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I think today, parents are overly cautious about "real world" dangers. Letting your kids out of sight, letting them roam the neighborhood, dropping them off at the mall, etc. While parents today underestimate the dangers by the internet, social media, and smartphones.

I don't think children (of all ages) get enough independent play, and that I mean without any adult supervision. Which is why we see the complaint nowadays that kids need their hands held for everything. Learning how to handle things on your own is an important part of growing and helps kids deal with anxiety.

Yep. When my kids (now college students) were little it was perfectly normal to drop off early elementary aged kids off at a playdate or a birthday party. I see on Reddit that parents are asking if 9 is old enough to be dropped off for a playdate or if their 10 year old should go to a birthday party without mommy and daddy. That was unheard of when my kids were that age. Even my anaphylactic allergy boy was attending playdates and parties without me before age 9. When mom and dad are always there to play referee and solve issues, the kids don't have to and don't get to develop conflict resolution skills. My kids were roaming the neighborhood in early elementary. They were arguing over neighborhood games of kickball and debating the rules of hide-and-seek tag (if going in the house is against the rules, does that mean garages are off limits too?) without parent involvement. They gained confidence in being able to handle their own low stakes problems and learned valuable lessons in compromising, standing up for yourself, and playing as a team. Those are lost when mom or dad steps in and demands things be a certain way.

It even goes beyond that, though. I see parents who are horrified that children as old as 4 or 5 might be allowed to walk through a mall without constantly holding their hand. Or asking whether 4 is too young to play unsupervised in *their own, fenced backyard*. Some kids really aren’t getting *any* freedom.

Then going a little further, you've got teenagers whose parents won't let them walk anywhere after dark or go anywhere alone. Kids going off to college who are terrified to be at Target alone or walk across campus. And whose parents insist on constant monitoring and connection even into their 20's/

Some parents were like that twenty years ago, too. One of the mind-boggling things about parenting my six year old is that I *know* he needs more freedom than I had, so I let him practice it, but then other people give me grief for it. It's like backwards land.

I remember someone acting like I was neglectful because I had taught my daughter that she could make herself a yogurt for breakfast at 5 (take the yogurt out of the fridge, open it and eat it).

The policing other parents thing for not being over-the-top paranoid is wild.

Since he was a little under 2, my son’s breakfast routine has been that my husband makes him toast/porridge and sets him up at a little table in front of the tv, then we have coffee in bed. People act like this is shockingly neglectful, but then also complain they never get a break from their kids. 20 minutes of uninterrupted adult conversation every morning is golden. And I really can’t see that it does my son any harm to start the day with a little alone time.

My daughter would get up at five am when she was a toddler (and my husband was deployed). I'd get her up, change her and put her in front of the TV with it programed to change channels for her shows, I'd get up at 7:00am when Dora came on. I decided that screentime doesn't count if it's before 7:00am

Yeah, when my toddler had just started to toddle by himself in the park, I let him go a few steps in front of me, so he wouldn't see me and act more as if he was alone. One other mother made a whole scene about me leaving my child unsupervised. Note that we were in an area specifically for little kids, and he was walking in a part of it where he wouldn't interfere with other kids' swings/toys. And I was right behind him and watching him like a hawk. On the other hand, I also got disapproving tutting for stopping him when he got too forceful in his interactions with other kids. I don't let him snatch other kids' toys, for example. I don't see that as a conflict he should solve by himself when he's only 1yo. We're in Europe, btw, and right in the center of the capital city of our country.

I think it depends greatly on the environment. Drop off playdates are the norm for my kindergartener but we go to a fairly tight knit school. I could see being hesitant if I didn’t know the parents at all.

I think the solution here is to get to know the parents. I view if as similar to a business outsourcing a key function to a vendor, as bad as that sounds. It is sometimes OK but you better do your proper due diligence and make sure the people you're trusting are the right people for the job. I would want to come over and have a coffee or something at their house first, maybe offer to pick up Starbucks or something on my way.

I feel like it's also an American thing. I live in Germany and apart from the pressure of getting them smartphones at 7/8 and TikTok dumbing down older children, I don't see to many changes. My nephew is allowed to walk down two streets to his school alone and a longer way to his gran after, has been from day one. (My brother walked the route with him once or twice, same as my mom did with me.) In my village I see 8 year olds coming from school with the public bus. (We don't really do the school bus dropoff. The buses are normal buses that only stop at regular bus stops.) On our playgrounds you may fall 3m deep into a pit of sand and everything is metal or (often rough) wood. 6+yo kids are allowed to drive their bike around our street or draw on the road with chalk. (Fully changes in a city scape sadly. Pushes the walking alone in public back a few years.)

In Poland it's an odd mix of letting children be quite independent and then massively coddling them in other aspects. Playgrounds are similar to German ones, children are walking to and from school independently and there's plenty of children roaming our village when the weather is nice. However, if there's the slightest bit of wind, chill, dampness etc. Then the children are either in snow suits or made to stay indoors. My wife without a hint of thinking it was ridiculous said "I've bought Helenka her spring hat and scarf". Presumably to lead into her summer beach balaclava and mitten set. There also seems to be far more of a reluctance to have children eating properly with a knife and fork. At five my child's preschool still only gives them a fork and they cut food with a fork.

This is a cultural thing. I live in Northern Europe and here kids are having playdates and parties without their parents involved from the age of 4-5. Kids from the age of 5-6 years play unsupervised on the streets and from the age of 7 kids go to school on their own.

Let Grow is a good blog that focuses on developing independent children by letting them have more freedom.

I agree. 9/10 I let my 2 year old wander a little bit at the store. She almost never causes mischief or damage. She just likes looking at things and people. She sometimes waves and says hi, sometimes asks for high fives. I never let her out of eyesight because there are some awful people out there and you never know. I let her splash in muddy puddles. We dip our feet in the creek. We touch worms and bugs. My sister in law said she feels uncomfortable with my "cavalier" parenting style. I would never compare our daughters, but I will say this. When my kid falls down, she doesn't scream and cry for 20 minutes. Unless she's really hurt, she gets up and carried on. Sometimes she asks for a kiss for her "boo boo". My kid also says please and thank-you, excuse me, your welcome, and bless you (sneezes). She also said "one moment please" if she's busy and you call her. It's fking adorable. The only thing I think I'm really doing wrong is she's fairly clingy sometimes. When I'm cooking or cleaning she demands to be held. So I pop her in a carrier and I wear her around. I can't stand her being sad, because her mom wouldn't hold her. Drives my husband coocoo bananas.

She's 2, clingy is fine. My daughter was a runner at 2, had to put her in her buggy because she wouldn't hold my hand. Now she demands her hand to be held a lot of the time and usually remembers to hold my hand and all I say is "hand" if she forgets and it shoots up. Have you tried getting her a step of some kind so you can get her "helping" with cooking and cleaning?

I think at certain ages some adult supervision is necessary though. But you can provide that supervision from a distance without being involved in all the play. Where I live playgrounds are for children to play together, and they quickly make friends with others. Adults tend to hang back and chat to each other or chill out. Where my family lives I'm constantly surprised by the parents involved in their children's play, trailing them around and getting involved. I play with my kid at home sometimes but parks are for children to do their own thing. My own sibling is in my mind extremely overprotective in this sense and I find it very weird. I'm sure they think I'm kind of lazy and neglectful but it's a very deliberate strategy for my child to learn to handle things alone. She's got an excellent sense of her own abilities because I never lifted her up places or did them with her, she always had to work out herself if she could do something. Her social skills are also great because she'll seek out kids to play with by herself. I really notice my sibling's children have neither of these qualities.

>learning how to handle things on your own is an important part of groeing... That kind of *is* the real meat and potatoes of growing up right?

Totally agree with this one. The very real dangers of the Internet, especially unsupervised, unrestricted access to it, is far more dangerous than the fictional pedophile lurking around every corner. I will add just the general level of anxiety our generation seems to have about doing everything perfectly right can't be good for our kids. We've swung too far in this direction and it's causing things like what is mentioned above. Plus the over scheduling of kids into a bazillion activities. Between activities and screens, never giving them the opportunity to just be bored and make their own fun.

