Paint a picture for me: how do you parent?
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Anonymous
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benign neglect.
massively limit screens. books all over the place. not too many choices. |
Anonymous
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I focus on building a good relationship and secure attachment. “Discipline” never really sat well with me, and permissive/positive didn’t work too well. The way that positive reinforcement and punishment are applied by parents really isn’t the way it is applied in behavior science, actual behavior science is far more complicated than sticker charts or time outs (according to my good friend who holds advanced degrees in the field).
I remember reading that when children are infants, we spend 95+% of the time engaged with them, and only 5% on “correcting” or managing their behavior. But this flips as kids get older, and 95% of our interactions are corrections or managing them. And of course they don’t listen, because we don’t have a good relationship anymore. For example, at the playground last night, I watched as a dad constantly micro-managed his son’s behavior, but never actually *played* with his son. But if they had played together, everyone would have had a much more enjoyable time, and dad would have been able to redirect the son when needed. This also aligns with what I’ve read from Gottman Institute, where good relationships of any type have 20 positive interactions to every negative interaction. So for us, it’s a lot of interaction with my undivided attention. Because that’s often what kids want more than candy, screen time, everything used to bribe them - they really just want attention and interaction from their parents. At the playground, I play with the kids. At home, I participate in crafts/playtime/homework/etc. We have small rituals for greetings and goodbyes. I take my time and don’t rush them. Very, very limited screen use so we can spend more time together. Lots of touching and affection. I try to establish a connection before stressful situations - for example, we wake up 10-15 minutes earlier to spend time cuddling, talking, making eye contact, engaging, etc before we start the morning routine of getting ready (this was a game changer for me, SO much more agreeable than the constant nagging and stress). When we have conflict, I try to use it as a way to build relationship and have them think for themselves. Happy to give any tips/tricks/resources is anyone is interested. It’s worked really, really well for us, and I get so many compliments on how well-behaved my kids are. Also worked really well for my dogs, too, ha. |
Anonymous
Would be really curious to know the working/SAH breakdown of some of these responses. I wish I had the mental energy/time to think this hard about parenting my kids but we are just trying to stay afload. 
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Anonymous
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My boys are 5 and almost 3 and extremely wild.
What I’ve found is 2 things: 1. It straight up does not work for me to be alone with both of them. They get manic and competitive and hang on me and both talk to me simultaneously and I am unable to handle it. I don’t allow myself to be put in that situation, which basically means that I have to be extremely aggressive with DH-otherwise he will check out or disappear into the bathroom or garage or zone out on his phone. NOPE. I refuse to do this alone. 2. I do enjoy my children one on one, so I seek out time with each of them individually and avoid ever being alone with both at once. 3. We hired a weekend nanny. She comes from 4-8 PM on Saturday and 8-1 on Sunday, so I get a break. Having a job helps. Small doses helps. Avoiding time alone with both of them at the same time helps. It’s still much harder than I thought and while I’m obsessed with my 2 yo, I think I would have done better as a mom of 1. |
Anonymous
Also I don’t really play with my kids. Sometimes we play board games or bake together, but not often. I enjoy swimming, biking, walking with them sometimes, or outings like to the pumpkin patch. Sometimes reading books together is ok. I HATE HATE HATE going to the park with them, or doing pretend play, or getting on the floor and doing trucks or whatever. I never do those things. We outsource a lot. |
Anonymous
| Two DCs, 8 and 4. We don't yell or spank but I definitely have a Tone and a Look that I use when I need to get them to pay attention and do something or cut something out. It usually works for the 8yo, not really for the 4yo--they usually have to have a time out for a couple minutes. Things are mostly calm and happy, though the house is always a mess and getting them to pick up their stuff is a struggle. I don't get down on the floor and play with them but there is lots of singing, goofing off, going out to the pool, pumpkin patch, etc. We limit screen time to the afternoon, after lunch or nap, usually 1-2 hours--they know they can't watch all day so there's no struggle about that, but I don't really care if they zone out in front of the TV for a bit every afternoon. The best parts are reading and snuggling at bedtime; we don't skimp on that even if it means bedtime is later. That's the best time for us one-on-one. |
Anonymous
Ugh this is my Achilles heel too. And it is so ridiculous. I am yelling at them to stop yelling (and fighting).  And then half the time they get upset with me for yelling (maybe because I'm calmer in different contexts), which I suppose if nothing else, cuts the conflict short. It is such a trigger for me -- just sensing that escalating fight in the background.
