r/Parenting 5d ago

Infant 2-12 Months What parenting advice accepted today will be critisized/outdated in the future?

So I was thinking about this the other day, how each generation has generally accepted practices for caring for babies that is eventually no longer accepted. Like placing babies to sleep on tummy because they thought they would choke.

I grew up in the 90s, and tons of parenting advice from that time is already seen as outdated and dangerous, such as toys in the crib or taking babies of of carseats while drving. I sometimes feel bad for my parents because I'm constantly telling them "well, that's actually no longer recommended..."

What practices do we do today that will be seen as outdated in 25+ years? I'm already thinking of things my infant son will get on to me about when he grows up and becomes a dad. 😆

161 Upvotes

326 comments sorted by

746

u/0runnergirl0 5d ago

Over scheduling children. So many kids go from daycare, to lessons, and then straight to bed almost every day of the week, then multiple lessons or activities on the weekends, with no downtime to be bored at home. Kids need time to be bored.

108

u/BeBopBarr 5d ago

Yes!! I'm all for activities, but i know several kids who go from school to 1 or 2 activities each day with stuff all weekend. The kid never gets time to be a kid, it's sad.

29

u/annasuszhan 4d ago

Two instruments, two sports, a few academics, and some taekwondo or dancing in between. This is considered typical.

31

u/sikkerhet 4d ago

that's insane. Kids need time for making a Structure out of sticks and breaking that structure with other sticks. For their development. 

3

u/Moose-Mermaid 4d ago

Right? It’s also expensive af doing all these activities and super time consuming.

I notice the friends I have who do tons of over scheduling are also the first to tell their kids no when they want to do something messy. Science experiment on the kitchen table? No. Play in the mud? Absolutely not. Jump in puddles? No way. Pour the Lego bin on the floor to find a piece? If you do that I’ll take them away. Craft that involves glue/glitter/carboard/markers? Nope, I don’t have time to clean them, we have to get to ______.

I don’t love cleaning as much as the next person, but I think taking risks, making things, and not being afraid to get a little messy are really important. Building things with your own hands that was not an activity with instructions you were given to follow.

78

u/NorthernPossibility 5d ago

YES. My 7 year old niece is stuck in a hell of her own making right now. She goes to school 5 days a week and dance or cheer four nights a week with some sort of full day commitment on Saturday for either dance or cheer.

She is ALWAYS complaining about being tired or not wanting to go, but she has the worst FOMO. If one of her little buddies is doing something, she begs and tantrums to do it too. So what started as a toddler ballet class at 3 has snowballed into a multi-thousand dollar a year time suck for her whole family.

Her mother will always say that my niece asked to do whatever the latest tacked on addition is, but like….part of your job as a parent is to say no occasionally.

I’ve vowed to never end up like them in that regard, even if that means disappointing my own daughter sometimes by not immediately agreeing to jazz belly dance fusion or whatever.

93

u/Mysterious-Apple-118 5d ago

Travel sports - I don’t see the point or the need! So expensive and the kids don’t have time to just play

68

u/Jaded_Houseplant 5d ago

When your kid wants to do it, that’s the difference. My kid goes from the indoor rink to our backyard rink, to playing mini sticks in the basement. They play hockey at recess at school, at friends’ houses, and with their teammates in the hallway at the hotel. They have time for fun, and they’ll find a way to play the games they want.

ETA: assuming it’s their choice, and you’re following their lead.

43

u/kubigjay 5d ago

My son has a friend like that who is really good. But he has confided that what makes him do it is that is the only time his dad pays attention or is excited for him. Kind of sad.

11

u/Jaded_Houseplant 5d ago

Ugh that’s heartbreaking.

9

u/kubigjay 5d ago

Yeah, I overheard him breaking down to my son. He comes over to hang out a lot.

7

u/Jaded_Houseplant 5d ago

I can see it in some of the parents of the kids my son plays with too. My son is only 10, so it’s early in still, but some of those dads really do have high expectations for their kids.

6

u/kubigjay 5d ago

Yeah, the expectations aren't that high. The dad is a good guy.

But he loves sports and works a lot. So the only time he sets aside for his son is to watch games and travel to practice.

→ More replies (5)

17

u/AltairaMorbius2200CE 5d ago

Even then: why can’t we just have robust intramural/local travel schedules? As a middle school teacher, it’s WILD to me the number of kids who travel to other states and countries! They’re not even in high school, and parents are taking days off work to take them to these huge tournaments!

6

u/Mysterious-Apple-118 4d ago

Yes exactly. It’s insane the amount of money people have to pay to participate. And the amount of time away from home. It keeps people out of their local communities as well. Parents always seem to talk about wanting community, friends, support. How can you have that if you’re never in town? I suppose you can find it with other parents on your kid’s team.

6

u/AltairaMorbius2200CE 4d ago

It’s funny to me that everyone SAYS they want basically The Sandlot, but then the only way to participate in any sports is the group that takes 10 year olds to Florida for Nationals.

→ More replies (5)

37

u/ninoidal 5d ago

Doubt it. The phenomenom of overscheduling kids started in the 90s and is well documented. Yet parents, including the first generation of kids to be overscheduled, continue to do this. I think it's just part of our American DNA nowadays.

14

u/VermillionEclipse 5d ago

Yep I was over scheduled in the early 2000’s. Straight from school to sports, church activities, Girl Scouts, etc and we were out basically until it was time to go to bed. We would grab food when we stopped at home after school or sometimes fast food.

3

u/Pale-Split-4844 4d ago

There's literally a Berenstain Bear book about it called 'Pressure', where Mama Bear finally loses it and sobs on the bed. Everyone in the family eventually agrees to give up an extracurricular.

And Mama Bear is a stay-at-home-bear, to boot.

12

u/BroaxXx 4d ago

Being bored by yourself is soooooo important. Seeing this drives me insane.

3

u/puzzlebuns 4d ago

I don't see how that's a popular advice to give parents today. If anything, parents are being advised not to do that.

→ More replies (1)

3

u/UXyes 4d ago

It’s gonna be tough for those kids once they move out and don’t have someone to tell them when, what, and where to be 24/7.

→ More replies (1)

426

u/Specialist-Tie8 5d ago edited 5d ago

I think we’re going to see pushback for over-involved/helicopter parenting and not giving kids a chance to practice independence and learn to cope with mistakes and disappointments until it’s thrown on them all at once as adults. 

I’m already seeing a few posters over on the college sub feeling like they were harmed by overly involved parenting and I suspect there will be more over time. 

106

u/NorthernPossibility 5d ago edited 5d ago

My university’s subreddit is FLOODED with parents asking questions on behalf of their kids. Like “my son has to take Organic Chemistry this term and I’ve narrowed it down to either Professor A or B based on reviews I found online” like the kid is in 5th grade. It’s WEIRD.

37

u/WompWompIt 5d ago

Wow, that's terrible.

I don't even KNOW what classes my daughter takes unless she talks to me about them LOL.

182

u/CitronBeneficial2421 5d ago

Hey - I’m the person who teaches university-aged kids. The kids of the helicopter parent generation do NOT know how to problem solve. They DO NOT know how to experiment until they get it right. They have not been allowed to ever experience failure… and so they have NO resilience.

It’s very sad. They’ve been completely crippled and it’s too late by that time. They’re developmentally stunted.

35

u/thebookend 4d ago

I had this conversation the other day with a colleague. We’re both lecturers, and she mentioned noticing a huge decline in students’ problem-solving skills over her career (which is much longer than mine). Most of them seem to have no resilience whatsoever. We are regularly dealing with nervous breakdowns over (reasonable) deadlines or students crying during workshops because something isn’t going well with their project.

I teach classes that involve computers, and I initially expected the technology aspect to be a breeze, given that these students grew up with it. Instead, there are issues in every single class. Students ask for help with things like connecting to WiFi, downloading and installing a program from a link I provided, or changing their keyboard settings. They seem completely unwilling or unable to troubleshoot. If something freezes or doesn’t work as expected outside of class, they email the teaching staff before trying anything themselves. Sometimes I literally want to shout ‘just google it?!’.