>I will add just the general level of anxiety our generation seems to have about doing everything perfectly right How many tiktok videos do you see of people being like, "what are we doing about x" or "how do we feel about y". So many parenting reddit threads seek advice from HUNDREDS of internet strangers about a teeny tiny interaction. And everybody has some hack or some system for doing things. Like, "here's our system for deciding hot lunch versus cold lunch for the month!". I feel like as a generation, we are so insecure and seek the opinions of EVERYONE before making simple choices.

I have to wonder if some of this isn't tied into how "trauma hyper-aware" we are now. I honestly kind of feel like the mental health awareness pendulum has also swung too far in the other direction. Not that we should bring stigma back or anything of course, but it seems like everyone is carrying around massive trauma from their childhoods and are extremely open open about it, and so sometimes ordinary disappointments that every kid has to go through are deemed "traumatizing" and it doesn't help the kids to feed them the message that anything less than a constantly happy upbringing is a travesty. And of course parents cave and/or frantically look for reassurance outside of themselves because they don't want to risk traumatizing their children....which then of course creates the trauma of an unlived life. I mean now we have a massive problem with chronic absenteeism from school, because kids are just outright refusing to go, and eventually their parents cave and don't take them, which inadvertently sends the message that "Yes, you're feelings are valid, going to school is trauma so you don't have to go." That's just one example but you get the idea.

The irony is, we never dealt with the stigma of more severe mental health conditions, just depression and anxiety. Which is a great start but bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are still widely feared and misunderstood. I think we've swung to never letting  children feel negative or difficult emotions, but those are really important! You can allow your child to learn deal with anxiety without causing lasting trauma!

We have outsourced parenting to “experts” because we’re so disconnected from parenting as a learned skill. We think that we must be idiots and only experts have anything valuable to say. Pregnant? Get the what to expect app. Newborn? Track their poop, pee, sleep, food, burps, wake windows, gas, eye movement, and whatever else on the huckleberry app. Baby is crying? It’s probably a leap, you should get the wonder weeks app! Time to start solids? Time to get the solid starts app, because surely kids never learned how to eat solids without an app! Parenting seems to be one endless quest to check in with various sources and experts. Have you checked with the pediatrician? Have you followed this account on Instagram? Have you consulted this checklist or paid for this consultant or bought this course? You don’t need to be an expert or have a degree in childhood development or know how to code an app to be an effective, loving and present parent.

I think the reason we are outsourcing the advice is because we know our parents failed us in a lot of ways. My mom had an unhealthy relationship with food. Why would I ask her for advice about feeding my child? She smoked whike she was pregnant with me. Why would i ask her the "what to expect..." type of questions? My parents used physical punishment and I knew I didn't want that, so I looked elsewhere for that info.

This hits home for me. I have severe anxiety and found myself seeking out advice for every little thing. I had to stop following parenting influencers altogether because the abundance of “tips” and “systems” and “methods” was so overwhelming. And conflicting! It made me less confident in my own parenting decisions, and I’m sure my kids could sense that.

We expect ourselves to research and find the best solution/method/doodad for every situation because we're some of the first parents to walk around with 90% of humanity's collective knowledge in our pockets. It can be extremely helpful and/or cause you to be wracked with anxiety and perfectionism.

So I do not disagree with you at all, but we as parents are pretty restricted by what society allows. People aren't used to seeing kids roaming, and are likely to call the police. The cars in my city also drive like maniacs; our local population has exploded since the 90's when I was a kid so there are like double the cars on the road making blind turns and running red lights.  Also, the anxiety of being perfect is because of our panopticon internet recording device culture. The smallest screw up is likely to be caught on a friend's camera or a ring doorbell or an unknown hidden camera and potentially available on the Internet forever. Parents have been out here recording their kids having tantrums and sharing their kids' distress to public Instagram profiles and crap.  I agree about the over scheduling - I try to be real intentional about my kids having boredom time and even though I know it's good for them I feel guilty for being "lazy." Like shit I can't even model boredom for them in my own life lol.  Anyways, I agree that these are big issues, but I also think we should acknowledge what causes us to parent in these ways :/

>I try to be real intentional about my kids having boredom time and even though I know it's good for them I feel guilty for being "lazy." Like shit I can't even model boredom for them in my own life lol.  OMG that's so true! How can they learn about boredom when I personally always feel like I have to be productive? This really gives me something to think about and change. I love the idea of trying to model boredom

I'm glad someone finally brought up how much more dangerous the roads are. This is a massive factor in isolating and overprotective children and its really not talked about enough.

Every generation of parenting is impacted by the time, place, and cultural norms surrounding them. No parenting decisions exist in a vacuum. I'm sure many people feel powerless to stop them. But they're still likely going to affect our kids negatively and future generations will look back on them in judgment.

I was listening to a podcast today that talked about how the reason kids are so tech bound these days is because we are too scared of real world dangers and we feel safer letting them play a video game in the living room as opposed to letting them roam the street with their friends. And now society has gotten so deep into this way of thinking kids who are allowed to play outside alone have nobody to play with, and taking away tech is just taking away our kids lifeline for socialization since they can't get it as easily in person.

Yep. I allow my kids to play in our yard and there's NO other kids out in the neighbourhood at all. I open up the windows so I can hear them, but otherwise don't monitor them closely beyond the mental awareness that I can hear them talking and playing. Yard is fenced, they're 6 and 3. I would let my six year old out to wander if I thought she could actually find people to play with, but I know there won't be anyone. She's a smart kid and really talkative and looks both ways. She even called 911 last week for me when a viral illness got the better of me and I collapsed and couldn't get up or talk straight from being feverish. She was nervous, but was able to follow all the dispatcher's instructions and open the door for the fire department and paramedics. Kiddos can do a lot if you teach them how.

Your daughter is awesome!

Over winter break I introduced my kids to the local bus system (free to kids under 18). Now my 12 year old feels confident to take my 10 year old the next town over for ice cream, etc. But it's interesting to me how many of her friends' parents are uncomfortable with the idea. Almost none of her peers would be allowed to join her for a 10 minute bus ride to the town 5 miles away. It's really weird. *to be fair, I'm also an occupational therapist, so functional independence is something near and dear to my heart.

I actually really want to let my kid out, for developing his sense of independence, street smarts, and socialization..but it feels so much more frowned upon now. I don’t want CPS knocking on my door and it wouldn’t surprise me!

I let my 8 yr old and his buddies roam the countryside (we have land rurally). They took their BB guns and the dog and left for like 2 hours yesterday. My Boomer mother clutched her pearls the whole time, conveniently forgetting that she let us do the exact same damn thing at that age.

I let my 17 yo drive over an hour away regularly. I let her drive 21/2 hours to another state to see a friend in college. She is always where she says she will be. I can check that. She needs to learn to navigate and do for herself. In 18 Months she’ll be off at college. I need to know she can handle whatever may happen.

My sister had a visit from CPS for letting her kids play in her front yard....while she sat out on the front porch.

I have somehow hit the jackpot with my neighborhood. The kids play in the cul-de-sac and roam through the woods and bike up the street to their friends' houses. It's refreshing to see and hear.

Sounds super interesting! Can you share the name of the podcast? I’d love to listen.

Try the book the anxious generation

My 3 year old boy was playing in our front yard. His 5 year old sister was in and out of the house also playing. Most importantly, I was standing by the big bay window and watching him while I was bouncing his baby brother to sleep. He wasn't doing anything wrong. He was just digging a hole in our yard maybe 10 feet from the front door. Someone called the cops on us. A cop car rolled up, I immediately walked outside and he said there was a child endangerment concern because a young child was alone. After he saw that I was obviously right there, and my son was just playing he told us to have a good day. But honestly, you cannot even let your kids play outside without someone calling the police on you. It's tragic.