Also, getting out the door is weakness. I seriously have to hold my tongue and just count down to myself and I still get snappy because *every day* someone is not getting ready, someone forgets something, someone spills something 1 minute before we leave, someone is whining, someone has lost one shoe. Parenting has really exposed that one of my worst attributes is impatience. |
Anonymous
I LOVE your philosophy. I want ALL your tips and tricks please! I try hard to do most of what you said but I get so irritated and I correct way too much. How do stop yourself from doing that? |
Anonymous
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We're peaceful in the sense that there's not chaos or screaming but we're not peaceful like a fancy museum where nobody is allowed to speak above a whisper. DH and I are often chatting with the kids, we involve them in whatever we're doing if they want to spend time with us, we do a lot of activities out of the house, there's gentle teasing but nothing to the point of people's feelings getting hurt. DH and I agreed before the kids were born that we would not hit or otherwise physically discipline. We only yell if the kids are far away or it's noisy or there's a safety issue (like they're in the road and a car is coming).
We are very quick to correct bad behavior - often just their name and a shake of the head. Sometimes it's "Do you want to go home right now?" And going home would mean going to sit in front of a wall - not going home and watching a screen or playing with toys. We're also quick to notice if they didn't listen. "Oh wait, you can't play with that because you didn't put your shoes away - your airplanes will wait while you go do that - hurry quick before takeoff!" We also allow very little screen time - FaceTiming relatives is fine, but until starting kindergarten there was no screen time unless we were on an airplane or they were on the couch sick. We were very firm about sleep and food, never deviating from their schedule by more than a half hour. Minimal sugar, though they get desserts a few times a week. |
Anonymous
| We have a high energy 3 year old and a newborn. I really appreciate this thread. We have been struggling to figure out how to effectively parent our older child even before the baby came, and now it is so much harder. |
Anonymous
This is me too, except our oldest has anxiety/emotional regulation challenges so we DO snap and yell but it’s only when all other options have been exhausted and YOU NEED TO PUT YOUR SHOES ON. My therapist told me it’s better to “rupture and repair vs never rupture at all.” We aren’t perfect but life with our kids is pretty fun and satisfying. We decided against a third though, parenting like this is exhausting in its own way and we didn’t think we’d be able to be as calm and present as we wanted to with one more in the mix. |
Anonymous
Mom of only (by choice) 2yo girl here. There is a lot of joy and love and laughter, but we are old-fashioned -- parents are the boss. No spanking, rarely yelling. Think "Bringing Up Bebe" (we are not French but we have a similar style -- you must sleep when I want you to sleep, eat what we are all eating, etc -- enforced gently but firmly). Household is not kid-driven. We go out to eat a lot and (in normal times) travel a lot and expect her to behave herself, within reasonable limits. |
Anonymous
I should add, lots of independent play. I laughed at "benign neglect" phrase mentioned above but pretty much. |
Anonymous
| Hunt gather parent book has a lot of great tips that work well for managing kids ages 3 and up. Entertaining author, too. |
Anonymous
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A mixed bag here. We have one 8-y-o. We both currently WAH-- DH has done so for years.