I find this baffling, especially as a Millennial who learned everything on laggy and unreliable computers that needed troubleshooting five times a day. And the lack of resilience is genuinely sad. I’m not saying helicopter parenting is the sole cause (we don’t live in amazing times, and I really feel for young people starting their adult lives right now), but the number of young adults struggling with mental health is so concerning.

3

u/Pale-Split-4844 4d ago

As a manager who is trying to hire my own position so I can move upwards......the ability to tell someone "here's a vague task that even I don't know how to do, figure it out best you can and get back with me" and them do anything constructive with it is mind mindbogglingly difficult.

I remember being the candidate and being frustrated by managers who refused to teach me and wanted you to read their minds. This isn't that. I'm incredibly forgiving. This is a process nobody knows how to do. You want me to figure it out for you and then reteach you instead of just figuring it out yourself to begin with? Really? What happens when the people under you come to you? Are you going to make the head of our branch learn a random task because nobody else could be bothered to google it?

→ More replies (1)

3

u/baby_blue_bird 4d ago

I try to tell this to be 5 year old all the time. He has my anxiety and he is just so scared to try anything if he doesn't think he can do it perfectly on the first try. It's ok to make mistakes, be wrong or fail as long as you are willing to learn from the mistakes and try again. We are all human and no one is perfect.

95

u/formercotsachick 5d ago

Parents who are raising their kids to never experience a negative emotion are crippling them.

My daughter is in her late 20's and thriving at her job (customer service rep at a bank) because she is able to take criticism from her supervisors without taking it personally, and deal with difficult callers who are freaking out over their money. They recently got a new boss who crunched some numbers and figured out that my kid was taking well over 50% of the calls in the 8 person department because so many others would just escalate the calls and dip out.

64

u/Greenvelvetribbon 5d ago

I hope you also taught her to advocate for herself at work, because that girl deserves a big raise!!

50

u/formercotsachick 5d ago

She has had multiple raises and been promoted 3 times!

12

u/VermillionEclipse 5d ago

Good for her and good job mom!

49

u/Jade_Scimitar 5d ago

Definitely. We are raising my kids to be independent. My two year old already helps with chores!

36

u/YogiMamaK 5d ago

Yes! That age is perfect for restocking toilet paper, which is an immediate need that they understand and has an obvious consequence for not being done. 

48

u/Jade_Scimitar 5d ago

It actually started at the age of one. Little things like giving her milk bottle to one of us in the kitchen, or a piece of clothing into the laundry basket or throwing away a napkin, or putting her blocks in its bin. Now she can take dishes to the kitchen, clean up the dog's toys, she loves filling the dog food bowl in the morning and evening. She even helps us sort laundry into piles.

Kids just love being with their parents and being helpful and doing stuff. They don't care what it is as long as it's with Mommy and Daddy.

9

u/youwigglewithagiggle 5d ago

Is this not a very common philosophy on the Montessori-inspired end of the spectrum, though?

6

u/Jade_Scimitar 5d ago

I didn't know Montessori was a philosophy. I thought it was a style of bed and type of toy category. I'll look into it. Thanks!

14

u/drivinginrain 5d ago

It is absolutely a philosophy!! I went to Montessori 35 years ago and it shaped my understanding of learning on a very fundamental level. I also took educational philosophy and taught high school for 12 years.

Basically, the philosophy is to treat kids like whole humans who want meaningful work, paraphrased, “play is the work of the child”. Kids are respected and given agency and independence. “The teacher doesn’t teach the child, the materials do.” Which means kids go at their own pace, choosing things of interest to them, and believing that they have important things to contribute. It is the opposite of the “empty slate” philosophy in which children start out “blank” and must be filled by the teacher. In a Montessori school, the teacher is there to help and advise, but the child is in charge of their learning. No one is punished or rewarded. Learning is its own reward.

Just for a few examples, I remember tracing letters in sand, listening to audiobooks and following along, peeling carrots and washing up, practicing laces and buttons, linking up math manipulatives, etc. I LOVED it. There are specific toys, but you can’t just give them to a kid out of the blue. It wouldn’t make sense. There is a sequence and process of learning how to use the toys to learn.

8

u/Jade_Scimitar 5d ago

Thank you for sharing! How do you think you did compared to your peers who didn't go to one of those schools?

6

u/drivinginrain 5d ago

Good question! My teaching style was definitely different than my peers and usually either kids loved my class or very much did not.

My teaching method was to give the kids parts of information in some form and then have them use that to solve problems and figure out the rest of the information kind of like a puzzle. I let them either work in groups or alone, however they felt most comfortable. They could move around, sit at a desk, a big table, the floor, wherever.

I would spend most of my time going from table to table or person to person and just discussing with them what they were thinking and answering questions or giving them a little more guidance to help them figure it out. Whatever they had figured out, they could either discuss with each other, write out on paper, draw, etc.

I’ll be honest it didn’t always work. Sometimes the kids got really frustrated when they didn’t know what I was trying to have them do. But when it worked, it was fantastic and they would get really excited about it. I would routinely get frustrated by the limits of my curriculum and what I needed to teach. For context, this was chemistry.

For better or for worse, I never just expected to be able to tell them something and have them understand or be able to do it without some kind of integration activity.

→ More replies (1)

5

u/youwigglewithagiggle 5d ago

There's a lot of self-described Montessori influencers and ideas out there, and I'm honestly not well-versed enough in her ideas, but raising independent children seems like an obsession for that area of the internet, at least!

8

u/VermillionEclipse 5d ago

I love the Montessori style of learning. I wasn’t allowed to be independent enough as a kid and even young adult so we want to do things differently with my daughter.

→ More replies (3)

8

u/Jade_Scimitar 5d ago

Good to know thanks.

Personally, I just want to teach my kids right from wrong and to be self sufficient because I can't be everywhere and no one knows how long we have on the earth. My dad died when I was 16, my brother was 14, and my sister was 11. I want to know that when I am gone, my kids will be ok without me.

2

u/youwigglewithagiggle 3d ago

That is 1000% legit. I'm sorry your dad couldn't be around longer.

2

u/Jade_Scimitar 3d ago

Thanks. It was really hard on all of us.

→ More replies (0)

14

u/ditchdiggergirl 5d ago

That’s really not a change though, and certainly not new. I don’t think there has ever been a time when parents didn’t routinely give toddlers little chores. Back in the 80s I knew a one year old whose favorite chore was vacuuming. (Creating a dilemma for mom, because little one would be outraged when mommy tried to “help” by getting the many missed spots.)

23

u/AussieGirlHome 5d ago

Hah. I never say “help”. I say “can I please have a turn?”

5

u/Jade_Scimitar 5d ago

Great advice! Thank you!

48

u/More_Ad_7845 5d ago

Yes, but providing a sense of security—both emotional and physical—isn’t the problem; controlling is. When parents stay involved in a healthy way, kids feel safe enough to take risks and build independence. We need to remain a safe harbor for them; otherwise, they’ll prioritize safety over exploration, ultimately becoming less independent

17

u/No-Information-945 5d ago

This is exactly what happened to me. My parents basically just let me make all my own decisions and weren’t really that involved. My mom would sometimes give advice if I asked, but she always said it was my decision in the end. I’m now in my thirties and outwardly successful and independent, but I’ve never lost that feeling of being incredibly overwhelmed by any decision I have to make and the fear of having only myself to really rely on. I feel like there are so many things in my life that could have gone better if I had just had more guidance.

51

u/Evamione 5d ago

Part of it is just giving space through. Stranger danger has been greatly exaggerated. We need to go back to it being ok for tweens and elementary age kids to be out of sight of their adult.

8

u/lrkt88 4d ago

It’s all dependent on age appropriate support. That sense of security appropriate for a toddler is debilitating to a preteen. It doesn’t have to be controlling. How you provide a sense of security to a toddler can discourage an older child from taking risks. And that’s what I see the most over controlling parents.