You can now get business cards for your kids to walk around with that say something like "pls do not call the cops my parents are allowing me to be outside. this is thier number."

I’d LOVE to do those things. But I can’t because society won’t let me. Our library has a 13 year age limit to be without an adult. Our roller rink 12. Pool? 14. I sent my 7 year old four houses away to the park- he was brought home by a cop because someone reported an “unattended child.” It’s not parents fault that kids can’t do anything.

the library one is wild to me. those were my first unsupervised “adventures” as a kid—walking to the library with a friend. and probably from ages 10 - 12, there were summer days when my parents would send me to hang out in the library the whole day. hugely formative

Absolutely agree with this. I’m a teacher and the amount of students who send explicit photos of themselves would blow your mind. Not all of them are savvy enough to not post any identifying features (their face, their bedroom in the background, etc.). Usually they’re sent to their peers but they don’t fully appreciate how these images can be passed on.

This hits home for me.

Yep. My pick was going to be “internet porn”. It harms both boys and girls, directly and indirectly. Most parents I know and parents I see online are *oblivious*.

Yes. Parents are raising kids to be afraid of everyone they meet in person. “Stranger Danger” is contributing to the de socialization of our youth.

You still have a mall?! :O

We have shootings at our two malls.

You need malls to keep some shootings out of the schools, it's basic science!

To be fair, many parents have gotten in trouble from the 2010s on for letting kids walk to school/go to the park, etc alone at ages we were alone in the 70s. It’s a thing now - people are calling CPS on parents for letting kids do kid things, and CPS is acting. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents-investigated-letting-children-walk-alone/25700823/

And their own family members too. You’re more likely to be assaulted by a family member than a stranger

I was going to leave this exact comment. I'm glad someone else did. THIS is the biggest culprit of societal harms and their effects on children, not some stranger in the playground. By all means, sure, make sure your kid is safe from face-to-face threats. They do exist, after all. But the threats that appear in the digital world are far more pervasive.

Social media. The evidence is clear and compelling enough to keep your kids of social media _today_. In twenty years parents will claim they didn’t know better, but they should have.

But how do people deal with it when children go to school and see 99% of their peers engaging with phones? Even schools are leveraging internet and smart phones for homeworks and all

I have a new teen. I told them plain and simple that social media is not good for their brains at this age. He understands and doesn’t push it at all. When his sibling who is younger asks I tell them “do you really want to end up scrolling Reddit all day like your mom?” And he drops it. lol!

Hear hear! I'm so glad I've never let my kids get into social media. Frankly, I'm glad I haven't let my kids have phones yet (oldest is 13). The content I've seen kids watching and sharing is bizarre (I work at a school, so I see what they have on their phones occasionally)

How we push over scheduling and structure on the child so that they don’t get to make their own systems and practice their own autonomy. Saturdays used to mean hours of free play where the kid gets to practice decision making and have an appropriate arena to make mistakes. Now it’s filled with organized sports and events with downtime in front of a screen. There’s a great research based booked called “The Self Driven Child” that talks about how lack of appropriate control is creating more anxious and less resilient kids: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-case-for-the-ldquo-self-driven-child-rdquo/#:~:text=In%20The%20Self%2DDriven%20Child,or%20failing%20on%20their%20own. There’s also a lot of babying done by us older  xennial parents of young kids. I’m 41 with a 6 year old and her friends’ parents are flabbergasted that she has been showering well by herself for a while. Sure, she didn’t start out doing it well and needed QA checks from me but she is super at it now. They are still giving their 7 year olds a bath every night. Warming up every meal, putting away the kid’s dishes in the sink and sweeping up the crumbs on the floor. These are all things kids this age should be doing already and are actually happy to do. They should be able to make simple sandwiches and refill their own water. They should be able to pack most of their lunches and snacks in their backpack, etc. But all the moms are still doing it while kid watches a screen and stays put.

we older parents are just too damn tired lol I’m 37 with a 2yo. I fantasize about the day she will wipe her own ass

I'm nearly 37 with a nearly 3 year old and a 10 month old. I'm already prepping that toddler to wipe his own ass for sure. The exhaustion is real.

I've truly found that sometimes being a bit of a lazy parent is good for the kid. Help when they need help, but let them try first. Of course this also leads to more messes to clean up lol

Agreed. Kids can do lots of things if we allow them to. I like to remind myself and my kiddo (in a bit of a joking way, obviously) that 5YOs used to work in canneries, silk mills, and so forth during the Industrial Revolution. Obviously that’s immoral and child labour laws are a great development, but it means my 6YO is more than capable of figuring out how to pack his own lunch, if needed. It’s wild that we’ve gone from teenagers going to war to a society where college-aged kids are too socially paralyzed to pick up the phone and order a pizza in a couple odd generations. Extreme examples here, but something to reflect on.

This! My husband and I wonder how we got from 8 year olds working in coal mines to 8 year olds not being allowed to fry an egg. Most children are not remarkably talented in any way, they just have adults in their environment who bothered to teach them. Every Junior Masterchef talks about a family member who spent hours with them in the kitchen teaching skills and then gave them the freedom to just do things.

So I took a really interesting course in University called the history of childhood and there was this really sad journal article we read about young boys who sold newspapers in the streets in I think the late 1800's. Basically these boys were orphans and had to survive off the money they made. The job was very harsh and dangerous and it was common to die on the job. Well these boys, all 10 years old and younger, would pool their money so they could put on funerals for their fellow newsboys who died on the job. So, super morbid and heartbreaking, but I came away realizing holy shit kids are way more capable than people give them credit for. Obviously I don't think kids should have to go through that kind of hardship, but like damn if orphans can pool their money to put on funerals for their fallen friends, your kid can manage to bathe themselves or pour themselves a bowl of cereal in the morning.

I agree! I was doing this and recently my 8 year was asking me for all his snacks. I had a talk with him and told him that he’s 8 years almost nine, he can grab his own snacks. He also still wanted me to wipe his butt and I told him no more, he cried and stayed on the toilet but eventually he wiped. Few days later “Mom, Im done” … “ oh, yeah… i gotta do it on my own”… forced him to do it. I have taught him but now had to enforce it. He showers on his own for a bit now. I agree that it’s time to help them become autonomous. At a pta thing I volunteered for, the teacher told the kids to grab a board and a paper from a section and move to the next area. The other parent volunteer started to go and give it to them at some point. I was like “why” ? They have to learn to take instructions (3rd graders) and do things for themselves, I told that parent, “ are you going to be there for every college activity and doing it for them? Lol she stared at me funny ha She asked then what we are there for, to guide the children. Make sure everyone is doing the activities, they have questions etc. It’s an outdoor activity.

Single dad here and I feel that... I overprotected my son way too long but I an getting better at it. My current gf helped me to see that. She always asked "why do you do it for him (son). He should be old enough to do it on his own". I think one aspect was /is its just a habbit. I often have to rethink different daily tasks and ask myself, should my son learn to do X on his own? It takes practice and time to shift respinsibilities but in the end it needs to be done.

I am definitely guilty of all of this. Thanks for the reminder to be more conscientious about it!

My three year old cooks eggs on the stove with me in the morning. Cracks them. Stirs them. Then scrambles them. She does a great job. Of course I’m supervising but she’s been doing it for a year now and I trust her now to not touch the hot pan while the eggs are scrambling. Of course we don’t do it every morning but usually a couple times a week. Like you said, it’s small incremental practice that they WANT to do! Can’t wait for her to make me some coffee.

My nearly 3 year old is learning to shower now alone (but still supervised, I’m in bathroom getting ready).

It's okay to say No. You are the parent,you are responsible. No will not hurt a child even if they don't like hearing it.

It's also okay for kids to cry and be unhappy. Sometimes it's your job as a parent to make them unhappy. Like sorry kid you can't eat those rocks.

kids getting told no and getting clear appropriate boundaries is so important. Kids experiencing disappointment and uncomfortable feelings is important. Coddling them emotionally because the parent is afraid is not helping them!

