Living in some pretty decent suburbs, I see this with my kids. They can walk/bike around, but there’s a limited set of activities available to them. Not enough parks. As the article mentions, not enough kid-friendly third places (stores, arcades, libraries, community centres). It’s lousy.

I had the same complaints when I lived downtown.

They didn’t. I don’t want my kids to repeat my experience.

I’ve got a bunch:

• It should be possible to manage my kids’ access to all services from third party apps. Like, I want to say “no voice comms anywhere” without having to fuss with each terrible janky UI.

• There should be required messaging standards. Let me choose emails (or texts, or whatever) for friend requests, weekly summaries, etc.

• Tell me who manages my kids’ friends accounts.

• There should be a standard, easy easy to register an account for parental controls. I don’t want to dig through out-of-date support docs to try and figure out how to link my account to my kids’ accounts.

There’s lots of infrastructure that could help:

• requirements on how children are identified in parental control apps,
• requiring APIs so third party apps can manage parental controls,
• requiring standardized language in UIs so parents know what their kids are in for,
• required messaging for various events - I wanna get a goddamn email instead of a notification on an app I never use
• not requiring parents to use the service their kids are using

Being able to use a third party app to manage everything would be perfect.

I have at least six parental control apps that I need to manage. Each one is different and has different ways of expressing the same things. They all require different accounts and have different ways of identifying my kids.

It would be fucking amazing to have some standardization, or, even better, a single interface that would control all those stupid apps. A unified view of my kids interactions, friend requests, usage time, etc would be really helpful.

Like others have said: spend time with them. Read to them. Talk to them. Include them in your activities when you can.

when I look at everyone around me not really giving a shit. … I really worked hard to reduce my footprint

For years I did this. Didn’t drive. Rarely flew. Mostly vegetarian. Bought mostly second hand stuff. It was a lot of work. It had no appreciable effect on climate change, and made my life harder.

I think the place to concentrate effort is on policy change. Acid rain wasn’t solved (in North America) by buying patterns, it was solved through legislation. CFCs were phased out through lobbying.

There’s definitely a time and place for personal action, but there are so many people that appreciable changes will only come through changing regulations.

You’ve been reading the news too, huh?

I wish I knew. I spent the first 30ish years of my life opting out of GHG-producing systems, and trying to get the right people elected. I stopped when I had kids because it was too hard. I dunno. I don’t feel like my advocacy or self-denial helped. And my normie lifestyle definitely isn’t helping.

I really don’t know. Climate change is clearly happening, but nobody seems to care. Back to advocacy, I guess?

That’s awesome! It took me a while to build a connection.

Even if my blood boils every other day, I would kill for them. This is really weird. They can bring the worst out of you and, in an instant, flip it on its head and make you feel almost high.

Yeah, it’s a weird dynamic. I haven’t fully gotten used to it, tbh.

I always hated the sound of kids crying and wanted this kid to be different in that respect but I still hate it and my blood starts to boil the longer he cries (again, I’m not going to hurt this kid. I’m not a violent person).

I had similar feelings. There were a few times where I wasn’t in a good place emotionally, so I made sure the screaming kid was safe, closed the door, and took five to calm down. Then I opened the door and did what I could to help the baby.

I didn’t think I was a person who got angry/frustrated that easily, but yeah, a screaming kid can have that effect.

I felt so bad when my first was born. I felt similar, the immediate jolt of love and connection wasn’t exactly there … he would scream, and I would cry. …

3 years later that same baby, I’d rip my fucking skin off with rusty pliers if there was a chance of keeping him safe

This is my experience as well. Nobody seems to talk about it IRL, but I see similar sentiment online.