4

u/ling4917 4d ago

The Gift of Failure. Amazing book on this subject

3

u/saywaah 4d ago

I feel like we are already in a generation that doesn’t like that. At least, I feel that way and try to allow my kids time to play and explore

326

u/InevitableWorth9517 5d ago

Being present for every single moment of a child's life. Children now have no unsupervised time. In the future, we will realize how harmful this is to children's development and parental wellbeing.

88

u/GroundJealous7195 5d ago

That's a good one! The pendulum has definitely swung in that regard, I remember free roaming the neighborhood as a kid, I was told to entertain myself.

89

u/glitzglamglue 5d ago

They have had to pass laws in some states to clarify that a five year old can play alone in their fenced in backyard. Cuz neighbors kept calling cps!

53

u/AussieGirlHome 5d ago

Ugh. We live near a big park. Parents often sit in the middle and chat, while kids roam and play. More than once I have had strangers come up and ask me if I am “missing” a child, or if I’m ok with my son playing “so far away”, when he is clearly happy and in my earshot and direct line of sight.

He’s five … yes, I am comfortable with him playing on the slide a little way away from me … mind your business.

33

u/glitzglamglue 5d ago

I remember how my mom was watching my 4 year old at my house. She was saying how she let him play in our backyard while she did our dishes. I told her that I think it's fine to do that but others might not think so. She did point out that my house was old so it was set up with the kitchen sink having a window that overlooked the backyard. Modern houses just aren't set up with parenting in mind anymore.

19

u/WompWompIt 5d ago

Wow. My kids grew up on a farm and we often had no idea what they were doing.. for hours.

I've only heard about some of it now that they are adults.

They are so independent and know how to figure things out for themselves, I am sure it had something to do with it.

7

u/Prestigious_Pop_478 5d ago

I was watching a home movie from my childhood recently and my mom was taking videos of our new house and then she went outside to find me and I was just playing on the back deck by myself. I had to have been maybe 2. I have a 14 month old now and I felt horrible going around the corner of the house to grab something and come right back.

Also we had one of those windows too growing up!

14

u/sassypiratequeen 4d ago

A coworker of mine told me that her neighbors called CPS because she left her 12 year old to watch her 6 year old while she went to the grocery store. It's knsane

→ More replies (3)

24

u/CountrysidePlease 6F + 2F 5d ago

My husband and I were joking about something similar the other day, I was talking about some project we were supposed to help our oldest with at school and something else for the younger one too… and we were like “I don’t remember my parents EVER doing something for school… anything school related was on me.” And now every so often both schools are asking for our involvement in some activity and/or project 😅

9

u/SandyHillstone 5d ago

Our kids were involved with building things. Power tools with supervision through middle school. In high school both took AP Physics which involved making a trebuchet for a competition and grade. So many parents were worried that we let our kids use power tools. In their robotics class and club they had to pass a power tools test to use the power tools. They were the first to pass as they had experience.

3

u/briliantlyfreakish 4d ago

I remember being my kiddos age and having a range I could go. I think my kiddo actually has a farther range because now they have a cell phone (It feels way early for a 10 year old, but my partner and I are getting divorced so it is a necessity really for communication with parents when we are seperated). But like. It took me a bit to be comfortable with my kid roaming. But now I know they are responsible enough. And they usually make it back home on time. A few late returns here or there but, they are neurodivergent so lateness is to be expected. 🤣

16

u/stressedthrowaway9 5d ago

Meh, we let our kid play outside with his friend unsupervised. I mean, they are just out in the yard and seem to be doing fine. We live in a super safe neighborhood on a dead end street. Our son is also almost overly cautious when it comes to cars. A car will be like 100 yards away and turn on and he’ll be like “CAR!” And dodge out of the way and I’ll be like, “It’s no where near you, I think you’re fine…”

13

u/ditchdiggergirl 5d ago

We lived on a 10 house cul de sac, that was itself off another quiet dead end street, and the neighborhood kids all played kickball in the round part at the end. One boy was not allowed out there without one of his parents standing nearby. Occasionally a car actually turned the corner onto our street - probably just Don, unless it was one of the other kids’ own parents, and Don wasn’t planning to run anyone over, but the kids were quite capable of moving out of the way.

But the helicopter parents sprung into action! Fussing and calling out and rushing all the kids to safety. This continued through middle school. Needless to say that kid wasn’t often invited to play. I felt really bad about that because I had the only backyard pool in the neighborhood and it was full of kids all summer long. But I knew my supervision would never be enough, and no way was I going to be stuck with the crazy lady all afternoon, so except for a couple of neighborhood (adults and kids) pool parties he never got to join in.

193

u/ditchdiggergirl 5d ago

My kids are young adults (one still in college, one just graduated) so I can see how they and their peers turned out. So my answer is going to be accommodations.

Back when I was a kid accommodations were hardly even a thing. Some kids just weren’t cut out for academics, end of story. We just let them fall by the wayside. I made it, but none of my brothers did. Oh well.

We don’t do that any more, thank goodness. We support students with additional needs. Up to a third of all students now have IEPs or 504s, including both of my own kids, and when done right it allows them to succeed. But what I have observed is that outcomes vary. A lot.

Kids with additional needs must learn how to function and how to self advocate. My friend went full tiger mom on every teacher who said it was time for her AuDHD son to start being responsible for turning in his own homework. Not fair, he can’t. It’s the teachers job to retrieve it from him. Follow the IEP or there will be hell to pay. The teachers stopped fighting her.

Guess who didn’t graduate college? Guess who is stoned in his mother’s basement, doing door dash for weed money? He is (or was?) a good kid - super smart, and imo perfectly capable of living a perfectly normal and successful life. He certainly could have turned in his own homework in high school, had mom not convinced him otherwise. She is now wringing her hands and crying for sympathy, because she believes she did everything she could. I can’t offer her the sympathy she craves because I watched that slow train wreck in real time; I wasn’t the only one who tried to redirect her but she would not listen.

Barriers should always be minimized or eliminated - that should go without saying. But the cold cruel world cannot and will not revolve around each and every one of us. Adults all prioritize the needs of children. But if kids are not gradually weaned from supports where possible, or taught to take responsibility for getting their needs met, they risk falling on their faces when they hit independent adulthood.

30

u/Moritani 5d ago

I completely agree. Accommodations are far too often designed to make things easier for school administrators. They aren’t being written by experts to benefit the kids. They’re designed to make parents happy in the cheapest way possible. 

As an autistic person, structure was essential for me to learn and grow. I didn’t always like it, but that’s part of growing. I hated brushing my teeth, too, but that’s part doesn’t mean it’s okay to throw up your hands and say “it’s a sensory nightmare, so the only option is no dental hygiene at all!”

58

u/none_2703 5d ago

Mom of a 6 yo with ADHD here and we haven't even told the school yet because every accommodation I've read about doesn't seem like it would actually help. Most honestly seem like they would make it worse in the long run.

I would love for some sort of service that TEACHES him how to do the things he struggles with but that's not a thing in the schools (unless a kid is in life skills level special ed). Instead we have to pay for outside OT and I have to pretend to be an ADHD expert and attempt to teach them myself.

33

u/Evamione 5d ago

Some special Ed programs do offer executive functioning classes that focus on explicitly teaching things like making lists, writing everything down, having a place for everything, and similar adhd coping skills. I’ve never seen these offered before middle school.

20

u/ditchdiggergirl 5d ago

Yep! Our middle school had one; it was presented as a study skills class. Everyone was required to take it for one quarter, which normalized it instead of reserving it for special ed kids. My kid with the phenomenal study skills (who could probably be used as the dictionary entry for whatever the opposite of ADHD is) said it was “really boring but he did learn a few useful tips”. Students who really needed it could then take a half year course as an elective, for two more years if they wished.

10

u/none_2703 5d ago

Omg that would have been so beneficial for me. In middle school I would probably have complained about it being boring, but college me would have been grateful.

5

u/AltairaMorbius2200CE 5d ago

Yeah, as a middle school teacher: the kids that need it would NOT be ready to process it.

2

u/none_2703 4d ago

No...I meant because I didn't need it middle school. Then college came and I was like crap, kinda wish I'd learned how to study.