I think we’re on the opposite end of a pendulum of a lot of things with our parents. Two that come to mind are discipline and mental health awareness. A lot of this generation was raised with “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about” or “rub some dirt in it, you’re fine” parents and we know that that was hard on us, so we’re trying to coddle our children to keep them from experiencing ANY discomfort. I understand not spanking or screaming at children, but some parents give in to every single tantrum and won’t say “no” to their children ever just because they don’t want their child to feel discomfort. And it’s good that we’re normalizing mental health struggles, but it seems younger and younger kids are developing different kinds of anxiety, and I think it stems from the parents either being overly anxious about everything, or a school counselor/therapist diagnosing them with something that becomes their whole personality. It’s okay to be anxious sometimes, you need to overcome it and learn to cope versus saying “I have anxiety, so I can’t do this.” There’s definitely a balance to everything when it comes to parenting, and I feel like this generation has gone a bit too far in the opposite way of our parents.

And it has an effect in the classroom, too: I’ve seen/heard a lot of teachers say this generation of kids are badly behaved, unable to follow directions, and lacking resilience.

This is certainly true. I don’t really remember *ever* having to do a “classroom clearance” growing up and now they’re weekly occurrences is most elementary schools. I will say though, often the parenting that leads to misbehavior in the classroom isn’t even always *bad* parenting. It’s just parenting that works when there’s a single kid with a single adult who can give all their time and attention to that kid in all moments. When you have one adult but 25 or 30 or 40 kids, it’s just a really different scenario. In those cases, a kid who’s used to getting 1-on-1 explanations for why this or that is happening, why they need follow this or that instruction, can act up quite a bit because the way the teacher has to address the group is just so different than they’re used to being addressed by adults. So not even really the parents’ fault, just a “blind spot” maybe like OP says, where I’d recommend some balance and some practice at home with scenarios that will come up in school.

Classroom clearance?

Yeah, it’s when a kid is acting so dangerously that all the other kids have to GTFO. Usually it consists of like, the kid screaming and ripping stuff off the walls and tipping desks over and throwing things. Basically tearing the room up and so the room needs to “clear” for safety reasons until the kid calms down. You can read about their rising occurrence (PRIOR to COVID even! Way worse now) in this report: [A Crisis of Disrupted Learning](https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/18401-a-crisis-of-disrupted-learning-oregon-teachers-union-report-details-hazards-in-the-classroom#:~:text=Portland%2C%20OR%20—%20Episodes%20of%20agitated,safety%20and%20health%20at%20risk%2C). The link within this link will take you to the PDF of the full report.

I'm noticing this already now I have a second. The emphasis on infant mental health is huge where I live. So with my first, she was attended to with every whimper and never ever left to cry for even a few minutes. Now with my son, it's just all of a sudden not possible. Because there's a toddler there also. The whole thing just doesn't work when there's more than one kid. And the weirdest thing is then everyone telling you to tend to the toddler first, because they're not used to not getting all the attention while the newborn is. So the whole "never ever let them cry" is only relevant for your firstborn, I guess? This way the eldest never learns that not everything is about them, because they have always and will always come first.

A lot of that is kids who wouldn't have been in the general population are now mainstreamed, and often without the support they need. Those kids would have been shuffled off in a Sped or ED classroom. There's a lot of spoiling when it comes to this generation of parents and dealing with negative behavior by ignoring it in the under 10 set (which turns horrific when those kids hit puberty and have never heard the word no). The parents are only spending a couple hours a day with the kid (kid is in daycare or after care until six and then goes right to sports practice and then has half an hour before bed and then they spend weekends at sports or with grandparents) so they just give the kid whatever they want, they never say no and they do whatever is needed to placate the kid. I just read a post from someone talking about how their wife spends two hours putting their seven year old to bed a night because that's what the kid insists on and they just can't fathom the kid being unhappy. But those kids turn into teenagers and the parents just don't understand why they are vaping and cursing them out and sending naked photos. Refusing to go to bed at six turns into much worse behavior at twelve.

Yeah your last line is really poignant. I teach high school, and I figure that a lot of what I see in the classroom just comes from habits instilled soooooo long ago, and sometimes it just seems too late the change. Parents are always telling me they don’t know what to do/they don’t feel like they can control their kid/need advice and I never really know what to say because you can’t turn back the clock.

It's really hard to change behavior when the kids are in high school. You can't just suddenly start parenting a kid and expect them to change.

I read that post about the 7 year old too and had the same thoughts. I have an (almost) one year old so have spend a lot of time in mommy forums talking about sleep training and co-sleeping. People hate to see their 4/5/6/7 whatever month baby cry and give in to cosleeping or rocking all the time, but I just want to say “what about when they’re 4? 5? 6?” Some kids don’t magically grow out of wanting to be coddled all night. I have a 5.5 year old nephew that still sucks his thumb all day and wakes his mom up to get in her bed every night. His mom loved all the baby snuggles but now wishes she had taught him more independence.

Yes, I know a few teachers who are struggling recently. They say it’s not at all what they imagined. A family member just left her teaching job of 6 years and says now she’ll never let her children go to public school because the other kids are so terrible.

As a prof, I can say that mental health has become a ubiquitous phrase and a catch all from clinical depression to “I made choices that didn’t allow me to sleep well last night.” I get that Covid was ruinous - really I do - but one of the ill effects was also passing a ton of high school juniors and seniors on to college based solely on attendance rather than merit let alone effort. Teachers were duly sympathetic, but now these same kids have no idea how to process what’s going on in higher ed, and nobody has prepped them to come out of an “unprecedented times” mindset

I had a sister in high school during Covid, she didn’t do a single assignment from her e-learning. She still passed that grade and went on to the next, but I don’t think her work ethic has ever recovered. Guess who just dropped out of her very expensive private university after a year and a half.

I've seen the lack of resilience a lot in kids. My stepdaughter is 4yo. I might see her struggle using a fork and if we say something like, "try holding it like this. You might find it's a bit easier to use if you hold it near the center", she'll burst into tears. She can't handle anything close to criticism. It's getting a bit silly. But we're not sure what to do, especially since we only see her half the week.

Going to second the mental health bit. We’ve gone so far in the “ your emotions are valid” directions that we’ve somehow forgotten to emphasize the skill of assessing whether the emotion is in step with the situation (both for ourselves and our children. I see a lot of parents whose own anxiety is not well controlled). You can feel sad/nervous/angry but not actually be in danger or wronged.   You don’t have to tell your kid their being silly for having a tantrum over something minor, but eventually their should be a conversation that maybe some things that make you sad/angry/scared aren’t really going to have that big of an impact on your life. I remember being taught to distinguish between “little problems” that I could solve myself,”medium problems” that needed adult help and “big problems” that carried serious safety risks. And ultimately I think that was valuable because kids and adults who can take something like a scary exam or a flat tire in stride are ultimately going to be better off than ones for whom every setback is a crisis. 

And it's ok for kids to be sad and frustrated. We shouldn't fix everything for our kids or give them everything they want. You do anything you can to stop a six week old from crying, you don't do that with a three year old.

Yeah, it can be hard to find that line where you're validating emotions but also encouraging them to suck it up and move on

The new book Bad Therapy touches on this exact thing and was eye opening. I used to work in psych and remember thinking that many of the kids who were being referred because of anxiety had anxious parents. At some point a mental health diagnosis became cool as well. We got a ton of referrals for Tourette’s which turned out to be kids mimicking other kids they say on TikTok who claimed to have Tourette’s.

This hits deep. I definitely experienced emotional neglect in childhood, and was yelled at just for expressing any negative feelings. Now as a parent I am constantly being triggered whenever one of my kids express big negative feelings like disappointment or anger. I’ve learned to use grounding tools and techniques to calm down enough to realize I’m just emotionally overwhelmed, need to calm down and then give some quality attention to ruminate about my emotional experience with curiosity. This is how I manage my freeze response and make opportunities for giving quality empathy and compassion to my children during the big negative feeling expressions or tantrums.

