowed to bribe the other kids with sweets in the class election - Tories always used to bribe voters with tax cuts in the past, and it worked for them. Go and think of a more discreet way of using bribery"

I am a dreadful parent.

you are very involced though
PAY kids to do choir?
bloody hell

I have a friend who does this mainly to make up for the fact that when not in public she can't be arsed to do anything with her dc at all!Lots of OTT getting down on her knees and explaining weighing shit in supermarkets and working out prices and explaining the PC way to deal with every bloody day to day situation you can think of Drives us nuts!

I must do really quiet parenting then - ds's constantly asking me baffling questions like 'Mummy why is the Moon still out and the sun' - ds3 me very quietly mumbling 'oooh because the moon must be especially low down in the sky today because it is a Tuesday' or some other totally made up answer, very very quietly so no other parents can hear my scientific ineptitude.

I know, it's dreadful. I just couldn't be arsed having the argument each week about bothering to go the rehearsal, but I had a feeling he enjoyed it once he got there, so I thought sod it, let's go with the extrinsic motivation and stuff all the worthy types with their sing song voices and their perfect children. (He loves going now though, so he gets paid for doing something he'd probably do anyway and good for him. He spends it all on lego anyway).

Largelatte, the 'correct answer' ImVHo is always 'i don't know, darling, what do YOU think?'... and then 'ooh, maybe...'

I do this. I have also openly admitted to loud parenting when I was in a previous incarnation. I can't help it. I even just gave her a detailed explanation of nits including the etymology of 'feeling lousy'whilst giving her the once over with the nitty gritty. There is no hope is there?

On the plus side, I am saving hard for the therapy and it sounds like I can put abit more towards it if I've fucked up her chances to get into uni already

In my defence she is currently shouting 'blinkin' car, go the right blinkin' way' whilst playing mario kart on the wii, so maybe it all balances out?

Brilliant thread!

"Kids have to learn to ask good questions in order to build brain power. Poking knowledge in there won't do it for them." So so true! I am a bit teachery really, DH and I are geeks when it comes to knowing stuff, but we deliberately leave it until she asks. Which is starting to happen more now, we are definitely in the Why Phase

I have to emphasise though that I am NOT loud. I hate feeling like people are listening to me on the bus or whatever, I'm quite shy.