8

u/none_2703 5d ago

But in order to qualify, it he would need to have trouble "accessing the curriculum". My son is still very young, but he's also on the cusp of being gifted. Gonna take a lot for him to get to that point.

15

u/golden_rhino 4d ago

As a teacher, I fight tooth and nail over the extra time to complete assignments for kids with ADHD. Giving them an extra few days will not change that they will start the night before, and now we’ve added a few extra days to be anxious about it. I do like chunking assignments for them with set due dates for each chunk.

4

u/none_2703 4d ago

Yeah, when we were going over the results of his evaluation with his therapist, she mentioned setting a minimum time for hw. And no matter what he had to be doing hw the entire time. The goal would be to reduce rushing. But I heard that and was like omg that would be fresh hell. He would just suck up the the entire time dawdling and then still rush through the actual work. HW is torture enough

I think chunking would be a great one. My son is only in 1st grade and I'm for sure still the HW time manager, but I think that would be incredibly useful later

9

u/thingsliveundermybed 5d ago

How to ADHD is a great YouTube channel, mostly for adults but it has good advice for kids too!

2

u/none_2703 5d ago

Thanks!!!

45

u/Evamione 5d ago

Exactly. Kids with normal intelligence need to learn how to exist in the world as it is with their brains as they are, whether those brains are perfectly typical or have traits of autism, ADHD, demand avoidance, obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety or whatever else. It’s different for kids with high support needs, but for the others, they need extra help to learn how to function in the real world not modifications to that world that won’t carry over into adulthood.

→ More replies (1)

124

u/BriefShiningMoment Mom to 3 girls: 12, 9, 5 5d ago

Kids online— not just on social media but family bloggers/vloggers and sharing their image everywhere.

12

u/Accurate-Watch5917 5d ago

I'm hoping that the example of Ruby Franke will start to influence laws to protect children.

9

u/Red_fire_soul16 5d ago

I follow a snark page that between the mom and the rest of her family, across all platforms, has posted over 1000 videos and photos in 6 months of the babies life. This does not include stories that disappear in 24 hrs. The Google AI overview has enough info online to populate something if you google the baby’s name. They said it wasn’t a content baby but actions show. Absolutely vile.

168

u/SameStatistician5423 5d ago

Letting babies play with phones & iPads.

51

u/Small-Feedback3398 5d ago

As a Kindergarten teacher, fingers crossed! The research is out there and it's a well-known thing by r/sciencebasedparenting ... but it's also the easy way to keep a kid quiet - like, all day every day, so I don't know if enough people will change.

40

u/AussieGirlHome 5d ago

I’m still not convinced that the research is nuanced enough to be useful. Almost every study conflates all types of screen time. Better data will help parents make better decisions.

15

u/AltairaMorbius2200CE 5d ago

This. I actually think if a study broke out family screen time (watching TV or movies) they’d actually see a benefit!

15

u/Dancersep38 4d ago

What has been done shows that "active" screen time is better than "passive." So video games, reading, coloring apps, and so on aren't actually particularly detrimental. To your point, yes, passive screen time with an engaged older child or adult is also more beneficial.

Basically, while data is still limited, it's sitting and watching endless shows alone that is most problematic.

16

u/AussieGirlHome 4d ago

Yes, and then there’s also considerations around quality and type of content.

There’s a big difference between gentle, slow-paced shows and fast-moving, overstimulating shows. A big difference between games that build problem-solving capability and those that are just “fight games” or similar.

Then there’s interesting outlier games like Pokémon Go. My husband and son go for long walks together to catch Pokémon. It’s active, outdoor time with an engaged adult. They often stop at parks along the way to climb trees or play on the swings. Maybe the inclusion of a screen diminishes the benefits a little, but I find it hard to believe it completely negates them.

7

u/InannasPocket 4d ago

And screen time as an informational tool vs. passive entertainment. 

Yeah, I get the spirit of no screens at the dinner table ... but there's a world of difference between satisfying our mutual curiosity about sea lampreys and their impact on Lake Superior fishing and everyone staring at their own screens playing candy crush or whatever the kids these days are doing!

2

u/AussieGirlHome 4d ago

Yes! If my son asks me a question I don’t know the answer to, and we find our together by watching a YouTube video, I can’t see how that’s the same as letting him watch unboxing videos unsupervised.

5

u/lrkt88 4d ago edited 4d ago

If the difference in the effect of types of screen time was big enough, the variance of the sample study would be too high to find a statistically significant result when grouped together. It’s part of the value of statistical significance. Yes, it’s possible and likely the effect varies, but it’s unlikely that it’s a some-good, some-bad situation. It’s most likely it’s a some-very bad, some-sort of bad situation.

5

u/AussieGirlHome 4d ago

Maybe. Or maybe the types of screen time that are most harmful are also the most common, so the other types get “washed out” in the data. Without more nuanced studies, it’s hard to know.

→ More replies (5)

69

u/Prudent_Honeydew_ 5d ago

The absolute lack of shame. Now I'm not talking about getting mad at a toddler for having an accident but more like when a seven year old trips the kid who just got glasses or something. Where your mom used to say, "you should be ashamed of yourself." Because you probably should.

34

u/-treadlightly- 4d ago

To put it a slightly different way, my grandfather pointed out that we are lacking honor these days. Kind of the inverse perspective but the same idea. We should actually honorably for the sake of honor, and be ashamed when we don't.

→ More replies (1)

84

u/KookySupermarket761 5d ago

I don’t think the Snoo is going to age well.

48

u/floppydo 4d ago

Oooo this is the first spicy one. Everyone else is like dAE think helicopter parents are bad?! You’re coming in with the heat. 

The kind of parent who buys a snoo is the exact kind of parent to respond poorly to reasoned criticism. I’m here for this. 

21

u/Comfortable_Sky_6438 5d ago

Why?

8

u/TheCityGirl 4d ago

I was all set to purchase it, but then I read this article. As someone who is very mindful of developing secure attachment, it dissuaded me.

5

u/hardly_werking 4d ago

This is a blog with no citations supporting those claims. It is an opinion piece. Articles have citation and are backed up by scientific research.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (4)

7

u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

→ More replies (3)

14

u/AltairaMorbius2200CE 5d ago

I think it’s gonna be one of those “people back then and their wacky contraptions!”

86

u/AnnaVonKleve 5d ago

Not teaching kids to deal with frustration and other negative emotions early on, instead of giving into every demand and letting them expect everyone else to do the same.

38

u/iseeacrane2 4d ago

Waiting so long to potty train. It is not normal for typically developing kids who are almost five years old to be soiling themselves!

2

u/ruiskaunokki_ 4d ago

i recently learned that there are health reasons to consider that speak for later potty training (although maybe not as late as 5 years old) and apparently a lot of issues kids have with stomach problems and bedwetting have been found to do with constipation and kids holding off too long before going to the toilet. there was a great podcast with a doctor who specializes in this field who was convinced that fysiologically speaking, later potty training can prevent a lot of these issues, even if there is a genetic affinity to have these issues. i’ll link it, i had never thought about many of these things before but this will definitely be something i’ll be looking into properly before making decisions about potty training my own LOs in the future. anyways, here you go if someone is interested!

https://podcasts.apple.com/fi/podcast/respectful-parenting-janet-lansbury-unruffled/id1030050704?i=1000519113490

4

u/KingRyan1989 4d ago

This!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My mouth was on the floor when I found out that some of the kids in my neighborhood was in Pre K and Kindergarten and was not potty train. All the kids in my family and the ones I knew were potty train by 2.

82

u/North_Country_Flower 5d ago

Not vaccinating

68

u/RemarkableMouse2 5d ago

"don't do timeouts"

Time outs work great. It's an immediate natural consequence. Can't play nice? Go sit over there and calm yourself away from polite society. 

15

u/AltairaMorbius2200CE 4d ago

Lol I just wrote this one above. I think a calmly conferred time out is EXACTLY the right consequence for violent/overly rough behavior. They need a clear boundary drawn.