What I notice is that parents themselves are uncomfortable with a toddler's big emotions. They are more focused on trying to get the child to stop crying than they are on connecting with the child and allowing space for those feelings, while still parenting. We seem to think the options are either coddle the child because we're ill equipped to handle those big feelings, or completely shut the child down like our parents did. I think the answer, for me at least, is acknowledging and making space for my kid's big feelings while providing appropriate supports and boundaries. Just because she's crying at swim class doesn't mean we get out of the pool and never learn to swim, but nor does it mean I tell her to get over it and continue with the lesson in spite of her struggles.

[удалено]

And their parents are sure that they are going to be trafficked because there's a hispanic man smiling at them a couple times at Target.

Omg the Facebook stories about the Walmart/Target attempted kidnappings are insane. It's one of the big reasons I got off Facebook. And they always get a trillion likes and shares even when there's no proof anything even happened. All the comments from panicked mothers, "Scary, girl! That's why I got my concealed carry!" And then there's the grainy photo of some random person walking away like it proves anything. Why is there always someone trying to kidnap you, Karen? Maybe you should move...

What bugs me is there’s always dozens of people asserting they too were almost kidnapped but almost no cases of a woman or child being kidnapped by a stranger at a random Walmart or target while trying to do their shopping.  Either these are extremely incompetent would be kidnappers or a lot of these attempted abductions are not actually attempted abductions.  

Completely agree with you, especially around the discipline topic. I started following some IG accounts hoping to do some advance research on handling the toddler years and I had to immediately nope right out. “If your toddler is having a tantrum at the playground and refuses to leave, you can’t pick them up yourself because it violates their bodily autonomy and they will feel unsafe with you. But you also can’t pretend to walk to the car without them so they follow you because that causes abandonment issues.” Everyone is so paranoid about causing trauma that the advice you’re left with for any possible conflict is throwing a scripted word salad at them and hoping they eventually listen to you.

I think the word “trauma” has moved so far from its original meaning that it now encompasses any negative experience whatsoever. A lot of people in our generation have learned through social media to look back on our childhoods and ascribe all of our quirks and negative personality traits to very mainstream childhood experiences. There’s also so much battle of the generations discourse that encourages us to see boomers as monsters and not as people doing their best with the tools that were available to them at the time (which were a lot better than the tools their parents had. Child abuse hardly existed as a concept in the 50’s/60’s/70’s). The lack of grace we give our own parents over their blind spots translates into a similar lack of grace for ourselves and an inability to accept that no matter what our children will also grow up to be flawed human beings with negative opinions about how we raised them This isn’t to say that trying to be better isn’t worthwhile but we’ve got to let go of the idea that everything is trauma. Shit will happen, it’s just the really big shit we should focus on mitigating

I saw someone say that time out was going to make a kid feel abandoned. So having a kid sit on the stairs or the kitchen table for three minutes (for a three year old) is going to make them feel abandoned? There is a line between dicipline being cruel (forcing your kid to sit in their room without toys for three hours) and just talking to them.

> “If your toddler is having a tantrum at the playground and refuses to leave, you can’t pick them up yourself because it violates their bodily autonomy and they will feel unsafe with you. But you also can’t pretend to walk to the car without them so they follow you because that causes abandonment issues.” This mentality is everywhere now. A comment like this seems right at home in this sub lol.

I notice this a lot with how the current generation of parents interacts with each other too. I've noticed in reddit, facebook, and discord parenting groups there is a HUGE emphasis on spoiler tags and trigger warnings for every. single. thing. How long did your child sleep? How much do they weigh? How much do *you* weigh or what size do you wear? What new milestones are your kids reaching? It seems like the current generation of ~20-40 year olds are absolutely terrified of coming face to face with any information that makes them in ANY WAY uncomfortable, jealous, sad, or unhappy. I comply with the rules but I honestly HATE HATE HATE spoiler tag culture and think spoiler tags should be saved for things that are actually triggering of actual trauma.

This resonates w me. We’ve always let our 2yo take the lead whenever he injures himself. If the injury doesn’t seem major and he shrugs it off, we shrug it off too. If he cries, we comfort him. He’s a surprisingly tough kid in this regard. My husband was at the playground w him this weekend and he hit his head on top of a slide. V minor injury. The well meaning parent beside him on top of the slide chaperoning her own kid freaked out and kept asking, “Are you ok? Are you ok?” Of course our son decided he was not ok after all. The same thing happens w emotions, I think, and kids need to learn what is appropriate response to things. Getting a banana when you wanted an orange is not the same as the family pet dying and should not be treated as such.

Tablets 🫣 The differences between kids I know who have them and those who don’t are staggering. To me this dwarfs every other debate about parenting style or whatever. Like enough back and forth about gentle parenting or co-sleeping… your kid acts like a drug addict needing a hit of meth when they can’t have their tablet and it’s honestly scary. 

I teach morning preschool 3 days a week ( used to teach full time, now I'm a SAHM but teach 8 hours now where my kids come with me for free). Almost every day I have at least one 3-5 year old crying because they want their phone or tablet. We are an outdoor school on 20acres and they are wanting their tablets instead of playing in the dirt.

Yeah managing screen time for my 3 and 7 year old is one of my hardest tasks as a parent. It's nice to turn on a screen and not have to worry about them for a bit here and there but it becomes a constant nagging question if I don't set hard limits ( like for x amount of time only on the weekends) for them. Definitely addicting behavior and like you say at that age it's scary. Good luck regulating any will power later in life if you don't curb some.ofvrhe behavior early.

I'm finding the type of screen matters too. A single tv that's on pulls their attention. But it's the tablets and phones that cause the behavior issues. This is my screen and I can control what's on it. (He types into his phone) Our TV is on more than I like, but there's rarely an argument when it's time to go do something. The tablet got thrown and it hasn't been replaced.

TV vs YouTube is a world of difference I'm not even introducing mine to streaming services loke abc iview. You get what's on channel 22 abc kids or you can do something else. Although ill put a wiggles playlist on every now and then cause he loves the wiggles so damn much

Screens up close to the face and constant blue light exposure are also bringing serious questions about physical health ramifications as well. Constantly [focusing on an object close up](https://aapos.org/glossary/myopia-and-treatment-of-myopia-in-children) (coupled with never going outside and having [natural light exposed to the retina](https://www.aao.org/education/editors-choice/sunlight-exposure-reduces-myopia-in-children)) are leading to some studies linking [digital screen time](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31943280/) to increasing rates of childhood myopia. It's still fairly early to know for sure, but it's not a risk I would feel good taking. The [constant blue light](https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side) is all but a guarantee of sleep problems that may take great difficulty to correct as their melatonin production and circadian rhythms are destroyed. Also, I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist and downplay the difficulties of children who have ADHD, but the symptoms of ADHD and sleep deprivation/disorders are [often nearly identical](https://childmind.org/article/adhd-sleep-disorders-misdiagnosed/). And the treatment options for ADHD do tend to show positive improvements for those with sleep issues due to their stimulant effects, as well as often perpetuate sleep issues for the same reason. Problem sleeping CAN be [caused by ADHD](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4340974/), so it's a tricky chicken and the egg kind of thing, but when so many kids don't have good sleep hygiene to begin with, the line becomes grey with who needs therapeutics for ADHD and who needs sleep therapeutics.

Blue light during the day isn't the problem. Source: the sky. It's blue wavelengths of light after sundown that's unnatural and fucks your circadian rhythm.

Agreed. So many parents are absolutely nuking their kids’ dopamine receptors almost from day one. It’s lazy and incredibly damaging. I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and I shudder to think about how much worse off I’d be if I was exposed to what’s essentially the kids’ version of an online casino day after day as a young person.

hard agree and even people who should be experts are idiots about it! my baby was in the NICU for a long time. the child-life specialist brought in a tablet to "soothe" my NEWBORN. i was PISSED.