We are a very fun and very loving household, I think-- DH is very playful but also a nurturer, so not just a "Disneyland Dad." He knows and takes care of our kid's needs. I know "DD" is more of a divorce term, but I think a lot of dads can be this way-- either fun until they hand them back to mom, or fun until it's not fun (can't handle discipline or swings wildly in the other direction). I'm less playful, but very engaged in other ways-- book reading, crafts, just chatting, etc. We listen to our kid and talk to her somewhat "like an adult" (I think just "like a person"). While she doesn't make all or almost any of the decisions, she has some input into most of them, within reason. We ask very little of our kid we don't ask of ourselves, which means we model apologizing, trying to keep calm, perseverance, etc. We avoid both punishments and rewards. Kid is strong-willed but also kind. Since she's an only but an extrovert, she has her own challenges at times-- especially during COVID-- but we do the best we can. That said-- all this fun, creative thinking, engagement, flexibility and constant learning and reevaluating is the positive side of the fact that DH and I both have ADHD dx. There are therefore also-- obviously-- lots of challenges. Executive function in terms of child/household management is actually surprisingly decent, because as a mom, I've sort of had to step up/forced myself to. My kid's permission slips are always signed, she's never late to school, etc. And because DH and I were together a very very long time before she was born, we know each other incredibly well and are much better able to resolve issues peacefully-- which is NOT our natural state! But we put a lot of work into it. We are nearly no-screen when it comes to the kid-- or at least almost none of what other parents would consider screen time. She uses the computer for schoolwork now, but not so much at home since they're back in person. We will sometimes catch an instructional video together on YT before doing some project. FaceTime with family sometimes. That's about it. No TV, no game systems, no tablets, not even family movie night, though we will catch one a few times a year. I'd say most of the reason for this comes from 1) having ADHD ourselves and knowing we could have very easily been tempted to "catch a break" via screens from infancy or toddlerhood, and that slippery slope would have been a whole mess, especially for me and 2) again, having ADHD ourselves, knowing our kid had a much higher than average chance of having it (jury's kind of still out, but she probably doesn't), and knowing screen time can be a trigger for ADHD and/or exacerbate it. So we just delayed and delayed, and now our household is the way it is. I love not having to manage or argue about it or set limits-- I know that won't last forever, but we are taking things very slowly, which I think has benefited everyone. It certainly has given me much more confidence as a parent that I can handle [whatever]-- which may not be a problem for everyone, but I'm highly anxious and no woman in my family has been a SAHM basically in history. I was a WAH/SAHM for 5 years and had to kind of forge my own path. For ME, not having screens as an option, when it could have easily been MY go-to for everything, helped me develop other skills more fully. I know other families are perfectly happy with their screen use and that's awesome. That said, although we have tried to work around and with our ADHD, we can be somewhat volatile, throw mini adult temper tantrums on rare occasions, and be snippy/irritable more frequently. Neither DH nor I are consistently patient people-- I mean, for obvious reasons. Our house itself is a challenge-- I've worked on using techniques like KonMari, but we both started WAY behind the 8-ball with ADHD, so cleanliness and neatness... ebbs and flows, but mostly ebbs. Which makes me more irritable, so... We have trouble sometimes with boundaries, all ADHD-related. We aren't so much afraid of our kid's reaction, though she is, again, strong-willed and passionate. It's more just ADHD things-- time blindness, hyperfocus... the evening "gets away from us," though we've improved in many ways. I am very evidence-based (my mom is a scientist) and not afraid to ask for help, so we're currently seeing a family therapist, but she keeps telling us we're kind of already fine. Which is nice to hear, but I think our challenge as an ADHD household is that we really do already know and believe almost everything we're "supposed to do"-- and can talk an excellent and sincere game about it!-- but still struggle somewhat in implementation. Still, since I'm anxious, it's not terrible for me to hear that maybe I just need to be a little kinder to myself and take a bit of pressure off, that I'm more than a "good enough mom," etc. I know that was long (did I mention I have ADHD?!) but I think in the end... Are we a peaceful household? Not really. And I'd like it if we were more peaceful. Are we a fun, loving household? Yes. Do we try really hard? Most definitely. |