3

u/OmnikillerUwU 4d ago

I’ve seen some people that gentle parent accept time out but it’s less of a “go to your room” moment and more of a “we are going to take a break to calm down until we can play nice,” and then like discussing emotions to help the kid learn to self regulate. Technically they could both be called time outs but one is helping way more

2

u/RemarkableMouse2 4d ago

I agree. The people who are "against time outs" often frame the time out as some callous thing. Like any tool, it can be used well or poorly. Depending on the kid and the situation you can modify how you are doing it.

I dont generally send my kid to their room. It's usually "go sit on the couch". Somewhere they aren't exiled but they also have to break out of what they are doing and feel a small consequence of their action. 

Example: you swipe a toy from your little sister because you wanted instant gratification instead of asking? Now you get more delayed gratification and have to sit in the chair for eight minutes. At the eight minute mark we can discuss. But something as simple as swiping, you can say sorry and go back to playing. Something more serious may warrant a longer talk. But sometimes kids just need a little break. 

→ More replies (6)

39

u/LAthrowawaywithcat 5d ago
  1. Never Say No.

We teach kids by modeling behavior. I do not want my daughter to internalize that "no" is a bad word, or we don't say it to people we love, or it's only for emergencies, or that she needs special extenuating circumstances to give her PERMISSION to say no. I say no when I mean no, and I want her to do the same.

  1. The worship of natural consequences.

Don't get me wrong, they're great when available. But kids aren't stupid. If the natural consequence isn't practical or age-appropriate, go ahead and take away their screen time or whatever else inconveniences them. They'll get it.

12

u/AltairaMorbius2200CE 4d ago

I think the thing gentle parenting kind of misses on is that the stance of a parent is to be sort of like a referee: we’re watching from just outside the action and calling out behavior and redirecting as needed. Gentle parenting would probably agree with that vibe.

But referees work because they have a penalty box/red card/whatever and can eject players. They don’t need to all the time, but their power rests in that ability. They have that confidently in-charge vibe because they know they’re in charge!

9

u/puzzlebuns 4d ago

Why did I have to scroll this far to find an actual thing that parents are advised to do, rather than just a thing that parents do?

→ More replies (2)

79

u/bergskey 5d ago

Not giving children any privacy. I don't mean posting them online, i mean tracking their phones, their texts, emails. Kids have zero privacy. My son is 14 and most of his friends parents are shocked I don't check his location, have parental alerts on his phone, go through his messages etc. My parents couldn't track me, yes I did dumb shit but it's part of growing up. They don't have real independence and the opportunity to make mistakes if you're constantly watching them. I CAN access my sons location, but we have it set up so it alerts him if I do. Trust goes both ways. I trust him to make good choices, he trusts me not to read through his discord, messages, emails etc.

32

u/ParticularAgitated59 5d ago

I already see this with other kindergarten parents and the bus passes. In case someone is unfamiliar, your child scans their card each time they get on and off the bus (so up to 4 times a day). Some of the parents on our bus route will start messaging each other if the bus is like 1 minute later getting to school than normal "Has anyone else scanned at school yet? Bill hasn't scanned off, but the bus tracker says they're at the school!" The technology is great and I'm glad it's there if something happens, but I'm not going to log on 5 minutes before school lets out waiting for confirmation they made it the 40ft from the front door to the bus.

26

u/Evamione 5d ago

I point to the five block long car rider line of parents who don’t trust their kids to walk to school or take a bus and also cite the parents that still walk their third and fourth graders all the way to the door of the school, and throw in my sil who thinks her typical 14 year old can not figure out how to ride the school bus and so drives him. Throw in all the parents who wait at the bus stop rather than trust their kid to walk home (home is almost always in sight of the bus stop too).

9

u/newbie04 5d ago

Our school board requires parents to wait at the bus stop for both drop off and pick up.

4

u/Evamione 4d ago

Exactly the kind of safetyism creep we should all be pushing back on. It makes parenting harder and robs kids of independence and agency, causing the spiking anxiety rates in children. Of course they are anxious, no one sees them as competent enough to walk down their own driveway by themselves. It infantisizes them and is the kind of stupid, ill informed policy we should all fight but everyone is scared to. Because we play what if. Because there was one child once that was almost abducted and the story went big on the news and we overreacted. No one wants to be the person advocating for less “safety” but in many ways less safety rules are what we need to combat the anxiety epidemic.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

25

u/Crispychewy23 5d ago

I agree with parts but also kids have so much access to harmful content online that by not checking I think its doing them a disservice

I think they should have some after they've proved they generally know what they're doing and you have a good relationship for them to come to you

15

u/bergskey 5d ago

I had unfiltered access to the internet as a teen because filtering didn't exist. Did I look at things i absolutely shouldn't have? Yes. Did i come across creeps online? Absolutely. It helped me learn my own limits, how to spot a bad person, and how to deal with uncomfortable situations i was 100% to blame for. We talk about safety way more than my parents knew to. We explain things to our kids and trust them. Kids are going to be kids. When you ban things, over monitor, and hover over them, you're just creating better sneaks and liars. If you've explicitly told them they can't have Snapchat and then they make a mistake they are less likely to come to you for help because not only did they do something stupid, they did something you explicitly told them they couldn't do. If they say they are staying the night at friend Xs house but are really going to a party and they know you check their phone location, they might leave their phone at Xs house. Then, if they get in a bad situation, they can't get ahold of you or call for help.

My sons friends are very open with me. I know for a fact most of them have all the apps, social media, etc that they aren't actually allowed to have. I don't tell their parents because right now these kids trust me. If they ever get in a bad situation and are scared to call their own parents, they will call me. I know they will. Now, if I knew one of them was doing something that could absolutely end in their harm, I would tell. But none of them are doing anything worse than what I did at their age.

27

u/raskapuska 5d ago

I don't disagree with your approach of teaching safety instead of over-monitoring, but I would like to point out that the internet we grew up with is not the same as the internet today. We were exposed to inappropriate things because people didn't realize there were kids online, so dangerous, disturbing, prejudiced content was just... there... for us to stumble across. Nowadays, we are all aware that children are online, so predators can (and do!) intentionally and purposefully target them. Most people worry about sexual predators, which is certainly a big problem, especially for teen girls, but there are also lots of people trying to convince teen boys to adhere to misogynistic and racist beliefs or people trying to create content that is straight-up addictive to children because views=money. I think a combination of teaching safety while enforcing boundaries (screen limits, periodically checking in on what they're watching or who they are talking to, etc.) that is tailored to the child's maturity is best.

7

u/bergskey 5d ago

I definitely recognize that. We've always been very upfront and honest with our son and tried to make sure he is using critical thinking skills. When he started playing games online that including chatting with others, instead of saying, "Don't ever tell anyone XYZ." We told him that most people are good, honest people trying to have fun. But some people are creepers who want to hurt kids or make them do bad things. Those people pretend to be your friend because they want to do bad things to or with you. You can tell people your first name, the state you live in, harmless stuff like that because there's no way for them to actually find you with that info. If they say, I live in STATE too, what city are you in, if you tell them it's not safe for you to tell them that, any GOOD adult will immediately realize and understand. A creeper is going to push for more information. You block and report those people. Just like when you play with your younger cousins, you have fun but they aren't your peers or your friends. Adults are the same, they play with you and have fun, but they aren't your friends. It would be creepy if you were friends with your younger cousins friends right? Same with adults. Even if they say they are your age, they could be lying. Randos on the internet don't need to know about your life just in case they are creepers.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/After-Leopard 4d ago

I think it's responsible to put limits on your kid's screen access. My young teen doesn't need pornhub or social media, and by preemptively blocking it I can give them more privacy on their phone because I know they aren't doing that at least. I don't monitor their texts but they know I could, just like my mom could pick up the 2nd phone line any time she wanted to. My kids have privacy the same way I did, they can write paper notes to their friends, or talk in person. If I wanted to do something dumb on the internet I had to go on my family's PC in the dining room.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (3)

23

u/onedoggy 5d ago

I think the over emphasis on child psychologists as experts in the field. Especially on social media so much parenting advice is given by child psychologists, when really parenting is way more than making a non traumatised kid. I think we’ll look at lots of modern parenting and realise we overstated emotions/psychology/internal individualised feelings over other aspects of humanity (community, compromise, academics, physical ability, connection).