They go through a bunch of phases in the first three years:

• houseplant (need to be watered and fed, don’t interact much),
• blind kitten (need to be fed, not in control of movements, don’t really interact, can move)
• kitten - can move and interact, not really in control of actions.
• Puppy - can interact, likes playing, not in control of emotions, can move
• drunk troll - likes moving, vaguely understands what’s happening, gets upset for weird reasons, starting to express love towards you, destroys things for fun/frustration

And then they start getting more like people. It’s easier to interact with them. As they get closer to creatures we understand, it will be easier to love them.

Good luck. It gets easier and better.

Definitely. The point is to keep the toys interesting, not deprive the kiddo of their favourites.

1. put them in small boxes.
2. Put a bunch of the boxes away from where your kid is. Every week or so, rotate the boxes, so your kid has access to “new” toys she hasn’t seen in a while.
3. before dinner (or some other natural break) put toys back in their lil boxes.

Friends of ours did this. They seemed to avoid the infinite pile of toys our kids ended up ignoring, and it kept their house relatively clean.

he keeps fucking my shit up

We’re going with a bit of both: time limits and exclusion, and an explanation why.

I had an elderly relative say something similar to me in the early 90s. We aren’t special. People have felt this way forever.

I’m not optimistic about the future, but I don’t think things will necessarily be that bad. Looking at child mortality rates alone, you could say that we’re leaving in a golden age. There’s a lot that’s wrong, but there’s a lot that’s okay too.

Can you teach him to stay there even if you leave? It sounds like he needs to learn that.

We were lucky - our guys went to sleep pretty well on their own, but there were a few times where they were crying and we needed to stop ourselves from going in.

I think we did a thing where we’d go in immediately after the first shout; if he cried again, wait five minutes before going in; then ten minutes, etc. IIRC it took a few nights.

Can you teach him that bed time means it’s time to stay in bed (unless he needs to go to the washroom, etc)?

He only let’s his mom bring him to bed and then she stays there with him until he falls asleep. Sometimes he asks for me additionally to join and then he rolls in the bed kicks us, climbed on us and so on because he can’t fall asleep.

Is it possible he’s distracted by having someone there? He might be old enough to fall asleep on his own in a toddler bed.

ZZZZT!

That’s a good call.

I think I’ve got Fortnite covered. They can only friend with a sign off from me, and they can only voice chat with friends. I think that’s everything I need, but if you have any recommendations, I’m all ears.

My kids are a wee bit older. They get a kick out of meeting with friends in Minecraft and Fortnite. It’s nice because both have crossplay, so I can join them from my gaming PC.

I really liked Bringing Up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman.

I don’t think it’s necessarily an accurate picture of parenting in France, but I appreciate the ideas she presents:

• mothers (and parents) should keep their lives and outside interests;
• teach your kids to be independent (don’t helicopter, etc);
• teach kids to exist in an adult world;
• socialized and properly funded childcare is necessary.

All in favour say “aye”

I got a Spike Prime for my guy when he was around seven or eight. He liked the idea and played with it a bit, but the novelty wore off and he stopped. He’s grabbed it a few times since then to mess about, but it doesn’t hold his attention.

I think the Spike stuff works best when solving a challenge or working with a team.

I think it’s a wojack style meme with a woman and her child. I haven’t seen them or heard of it before this post though.

About 20.

How old are these kids?

When my kids are raging about having to do something (e.g. go to an activity, empty the dishwasher), explain why it’s important and then walk away.

Half the time they calm down and so the thing with little or no complaint. The other half of the time it gives us both a chance to calm down so negotiations can continue in a less heated manner.

Medieval problems call for modern solutions

It took me a while to bond with our first kid, so I knew what to expect with our second. That made the start so much easier.

I feel like I’m looking in a mirror with both of them. One is normal me: awkward, bookish, and introverted. The other is energetic me: outgoing, confident, and athletic. They’re both smart. They can both be kind (they can also be dicks). They’re wonderful together. My regret is that we won’t have another.

You never know what the future holds, and who your kids will be. My guys have been great.

If you have another, I hope it works out well.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

what if you need to go to the washroom?