In this exhausting phase with one of my 4 year olds where he won’t sit down to eat his supper. Every evening meal is a battle where he refuses to eat for a half hour before he finishes half his plate and can get up finally an hour later

I’m here. The weekly posts are probably a good idea to signal to people who haven’t yet subscribed that we are here but I just haven’t had anything to really contribute. When someone has a post I feel like I can contribute too I usually do.

As a middle schooler I was afraid that Al-Queda would carry out a terrorist attack in my hometown or that Saddam would use his WMDs on the US. In high school, my grandparents got laid off and lost the farm during the great recession. And yet I just had the local news that was telling me the bad news of the day.

My point being, it can’t be healthy being bombarded with hours and hours of bad news every day doomscrolling as opposed to a 15 minute news broadcast in the evening. Especially for kids who don’t have the perspective and experience to know its gonna be OK.

My six year old is a major skeptic of things like the tooth fairy, Santa, etc. stated when he lost his first tooth “I don’t believe in the tooth fairy but I still get money, right?”

Kids, especially 1st and 2nd graders lie a lot. But they need to be taught that joking about gun violence, and especially harming or killing others is not OK. The school needs to be alerted. He probably needs a short suspension and disciplinary action at home. Don’t keep that to your self.

I agree on this as practical advice. A lot of parenting books just don’t realistically prepare you for parenthood just because every child is just so different, but healthy sleep habits are universal and will make your job as a parent easier and your child easier to parent as well.

I don’t know if I would describe my wife as I as gentle parents but she is a school social worker by trade so we do a lot the same social emotional emphasis and strategies for self-regulating. But what works for one of our children, doesn’t work for the others.

Sometimes its ok to say “I don’t have time for your bullshit” (not literally of course) and just set boundaries and remove privileges or remove the child from the situation when those boundaries are crossed.

I absolutely agree with you on all your points. There is simply no excuse to spank and fear doesn’t address a behavior, it just temporarily disarms it.

The message I want to get across is that parents need to support each other. And that most* people don’t want to hit their kids but feel like they HAVE to because they don’t have otherwise effective strategies. Spanking is NEVER an effective strategy but if we are dismissive of each other’s struggles then we are going to further entrench their beliefs that they MUST spank and other parents just don’t understand, rather than encouraging people who need support to seek family therapy or advice from a parenting coach.

I mentioned that I had an open mind because that was how my parents raised me and I didn’t believe that I was abused but my attitude changed after becoming a parent. My goal isn’t for people to keep that tool in their toolbox but help encourage them that may have been like me to take it completely out of the toolbox.

* I say most people because there is a line where it crosses into abuse. It’s like porn, you know abuse when you see it. That shouldn’t be met with support but with a report to your local child/family services agency.

I have to believe every parent wants to be able to reason with their kids and would to address behavior just by explaining to their child that what they did is wrong.

But kids aren’t rational and so when a child is melting down and not listening to correction, I understand the temptation to lean on fear which pretty much universally motivates kids to temporarily change their behavior. Especially when parents are both working long hours, could be stressed about affording their mortgage, childcare, caring for an aging parent, it’s hard enough to regulate yourself let alone while your child is acting a fool and wailing their head off.

That being said I went into parenting with an open mind about spanking as punishment, it was my parents’ preferred method of discipline, but I have never found a situation where it was justified because there is no reason to hit a child. Spanking is a tool that will never come out of my toolbag.

There isn’t any good reason to hit your children as discipline. It may stop the behavior but it is gonna teach kids to use violence to deal with conflict with their peers or cause them anxiety later in life.

Spanking is coping for the parent, it isn’t effective or fair for the child. That being said, fear works and being generally gentle doesn’t so I understand why some parents feel like they have to. But it causes more damage than it fixes.

If you feel overwhelmed by parenting there is nothing wrong with seeking help via family therapy or even hiring a coach to assist you on how to handle difficult discipline situations with difficult children

If it helps at all, I couldn’t imagine not wanting my kids after having them. I miss being freedom of being childless but I don’t mourn it, if that makes sense.

I had kids early because I still wanted to still be in my 40s, by the time we had an empty nest. Financially we were able to handle it, but you aren’t ever really ready, it’s just not something you can prepare for. The way you think your life is gonna go after kids, is never really close to the way it actually ends up after kids. Your perspective and priorities completely change