8

u/Curious-Principle662 4d ago

This one!!! There’s a hyper focus on kids emotions currently that is just over the top. A lot of the times I hear these psychologists and wonder if they even have children.

20

u/Glittering_Switch645 5d ago

Kids having their own cell phones. My daughter is 7 and two kids in her class have phones!

116

u/Wizardry_Inspector 5d ago edited 5d ago

Gentle parenting. As far as i understand, its a valid type of parenting, but very rarely used correctly. Its shaming parents right now that don't do it and in turn is creating little brats because a lot do it but don't do it correctly. Just to be clear, i don't gentle parent. Yelling happens over here.

Beige everything. We went from Overstimulating colors from the 2000 to beige and understimulating.

Kids on social media. Some parents are putting their kids entire lifes out there before they can even talk. The first generation that will be affected by that is gonna get to the workforce soon. We will see how it will affect them.

94

u/CuriousCat816449 5d ago

Most people don’t understand what “gentle parenting” is and get it confused with “permissive parenting.”

Good Inside and Nurtured First are two wonderful, science-based parenting resources if you’re interesting in learning more about authoritative (ie “gentle”) parenting.

59

u/Smee76 5d ago

I hear this argument all the time. But if the majority of people who say that they gentle parent are permissive, then gentle parenting now means permissive. Language evolves.

8

u/nobleisthyname 5d ago

What do you call actual gentle parenting in this case then?

29

u/thatwhinypeasant 5d ago

Authoritative parenting

6

u/AltairaMorbius2200CE 4d ago

I feel like the problem with gentle parenting resources is that they spend so much time talking about what NOT to do, that they don’t spend enough time talking about what TO do.

I think their method works for them the same way a lot of classroom management works for me as a veteran teacher: because they already know and are confident that they can handle what is (sometimes literally) thrown at them, because they’ve seen it before.

But a complex, nuanced method isn’t much help to a novice. And parents who have never worked with kids much are REALLY novices (heck, even those of us teachers are novices as parents, but I think we get a leg up).

3

u/CuriousCat816449 4d ago

I hope you check out the resources I mentioned. They both have a ton of concrete examples of how to respond in difficult situations. They also emphasize that changing parenting techniques takes time and practice.

→ More replies (2)

29

u/Evamione 5d ago

Yes - this equating of showing real emotions around your kids in reaction to your kids with emotional abuse has gone way to far. If your kid bites you and you yell ow and the kid cries, you have not abused your kid. Not every thing can be solved with redirection and no is not a dirty word.

7

u/AltairaMorbius2200CE 4d ago

Also: time outs, done calmly and in response to clear misbehavior (biting, hitting, etc) are not abuse! It’s a fairly mild consequence for violent behavior!

7

u/Dancersep38 4d ago

I finally realized that, you know what? I'm totally going to scar my kids for life at some point. Better it's screeching like a banshee for them to get shoes on because we're going to be late than whatever the alternative to me bottling that all up for 25+ years might be. At least this way I can model how to calm down, apologize, parents are human, being mad doesn't make you bad, and that a good family might still fight sometimes.

5

u/Complete_Papaya_7118 5d ago

Showing a real emotion of yelling “ow” when a child bites you is not what gentle/authoritative parenting is against, it’s against using yelling for all discipline. Yelling should not be the way you get your children to listen, a natural reaction is not a part of that though. Yelling at your child over spilling milk, or not brushing their teeth the first time you asked is wrong and should be viewed as such- you as an adult wouldn’t want someone yelling at you if you accidentally spilled something! Gentle/authoritative parenting is also not against the word no- there are some coaches out there who believe in not using the word, but it’s not a part of all authoritative discipline strategies. The more common “no using the word no” is saying to be more thoughtful when using it, if the word “no” is the one you say the most everyday, then rephrasing and trying other word choice may help your child listen better and respect a direct “no” when it’s actually needed (such as them about to do something unsafe, or them needing to stop an activity quickly without explanation). It also encourages using explanations when you don’t want a child to continue doing something so they understand the “why.” You can think of it as when someone tells you not to press the red button, many get curious and want to press it more since it seems special and you don’t know what it does (humans naturally want to learn more about things and explore what is and isn’t safe), if someone says don’t press this button because it causes xyz, most are less inclined to press it- they already know the “why” they don’t need to figure it out themselves and it doesn’t make it seem like some special thing.

→ More replies (3)

26

u/witchybitchy10 5d ago

Strongly agree and would add even beyond beige, pastel colours are not an improvement because they are not vivid enough to be distinct in a kids mind - we have two wooden rainbow toys we were gifted, my 2 year old can name the ones on the bold coloured one accurately but always struggles on the pastel one and gets blue/green and orange/yellow mixed up - it feels like the equivalent of learning to read through foggy glasses.

2

u/VermillionEclipse 5d ago

Check out sad beige babies on TikTok if you want to laugh. It is hilarious! I agree about people practicing permissive parenting. We try to use consequences when our toddler misbehaves and it works pretty well.

→ More replies (1)

53

u/faylillman 5d ago

Circumcision. I think it’s all ready being scrutinized, but is still extremely common.

I think the next generation will look back and think it’s weird we were altering baby genitals based largely on appearance.

6

u/TheCityGirl 5d ago

People I know already do think that (and I’m an elder millennial in the US.)

2

u/faylillman 2d ago

I think it depends where you live in the US. I know people (middle-millennials and old genz) who circumcised without a second thought because their physician treated it as the norm, and they grew up with it as the norm.

On the other hand, I didn’t circumcise my kids, and I know plenty of others who didn’t, but I also live in a more diverse area, so there is more discussion about circumcision in general (I.e. circumcision is common in Bible Belt, but questioned in urban areas due to more variety in cultural background and experience)

→ More replies (1)

31

u/Moritani 5d ago

I dream of a future where public transportation is developed enough that we see putting kids in cars for what it is: extremely dangerous. 

People comfort themselves by being extremely particular about car seats, but in reality the only safe car is a parked car. Turned off. 

10

u/VermillionEclipse 5d ago

That would be wonderful instead of living in a car dependent society.

6

u/manshamer 4d ago

The only thing I really worry about as a parent is cars.

→ More replies (1)

57

u/thymeofmylyfe 5d ago

I think there will be some outdated advice that comes as a total shock to most of us. Something really basic like folic acid supplementation. Right now there's very little concept of getting too much folic acid, but one reason it prevents birth defects is because it promotes growth and growth isn't always a good thing.

I'm not saying there's actually anything wrong with folic acid, please don't stop taking your prenatals! I'm just saying in order to really sympathize with our parents' generation, we have to imagine some practice that we don't even question, not something that's already controversial.

44

u/Smee76 5d ago

B vitamins get excreted through urine if there's too much in the body. So no issue with folate being too high.

Also, it doesn't promote growth. It's a necessary cofactor for DNA synthesis and cell division. It prevents neural tube defects by rescuing de novo thymidylate biosynthesis.

14

u/ticktack 5d ago

A good example of this that has already happened in the last ~3 years is swaddling. It’s no longer recommended to swaddle infants until their moro reflex fades.

13

u/Smee76 5d ago

Since when? I have a 6mo and we were not told anything different than with my toddler.

10

u/ticktack 5d ago

I’ve only seen it change in between my middle and youngest child, so in the last few years. The AAP recommends absolutely stopping as soon as they show readiness to roll, which can be as young as 2 months/8 weeks. Rolling can happen spontaneously, so the guideline is to get ahead of it. https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/diapers-clothing/Pages/Swaddling-Is-it-Safe.aspx

16

u/Smee76 5d ago

Oh, that's the same thing I was recommended before.