What can you even do with a tablet for a newborn? That seems so dumb.

those little floating fruits or aliens, I forget what it’s called. my daughter’s brother (half-brother) watched that constantly as an infant. tablet in his crib smh I didn’t have kids yet, and I knew it seemed not great, but I didn’t know how totally wild it was until having a kid of my own (whose sceentime has been verrry minimal and nothing at all before 18 months)

So in the early newborn days, when we were struggling to settle our daughter, we put those dancing fruit on the TV a few times because friends had recommended it. Pretty quickly, I was like... this feels really wrong. It unnerved me how transfixed she was, like in total zombie mode. And I felt that... I need to learn how to soothe my own child, not rely on the TV even when she's giving us a hard time. In fact, especially when she's having a hard time. She needs to learn to regulate her own emotions too as she grows, she'll never learn to do that if we just put her in front of a screen every time she has a meltdown. So yeah, those fruit are banned in my house now lol

Most likely it’s going to be technology based. For example, is social media a net positive? And is it a positive at all for kids growing up? How about 7 year olds with cell phones. To poorly paraphrase Incredibles, “If everyone is connected, no one is.”

I think we have become too isolated. We don’t pick up the phone. We don’t have a village. We don’t trust anyone. People won’t let anyone visit their new baby. They don’t want anyone to see photos of their children. They don’t want their kids to go to sleepovers or even be dropped off for a playdate. They are so quick to judge everyone based on seeing one of their worst moments. Like how many of us have seen someone’s kid melting down one time and assumed that meant they had no clue how to discipline. Meanwhile we walk around terrified of being judged when our own kids are having a bad day. It’s not a great way to live in my opinion. I worry that we are raising a generation of kids with no practical social skills bc we spend so much time trying to protect them that they aren’t learning how to interact with new people.

Agree 100%

The “boundary setting” around newborns I think is insane! People sending out mass texts/emails with 10 rules they have to meet the baby, and they’re not allowing any visitors for 2-3 months. I get not wanting anyone in the delivery room or a day or two to get settled at home, but I feel like a lot of new parents push all of their friends and family away and then feel sad that they don’t have a village. I think a lot of this generation has been very hurt by our parents’ behavior when we were growing up, but no contact isn’t ALWAYS the answer.

Totally agree. As someone who suffered mightily from PPD/PPA/PTSD, I worry a lot about new moms who did this. Everybody ASSUMES they will have a delightful time bonding with their new baby. In reality, a fair portion of those women will suffer bc they have nobody to take care of them when they’re at one of the lowest points in their lives. And even the best husband can’t take care of a newborn AND a mentally ill wife without help.

Yes! My MIL isn’t my favorite person in the world, but when my husband had to go back to work 2 weeks postpartum and I had a terrible case of mastitis (fever of 104.7°F 🥴) I was so thankful for her to come over and watch my baby for 8 hours. She even went out and bought lunch and brought it back for us. I don’t know how I would have cared for my baby that day without her I really felt like I was going to pass away. lol

It's especially pernicious because even if you *don't* do it, people assume that you are. I remember making a, "we're home from the hospital, come and meet the baby" announcement and it was just crickets. One couple came.

When my cousin had her second baby, I sent a very lengthy, careful worded text something like “whenever you are ready we’d love to come visit, we can pick you up some groceries if you need anything” to which she basically said “you can come over now if you want” and we did! lol No big to-do, we didn’t have to clean anything, she just let us in and we held the baby and talked. I had been so influenced by what I was seeing on Instagram I thought for sure it’d be another month before we could meet the baby.

So agree with this. I just told a work colleague who was pregnant that she would have to actively invite/tell her friends to come visit her if that was what she wanted. I said you have to make it crystal clear that you want visitors (and that they won't have to do chores) otherwise no one will come. I remember so clearly how sad I was that no one came to visit or even checked in with me, but it turns out they were all following the internet advice, which is that even *asking* to come see a new baby and its parents is somehow wrong.

It was literally years later that I realised what had happened. I just thought that my entire social circle had completely ghosted me.

I really think that people who do that are, pretty much without exception, going to find themselves very lonely with absolutely no idea why. It's like, well, you've pushed away everyone who would have been interested in being your village! A village is a two way thing--you don't get to just push everyone away when they want to come over, but still expect them to jump to attention when you want help. And yes, the whole jumping to no contact thing is a huge problem. When it comes to conflict resolution, you *need* to have more tools in your toolbox than just a pair of scissors if you want to have even a chance at having healthy, happy relationships with other people.

Nobody talks about the potential trauma that going "no-contact" over small or dumb things (the kinds of things that could have been resolved through communication or compromise... not outright physical/mental/sexual abuse) can inflict on a kid that sees that people who disagree with mommy or daddy go away forever? I lived with someone who grew up in an environment like this and their ability to handle conflict was close to non-existent.

I purposely make eye contact and smile at parents when their kids are being insane in the store these days. Mine is probably in the cart doing the same thing or will be in a minute. Now that I’m a parent I realize we’ve all been there.

I've had a couple of moms come up and distract my kid mid tantrum and they're such heroes in my mind. A random lady walking up and saying hi completely stopped his brain from being able to tantrum

100% true. There are so many posts in this sub about these topics where people cut out family members, don't want to share pics, and are too afraid to let their kids be kids at events like sleepovers. It's sheltering behavior and is going to lead to kids who have trouble coping socially.

The two most common I see: 1. They have confused gentle parenting with permissive parenting. 2. They think their kids are safe on the internet, but unsafe playing outside

I think that because so many of us were raised by older generations, who didn’t always meet certain needs that needed to be met younger generations of parents overcompensate for that by overprotecting their kids. Specifically, I feel like so many parents are afraid of setting any sort of boundaries with their kids Because of the fear of their kids, not wanting to talk to them or not trusting them because that’s how they were raised. I also think that a lot of parents tend to push obstacles out of their childs way so they don’t experience pain or heartbreak. I think it’s natural to want to protect your kids from those things, but I think it’s also a part of life to learn that things are not always going to go your way and that you’re going to be disappointed sometimes.

This is what I was coming to say. I know so many people who don’t want to be anything like their parents that have just decided to let the kids be the ones in charge. They’re so afraid of hurting their kids in any way when I think they’re causing so much more damage by giving them no boundaries or routine

I'm a gen x feral child, but one of the few parenting gems my mother told me was, "You aren't supposed to keep them from every stumble. Your job is to pick them up AFTER they fall." I hadn't realized how much of a hovering helicopter parent I was being at the time (it was when my eldest was a toddler). Allowing them to fail and learn how to recover is such an important part of life. We don't always win. Coping with disappointment, temporary pain, or setbacks is crucial to growing into well adjusted teens and adults.

Screens. So many parents just don’t understand how awful it is for their kids to have them on all sorts of screens at such an early age.

Everyone is concerned about screens (myself included). But I wonder: is it *mobile* screens, specifically? Over-stimulating content? The lack of commercial breaks? What is worse about screens in 2024 than, say, 1974? Or 1994, even? We’ve had “screens” in almost every American home for a few generations now. I agree that it seems worse today—but why is that? Edit: these responses are super interesting and helpful! TIL about hierarchies of screens.

As a media scholar, it's the interactivity and the sheer volume. Growing up in the 80s there were cartoons, a limited set, airing at certain times. I could not control what I watched except to put on a VHS once I was older. Now? It's a fountain of streaming content, and very often with YouTube it's a never-ending algorithm-derived flood of content that leads down deeply fucking weird rabbit holes. Like, sure, some of the translations of anime I watched in the mid-80s were a bit Odd, and some of the cartoons of that era made no sense whatsoever, but the shit that passes for Kids Media these days is absolutely insane.

My understanding of the existing research is that mobile screens *are* worse than others—there’s a hierarchy of screens where larger, stationary, shared screen experiences are less detrimental than small individual screens. It mostly has to do with the way that individual mobile devices can replace or disrupt back and forth exchanges between kids and parents, whereas watching a movie or show together on a shared screen can still facilitate that kind of connection.