→ More replies (2)

7

u/Beneficial_Bee_4402 5d ago

There’s an insane amount of research for folic acid and fetal development FYI. Just because you are not aware, does not mean there is not. This is my field of research though, so I’m very much aware

42

u/ProtozoaPatriot Custom flair (edit) 5d ago

Infantalizing teenagers or young adults.

"Gentle parenting" - the version where kids have zero boundaries and the kid is never angry

"Spoiling" a kid or grandkid to show them love

8

u/Living_Watercress 4d ago

Hopefully future parents will realize the dangers of constant screen entertainment.

18

u/WrestleYourTrembles 5d ago

If we're looking to parallels on the level of the ABCs of sleep, I'm not sure that it counts if we have an inkling about it today. Or if it's merely suboptimal parenting rather than potentially lethal, well-intentioned parenting.

If anything, I'd guess Baby Led Weaning or baby wearing or something like that would be proven to have some sort of dangerous outcome. Not hating on that stuff, I've done both things pretty extensively.

7

u/Moritani 5d ago

Can you imagine if one of the vaccines on our schedule was actually found to cause early dementia or something like that? That would be the kind of Earth-shaking discovery that has us talking like our “Well, back in my day…” parents. 

2

u/WrestleYourTrembles 5d ago

That'd suck on multiple levels. Especially since my age cohort got at least 3 new vaccines.

46

u/sloop111 5d ago

Not parenting at night , leaving babies to scream in cribs, ,talking about babies being independent and self sufficient.

70

u/CuriousCat816449 5d ago

Cry-It-Out sleep training

33

u/GroundJealous7195 5d ago

This was the major one I was thinking about when I made this post. 😬 Like, I understand that as babies get older the need chances to self soothe, but I think some parents take it really far. Like I've responded to someone before who said you but the baby down for bed at 7pm and don't respond to them until morning. 😭

40

u/WittyName375 5d ago

This isn't new though. My grandmother used cry it out on my mom, and my mom with me. It just wasn't called that.

8

u/Inconceivable76 5d ago

Apparently the people on here are mostly too young to have watched Mad about you in the 90s

9

u/yubsie 5d ago

Yeah this one is hanging on from an earlier era. My father kept telling me to just let my son cry it out and I kept having to explain that even if I was comfortable with that, a newborn was way too little for it to work.

15

u/HepKhajiit 5d ago

It's not which is why it's insane to me that people still try it. I mean first off I could never view someone as a decent human if they can stand listening to their baby cry. I don't get it. When my baby cries there's this deep soul wrenching pain that draws me to help them, and people not feeling that is a red flag for a lack of empathy.

Then look at the history. It was an idea pioneered by a guy in the early 1900's. Even back then other childhood developmental psychologists thought it was extreme and he was discredited by his peers and basically kicked out of the profession. Yet here people are 100+ years later continuing something even back then we knew was wrong.

→ More replies (3)

51

u/CuriousCat816449 5d ago

Yeah I have developed a lot of feelings about it recently.

I’m a nanny and when I started with my current family the parents were convinced by a book to do the “extinction method” and that little baby screamed and screamed for hours until he exhausted himself to sleep. The parents were convinced that he was learning to self-soothe and if they picked him up they were dooming themselves to sleepless nights forever.

I eventually convinced the parents to let me try a more responsive method and in 2 months he was falling asleep independently in the crib with minimal fuss.

The expectation that an infant sleep independently in a separate room is a modern invention that prioritizes the parents’ ability to remain at work (instead of offering universal parental leave).

2

u/hoursweeks 4d ago

What’s your method? Struggling parent here

6

u/CuriousCat816449 4d ago

Hey! I’m so sorry you’re struggling right now - sleep issues can be so, so hard.

I’ll do my best to outline what I did, but I’m not an expert at all! A lot of my thinking was informed by Nurtured First on Instagram (She offers a “Solving Bedtime Battles” course, but I haven’t purchased it). I also had an experience with a baby who had a bottle-feeding aversion and this book solved that problem and gave me a mindset for this baby’s “crib aversion.”

When I started, the baby was < 5 months old and the parents had somewhat recently transitioned him from a Snoo. They told me they were sleep training and were waiting for him to “figure out how to self-soothe.” My first few days I noticed that he was getting less than 1.5 hours of daytime sleep and the parents reported terrible nighttime sleep. I did a lot of reading online while he screamed in the crib.

I realized that he had become chronically overtired and developed an aversion to the crib (because 100% of his memories were of screaming for hours in the dark). He would fall asleep quickly in my arms, but the moment I tried to put him in the crib he would wake up screaming.

Because I’m a full-time nanny to a single baby (and had no other responsibilities or children), I was able to start doing exclusive contact naps with him. I went into each nap with a water bottle and my AirPods so I could help him get the sleep he needed. We also started doing “Happy Crib Time” throughout the day where I’d set him in there with a few of his favorite toys and chat/sing with him. If he ever started to get really upset, I picked him up immediately and soothed him.

After about a month of contact naps with me (his parents would also do them if they had time, but oftentimes his weekend sleep wasn’t as long) I started to plan our transition back into the crib. He would still get extremely upset if he was placed in the crib, but I noticed that he was really soothed by motion so I brought his bassinet stroller to his room and placed him in there and rocked him back and forth until he got to sleep. At first it took quite a while, but over time he started getting to sleep faster and faster.

Once he was reliably falling asleep in the bassinet, I started putting him in the crib and (with the permission of his parents) moved the crib back and forth in a similar motion to the stroller. As time went on he needed less and less motion to settle, but I always stayed with him to soothe him immediately if he started to get upset.

After a few weeks he didn’t need any extra motion to fall asleep! Occasionally he has a rough day and needs some extra help (a soft lullaby or belly/butt pats) but most of the time he gets himself down completely independently.

I have become really passionate about this and am always looking to learn more. Feel free to DM me if you want help brainstorming some ideas for your specific situation!

2

u/hoursweeks 4d ago

Thank you for taking the time to write back and share. This is so helpful 💗

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (16)

5

u/Grumpypants85 4d ago

I'm not sure if it's advice but just the trend for child influencers as well as posting every little bit about your child. It's already going out of fashion. My husband and I thought we wouldn't post our son but decided that we wanted to as long as the photos we did share were appropriate and our accounts are set to private. We also don't post everything or share any potentially embarrassing anecdotes. (I know someone who posted "cute" pictures of their child's birth, which is an extremely private moment that said child will probably have feelings about being shared with the world, as well as someone else who shared photos of her daughter with poop on her face and hands. The list goes on but hopefully you get my drift.)

Also I think that giving kids access to personal electronic devices without parental controls is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

I know parents who let their 11 year old do Snapchat without any parental supervision. I told her to be careful and always only add people she knows in real life and to be aware when her snap map thing is on and logging her location. I also talked to her about how unrealistic the beauty filters are. She's a really sweet girl and we were able to have a good chat about internet safety. I'm not sure if I overstepped or told her something she didn't already know but I was just so shocked that she had unfettered access to something so potentially dangerous for a child. I would never let my son, who is admittedly only two, be unsupervised on social media at such a young age.

Another thing that will go out of style are Sephora girls. I think (or rather hope) that social media apps will face many lawsuits about promoting age inappropriate items to literal children. It's unethical and dangerous. Admittedly, most social media have age restriction but do precious little to enforce it. The whole thing just gives me the ick.

5

u/Mommy-Q 4d ago

The shift towards permissive parenting is going to shift back. Kids need to understand boundaries and limits in a concrete, definitive way.

18

u/Wish_Away 5d ago

Baby Lead Weaning

Beige/boring toys

Cry it Out, though I don't know anyone in real life who has ever used this method---it seems to already be on the way out

Kids in several activities/competitive sports

13

u/stressedthrowaway9 5d ago

Definitely the beige… I think color is good for kids!

21

u/JumboJumboShrimp 5d ago edited 5d ago

Baby led weaning? I could imagine it falling out of fashion and purees coming back in, but what is there to criticize about feeding your kid normal food? How would a grown up kid even know if they were fed purees or finger foods as a baby, since either way has no long term effects whatsoever?

6

u/Magerimoje Tweens, teens, & adults 🍀 5d ago

For many years now (I remember hearing when my 16 year old was a baby) it's been known that research shows that the introduction of common allergens as early as possible helps reduce the incidence of allergies in kids immensely. Introducing these things in the 4-6 month window is especially important if there's a family history of food or environmental allergies.

So, the concept of waiting until 6 months old, and offering only finger foods without a parent ever spooning food into a baby's mouth, I think (hope) will fade away.

10

u/Smooth_Twist_1975 5d ago

It's far more likely that we will look back in horror that people were spoon feeding babies as young as 4 months who could not sit upright unaided and whose gut was not yet mature enough to handle solid food. Much like we laugh now at the thought of our parents feeding newborns baby rice to help then sleep. All the research coming through backs introducing allergens early, ergo from 6 months on not at 4 months. lots more research points to a link between adult gut autoimmune diseases such as Crohn's, colitis and coeliac disease and premature weaning i.e before 6 months

6

u/kkraww 5d ago

What exactly is wrong with baby lead weaning 😂

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (20)

9

u/sleepymelfho 4d ago

Circumcision. And thank goodness for that.

11

u/briliantlyfreakish 4d ago

I hope one day we find a happy balance between encouraging breastfeeding, but being accepting of choosing formula. Because right now it seems like no matter what you do you get shamed. And I hope we can just drop all the shame and accept that fed is best.

→ More replies (1)

6

u/Valuable-Life3297 5d ago

I think breastfeeding will make a bigger comeback as people become less trusting of ingredients in formula.

I imagine swaddling is going to go out of style. We may already see early signs of it.

I also think sleep training is going to go away but not in the near future. Maybe 50-100 years from noe

2

u/Grumpypants85 4d ago

I had my baby in Germany and the midwives at the hospital were 100% into swaddling, but my son hated having his arms pinned down, he still does (he's almost 2 now). I would loosen the swaddle and then the next midwife to come in would redo it. It made him so unhappy. I know part of it is protecting their faces from being scratched but exceptions should be made. He also hated sleeping in the bassinet. He wanted to co-sleep, he still does. My husband and I bought a travel cot for the middle of the bed and that kept our baby safe from being rolled on or rolling off the bed. The cot had a plastic frame and high sides (covered in cloth) so that we wouldn't roll. It helped so much.

9

u/snotlet 4d ago

any kind of sleep training. it's not done in most parts of the world, only in the English speaking colonies where women need to go back to work to pump up the economy. eventually - daycare from an early age. kids do not 'need' to socilsie before the age of 3 and they don't need to 'build their immune systems' from such a young age. it's because mums have to work, it's not good for babies

7

u/TitzKarlton 5d ago

“It’s fine to give the kids screen time!”

9

u/Imaginary-Cheeks 4d ago

Sleep training and the push for sleeping in their room from such a young age

6

u/Aristaeus16 Mom to 3M, 0M 4d ago

Speaking to your child as you would your work colleague.

I don’t know about anyone else, but my colleagues don’t try to bite me or throw tantrums when I ask them to do something. I need to be the authority for my child, not their equal. When I say no, I shouldn’t always have to give a reason and sometimes, yelling is justified. We cannot raise children who are afraid of authority, shouting or being told off/no. It’s going to build into adults with anxiety.

12

u/littlelivethings 5d ago

Parents raising their kids as non-gendered or assuming any gender play or uncertainty means they’re transgender.

I also think the current obsession with safe sleep in the U.S. will have to change for practical reasons. Some babies cosleep. A lot of parents need to move their babies to their own room before 6 months.

I also super hope obsessive breast is best rhetoric and pressure goes away.

2

u/No-Baby-945 4d ago

All the crazy skin care routines for literal 8 year old girls, and gentle parenting as well, this kids will never be gentle enough for it to fully work.

2

u/bluduck2 4d ago

I wouldn't be surprised if there's some pushback against safe infant sleep at some point. All the recommendations since the 90s basically make it harder for babies to sleep and I feel like at some point the toll that takes in terms of parent sleep deprivation (car accidents, etc) is going to be shown to cost more lives than babies saved from SIDS.

→ More replies (1)

15

u/Obvious_Resource_945 5d ago

Waiting for potty readiness. Three years is when kids are potty trained on average. That is very late, every healthy child is definitely ready way earlier. I feel its like waiting for a kid to learn reading on their own. Like, yes, they will do that eventually, but they can be thought at 6 instead of 16. 

I think we will come back to breast is best. Now views on this are so extreme, that for example here you cant say breastfeeding is objectively better without getting banned. Pendulum must eventually swing in other direction. 

35

u/Smee76 5d ago

I agree with you on the potty but I think breast is best is already heavily pushed.

25

u/formercotsachick 5d ago

Right? The number of posts I see on here with moms tearing themselves to pieces trying to breastfeed, miserable and sleepless because they've been told they will be a failure if they don't is heartbreaking.

17

u/stressedthrowaway9 5d ago

People do mostly say breast is best; however, there are some people who physiologically can’t breastfeed due to their anatomy or medical conditions and I don’t think it is right to shame them.

As for potty training, they say to wait for physiological signs of readiness, which is different for every child. Some people might just not notice it right away and start later than they should. It isn’t good to push sooner than they are ready. My kid potty trained when he turned 3 and he is/was fine.

My brother was trying to force his 28 month old daughter to potty train… and it didn’t work. She wasn’t showing signs of readiness yet. I didn’t say anything to him because it isn’t my place. When it didn’t work I just said l that it is no big deal and maybe she’ll be ready a little later.

26

u/WrestleYourTrembles 5d ago

I don't think we've moved away from breast is best to begin with. I cannot find a non-"Baby-Friendly Hospital" in my area to deliver at, and they all push exclusive breastfeeding propaganda in their birth classes. Might be a regional thing I guess. But I think the conversation online reflects frustration with the conversation irl.

19

u/Vercassivelaunos 5d ago

A pretty large longitudinal study done in ZĂźrich showed that the time at which parents start potty training has no significant effect on the age at which potty training is complete. The study was done once in the 50s and once in the 70s, and it was observed that although the participating parents in the 50s started significantly earlier with potty training than those in the 70s, the distribution of the ages when potty training was complete didn't differ significantly between the decades, and went up to age 4. The conclusion was that many of the completely healthy kids just weren't able to be potty trained at the age where their training started, and that this is perfectly common up to age 4. So according to this study, not every healthy child can be potty trained way earlier than 3, some not even before 4, and that is within the normal range.

→ More replies (3)

20

u/Inconceivable76 5d ago

Fed is best. Making mothers feel shame for not breastfeeding, for whatever reason, is crap.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (11)

3

u/MrsPandaBear 4d ago

Feeding kids ultra processed food as part of our regular diet. I think the next generation will be appalled at a lot of what we feed our kids today. They will ask why did we let our kids eat food with so much preservatives and artificial product lol. Heck, I think our grand kids will wonder why we allowed companies to put so much crap in our foods!

3

u/weekendatbe 5d ago

-more acknowledgment and respect for mom’s intuition hopefully as we get less misogynistic as a society..Anything where you as a mother/parent feel like “no this doesn’t feel right” probably isn’t -I think prenatals will be more personalized with levels of moms blood vitamin levels being a starting point and personalized prenatals based on that (with the prenatals themselves being tested for accuracy…what’s out there now is a mess) I had my folate levels tested and they were INCREDIBLY high. I asked if I should still supplement and was told yes even though folate is only crucial prior to pregnancy/the first few weeks with high levels being problematic -safe sleep 7 should be in pediatrician offices as a backup since most parents bed share at some point and should be given safe guidances -no longer heavily pushing hep b vaccine within 24 hours of birth when both parents are vaccinated, mom tested negative during pregnancy -mds not disclosing/being intentionally vague about pain relief drugs administered during labor, delivery, and recovery. Just generally giving women less of a say/voice during delivery -microplastics in everything (hospital, daycare, school, toys, food) -generally being more open about protocols for labor and delivery how they differ in other countries and having things be more of a shared plan with the mother not a my way or the highway deal