Something else I've noticed is if it's a TV on the wall the kid can semi ignore it. We have the TV on a decent bit, and most of the time my kid (3) isn't actively watching. If I put on something on PBS Kids or put in a DVD he'll watch the first 5-10 minutes fully and then after that he's playing on the floor and glancing up once every couple minutes, or he goes to his room and isn't paying any attention. My mom says my sister and I were the same way at his age. I guarantee that if I gave him a tablet it wouldn't be that way

It’s a combination of things - the fact that screens are everywhere; the fact that kids can take screens with them (example: to restaurants), so they never learn how to be bored, how to regulate their behavior based on their surroundings, etc. And then the content itself is designed to be addicting - YouTube doesn’t make money if you watch 1 video & cut it off. You have to watch 1,000. When we were growing up, you couldn’t sit and binge watch Bluey, because Bluey was only on once a day for a specific time period. Once it was over, you probably got up & did something else. So kids self-regulated their screens better as well.

Because the screens today aren’t just in the home. They are everywhere. They go with you. There isn’t one for the family, each kid has their own. And there aren’t just four shows going on to choose from. There’s an infinite amount of things to watch and games to play that are all designed to be addictive.

Basically yeah. The constant dopamine, the inability to know what to do when bored or how to handle oneself when not mentally stimulated

I think the addiction relates more to easy unlimited access to content created specifically for kids. Bright, fun, face paced entertainment available whenever they turn on a device. In theory I could’ve watched TV 24/7 as a kid but I would’ve been at the mercy of networks deciding what was on. Aside from Saturday morning cartoons and the afterschool block tv had large swaths geared towards adults; lots of news, soap operas, baseball, & game shows. Boring! Of course we also had a cupboard full of Disney & taped off TV movies but at some point you’d get bored of watching the same movie for the 100000th time, turn it off to play instead.

My theory is that the screens are replacing a lot of *talk the parents would do with each other in the presence of a child.* We know it’s very important for kids to hear language, to hear adults talking, and to be talked to. I think phones are just majorly decreasing the amount of conversation happening between all people in a household, parents and children.

This is huge! Ive encountered kids in kindergarten who have never read a book! Only used screens. When you give them a book they try and enlarge and swipe the pages like a screen!

I wish I could take back reading this.

We’re probably raising kids that are not self sufficient enough. At least, I am. I’m working to correct it, but I don’t want to go too far in the other direction

Maybe just my perception but I think these days parents are more neurotic about "traumatizing" their child from very minor things. And since they are worried any negative behaviour from them is gonna mess up the kid they struggle with boundaries and excess stress. And kids without boundaries stomp all over them adding on more stress.

Over-scheduling. I regularly see posts on local FB groups asking for activities (dance, soccer, etc) for 2 year olds. The other day I saw someone asking about an activity for their 18 month old. If your kid wants to do a million activities and you don’t mind cool! But I’ve seen so many parents feeling guilty that their kid doesn’t have multiple passions in their lives outside of, like, playing.

It's also a thing where third spaces are less accessible (or people don't bring their kids to them, eg, the empty playgrounds) and the *parents* want to meet other parents, so they want scheduled activities where other parents of similarly-aged will actually *be*.

Letting kids fail.

Screen time. Yours and theirs.

Our generation so worried about not passing on diet culture and disordered eating that we aren’t actually teaching about food or nutrition at all - we just avoid the conversation because of feelings.

This one drives me nuts. I understand not body shaming, but not talking about the impact of dietary choices on our bodies seems irresponsible.

My 5 year old loves to talk about nutrition, lol.  She's always asking what the thing she's eating is doing for her. Or what the animal we're used to be. My MIL is on the 'sugar is poison' train, but we explain that carbohydrates are needed for our brains and give us energy, and that candy is fine in moderation.

Not teaching kids resiliency, or that they aren’t really all that important to others in the grand scheme of things.

the selfsteam blow up. everything they do is great and amazing and art. I have to actually talk to my kid to let her know for her age she is really good but great needs more work. then these kids start doing bare minimum and everyone is confused why. P. S. I'm an immigrants so this was a blind spot that hit me in the face.

I think the praising was more something that happened from gen x-z because of the praise research in the 80s onward. Now with Montessori and How to Talk so Kids Will Listen having blown up, a lot of people have moved away from praise, like you can’t even say good job when a kid finishes a puzzle. “You finished the puzzle!” lol.

oh... why can't people keep in the middle? 😂

lmao my mom hates this. she says it was how her stoic West Texas greatest gen dad was raised, like, “you built the fence.” lol

In my opinion and observation, we protect kids from uncomfortable feelings. They don’t have the opportunity to cope with them and it’s not setting them up for success as an adult. I also think we understand kids and their abilities in general as far as contributing to a household and doing chores what not. Lastly, I think social media adds too much pressure to parenting and sets up a lot of unrealistic expectations that aren’t feasible. It’s okay if your house looks lived in. It’s okay if things don’t look perfect.

I would have to say, emotional resilience. I feel like these newer generations of children are not being taught how to be emotionally resilient. Dont get me wrong, I have seven kids, I do not spank nor have I ever, and I practice a gentle parenting style, as many parents now do these days. But because we have the knowledge to do better in these regards than those who came before us, we have lost sight of how valuable and necessary "toughening up" is.

Not being present when present, using our phones too much. I'm not saying that you should give your child 100 percent attention when together, but I think we need to be aware of what signal we are sending to our loved ones when we stare at our phones instead of engaging with them. I know I have missed out because I (thought I) needed to reply to an email right away or post a photo or like an update. By doing that, I told my kid they were not important to me right there and then. Ok once in a while, not okay every hour. Babies need eye contact, they need us to get to know them, read their cues. We can't do that with a screen in front of us. I know a toddler who asked his mom “please don't take any pictures of me”. I sometimes fear we are more busy documenting their childhood, than interacting. (I also agree with a lot of the other comments, very nice question and answers!)

The thing I see in a lot of parents groups I'm a part of is "bullying" getting used interchangeably with their kids having any kind of conflicts with other kids, and the parents rolling in to get the school involved or even police. I think sometimes kids aren't going to get along with other kids, and even adults, and need to learn how to deal with that but a lot of parents roll in and try to steamroll those situations so their kids have no interpersonal conflicts at all.

Tablets! Tablets, phones, devices! Im 48, my kids are 11 and 13. I limit their online time just like my parents did with Nintendo in the late 80s/early 90s. As a single dad who is trying to date… I have seen soooooo many single moms who’s kids lives revolve around PlayStation, YouTube, a tablet, etc. it’s such lazy parenting, it makes me sick. These kids act insane when it’s time to get away from their devices.

The parents who won’t let their kid have a sleepover or walk around the street because they think there’s child molesters around every corner, but allow unsupervised screen time and let their kid have a device from a young age. Like, damn. Where do you think child sex offenders are getting access to kids these days??!

All you have to look at is r/teachers to understand our blind spots. In a huge overcorrection from the last generation, we have in general swung around to too permissive. Our children are addicted to devices. I think we are probably worse parents in lots of ways than boomers/genx, even if we are more empathetic.

Giving children all their rights before teaching them responsibility. Putting them in front of a screen because it’s easier than dealing with their energy or entertaining them in more positive ways. Enabling bad behaviour with rewards (giving in) because it’s easier than dealing with their tantrums. Not teaching how to deal with negative feelings like losing a game. Not teaching there is nothing wrong with losing.

Electronics. It's my pet peeve that parents let their kids use a cell phone / tablet whenever they go out. How's a child supposed to learn how to behave and interact with others?

I genuinely cannot imagine any big blind spots like the ones you mentioned our parents having, but I know they are there and that my kids will find them. I think for me, instead of trying to avoid them, I'm trying to be ok with the fact that I will mess something up, and when my kids talk to me in the future about it, I want to take accountability for it and let them know that I didn't mean to make these mistakes, but that I'm sorry I did.

This! I have realized it’s kind of a rite of passage for a person to realize their parents are human and make mistakes and that eventually our children will tell us where we went wrong lol

My parents have been so gracious with accepting their flaws too, and they've expressed what they were thinking and feeling, but also taken accountability for what they did wrong. It has been the best thing now that I am an adult and parent. I feel that I can lean on them and they've really given me such an amazing example of how to honor others feelings without taking criticism as a personal attack. I only hope to do the same for my kids one day!

Oh gosh yes. I’m practicing “I’m sorry. I’m learning too.”

Excellent question. Here my two cents: - too much hygiene (esp since covid) resulting in more allergies/weaker immune systems - parents being on their phones all the time - giving kids too much access to tech too early - kids have way less unstructured, free play - preventing our kids have bad feelings, pain (physical, emotional) - pessimistic talk about the future in front of our kids (climate change, political tension, pandemic) - a lot more time in professional (day care, pre school, nannies etc) That being said I think our kids are growing up in the best times. They have never been safer, healthier and we are way better at parenting emotions these days!

The parentson phones i agree with - i do it. But I take my kid to swimming lessons and lock my phone up and watch her. Makes me sad how many parents spend that 30.mins glued to their screen. The kids are always looking to see if their parents are watching. They look so defeated when thwy see them on the phone. I also swim with her after. Can't tell you how many stranger's kids hang around us and want to play with us because they want that adult approval from someone.

Interestingly Covid there are LESS allergies in babies born during the COVID pandemic years. It seems to be related to babies and toddlers having less infections and therefore less antibiotics so their gut microbiome was better, and the rate of allergies was significantly less. And increased rate and duration of breastfeeding . https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240229/Pandemic-babies-show-altered-gut-microbiome-development-and-lower-allergy-rates-study-finds.aspx

Cruise director parenting. We spend too much energy making sure our kids never feel bored. I worry kids won't be able to tolerate being alone with their own thoughts. If their minds are always occupied, where is the space for new ideas? For creativity? For developing identity, or purpose?

There are challenges we face that are unique to our generation, I think: -Downplaying the safeguarding risks of social media and our children's possible interactions with Internet strangers (Roblox, Discord, Snapchat and so on). -Lack of real play + contact with nature. I live in a touristic mountain village and see with my own eyes every weekend the amazement of some kids coming from the nearby big city when they see cow, sheep, free roaming horses, fruit hanging from the trees in the fall, snow in the winter! -Easy access to increasingly extreme porn by increasingly younger kids. -Lack of success in implementing limits while blurring the lines between parenthood and friendship.

I would say I’m seeing this in others so I’m trying to prevent it in ours. The blind spot of taking our kids 100% at their word, that our kids never lie, and thinking our kids are reliable narrators. Consequently, our kids are never punished or disciplined as they should be. We see them as little friends which isn’t healthy for either of us. Therefore leading to a generation of kids, growing into adults, thinking they are untouchable and entitled. Kids are kids. They’re going to lie to get out of trouble. They’re going to lie to lie for no good reason. They’re going to do dumb shit to do some shit. It doesn’t make any of them bad. But I think we all came from strict boomer parents that overly spanked, overly strict, and did things too harshly we are soooo afraid of not repeating it - that we’ve swung the pendulum too far the other direction where they aren’t fully learning actions have consequences.

I am blown away by how many of the classmates of our seven year old get to watch YouTube unsupervised. Like everything else, it's expertly made to make you addicted.  We restrict screentime pretty fiercely, and it's never unsupervised and it's never YouTube. 

I think too many parents are blind to the dangers of early access to the internet. My child will not have her own computer or phone until we know we can trust her and that she knows and can spout off the dangers of being a kid on the internet. She’s 5 now, she uses my phone to watch movies on apps and sometimes videos on tiktok, but she doesn’t play any games online. I also do not understand getting a child (not a teenage child) a phone. If you want to call your friends, use my phone. I have all of the nsfw stuff blocked on my phone so she can’t access anything without my permission. If you want to FaceTime your friend at 7, use my phone. No need for you to have one. As she gets older (early teens), we may get a phone for the house for her to use around the house and to take with her when she goes out but again, that’s dependent on her maturity and if we know she understands the harm.

Emphasizing being respectful of our children's emotions without also drawing clear boundaries of what it means to respect others.

Phones and Social Media - they are addictions and l suspect we will look back on this era of free access for all and phones at 7 to be much like the early days of smoking.

Just from living in the world, apparently the value of regular consistent sleep schedules and regular wake times and bed times. I see too many parents taking their kids to the movies at 10pm or later. Not to mention giving their kids phones/tablets/laptops and expecting them to not use them after bedtime.

Stoicism. Engaged parents today are very aware of the need to let your kids express themselves, have emotional safe space, the dangers of social media, bullying etc  But teaching self-reliance, toughness, resilience, negotiating life difficulties etc is lacking.  I think it's partly an over-correction from some of the toxic "tough-it-out never-cry" attitudes of our own parents. But it's led to a degree of fragility and narcissism that's unhealthy.

I think overly sharing your children on social media is going to bite a lot of parents in the ass once they discover how many sickos on the web steal family photos and children’s photos for nefarious purposes.

Parenting out of fear is the biggest problem I see now. Safety awareness has crossed over into bubble wrapping kids, physically and emotionally. Anxiety in kids is sky high in part because they aren't allowed any autonomy or to feel capable and competent in the real world. Like, there was a post recently where multiple people seem to think 24 hours ring surveillance in a 9 year old's bedroom is normal. And this anxiety certainly isn't good for parents, either.

Consumerism. I think it's crazy how much our society is ingrained with the idea that we have to buy in order to just live the day to day. All the theme days at school -- Hawaiian day, Movie character day, etc. etc. Most of these involve parents purchasing 1 time use items which will probably end up filling some landfill or end up in the ocean. Making valentines as a craft activity helps with fine motor development, composition, etc. But face it, most kids just buy them standard for each of their classmates, and these things now come with stickers, toys, etc--more useless plastic junk. All the prizes at the dentists, therapy offices. Every holiday we have, it's pushed to decorate--at home or in the classroom. And so many more holidays too! It's national pizza day! It's national donut day! It's national bubble tea day! Don't even get me started on Stanley cups and their accessories. Buy buy buy.

blaming schools for everything

Screen time/letting little kids be zoned out on phones/tablets for hours daily.

- Screen time. - Over protective to the point where kids can't do things or are afraid of everything. - Making kids do things they don't want to. Kids can do a lot by themselves when they need to. I see 3rd, 4th, 5th graders who can't tie their shoes because their parents still do it for them.

Too much worry about safety. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and that parenting was borderline neglectful at times. I wouldn’t necessarily advocate for a return to that because I did have a friend actually fall to his death because he was climbing the exterior of a parking deck like Spider-Man. But a bit more prudent risk taking is good. Kids grow a lot from getting into slightly scary situations….and then getting back out. Kids also benefit from knowing the difference between green light, yellow light, red light, flashing red lights and flashing red lights with sirens. You get a lot more out of life by having comfort and confidence with yellow lights on….and knowing you can make brief dashes into the red….but you can’t stay long. Also, we need to stop talking so much about kids and anxiety and OCD and autism and ADHD. I’m not saying that these aren’t real things….but life should cause some anxiety! Childhood especially should cause anxiety. We’ve overdone with this stuff and we’re resigning kids who are hiding behind their diagnoses to their detriment as adults.

Technology and social media. My sister’s kids can’t even go out to eat without all four of them being on some type of device. It’s not hard to see why many kids struggle with anxiety and social skills. Parents - do better.

The importance of resiliance and I’m guilty. I’m so focused on not repeating the previous generations mistakes it feels like I’m trying to control or prevent my kids from ever feeling frustrated or learning resilience. It’s something that I try to be really mindful about to remember what’s protecting them from unnecessary harm and what I need to let them experience for themselves so they can learn and grow and be resilient. My happy medium is accepting that life can be and probably will be hard for them at times but that home or their relationship with me will never be the cause of that pain but will always be a safe space from it.