Elementary forum makes me realize how little parents care about the right things

[Anonymous]

I assumed this thread was going to be about how so many parents only seem to care about surface level status signaling with their kids, but not actually important things like teaching them right from wrong, how to navigate friendships, how to be emotionally resilient, how to be independent, etc.

I feel like a lot of parents are just interested in securing their kids a good social position and popularity via the right clothes and parties and sports/activities, and don't really put much effort into actually parenting.

I don't see the dichotomy OP is describing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We come from a long line of equestrians. My great-grandmother rode in her old age and died from complications from a riding fall. Yet it's hard for me to say no when one of my kids really wants to ride. I'm a worry wart, so I researched helmets and found a new type that's more protective than others: the MIPS protection system. For a while we were at a barn that did not prioritize safety, and I'm glad to be out of that environment. We are now at a really excellent one that takes safety seriously: they choose well-trained, even-tempered horses to begin with, take good care of them, and conduct lessons in large spaces with no more than 4 horses at a time (crowding during a lesson is a known cause of rearing, bucking and accidents). DD knows that she needs to listen to her horse's signals, sense how it's feeling and prevent all triggers that might get them to react badly.

In life, you need to balance personal happiness and growth with safety. In some instances, you cannot escape adverse consequences: I was hit by a car at 10 years old.

I don't think you should be so quick to judge others.

well isnt that special ms horse lady.

What's your problem? Would you have said that of any other poster who try to make their kid's activity safer? You're picking this one because of the perceived wealth involved? Would you do the same if it was sailing? Travel sports? Robotics competitions in various cities? Where is the line?

Get over yourself.



The line is between grey poupon and pardon me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents are uptight about activities, grades, and social schedules in this sub, yet let their kids play dangerous sports, go to sleepovers, leave them home alone, and let them roam neighborhoods all in elementary.

I think a lot of the elder millennials want their child to have a similar childhood they had, but that's just not realistic. People drive crazier, I wouldn't let my kids bike in the neighborhood roads the way I used to. We know the risks of sleepovers. And I bet half these kids staying home alone can't give their sibling CPR if they choke on a snack or know not to put water on a grease fire...

They are uptight about social status stuff, and don't care about the actual safety of their children. It's like they are little social props.

I’ll take anxiety meds that OP needs for 200 please Alex

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We come from a long line of equestrians. My great-grandmother rode in her old age and died from complications from a riding fall. Yet it's hard for me to say no when one of my kids really wants to ride. I'm a worry wart, so I researched helmets and found a new type that's more protective than others: the MIPS protection system. For a while we were at a barn that did not prioritize safety, and I'm glad to be out of that environment. We are now at a really excellent one that takes safety seriously: they choose well-trained, even-tempered horses to begin with, take good care of them, and conduct lessons in large spaces with no more than 4 horses at a time (crowding during a lesson is a known cause of rearing, bucking and accidents). DD knows that she needs to listen to her horse's signals, sense how it's feeling and prevent all triggers that might get them to react badly.

In life, you need to balance personal happiness and growth with safety. In some instances, you cannot escape adverse consequences: I was hit by a car at 10 years old.

I don't think you should be so quick to judge others.

OP here. Same, my mother had horses. My grandparents on the other side did too. My sister has a horse. Doesn't make the sport safe. A ride every once in a while is fine, but when I saw that girl get a new horse 2 months after getting bucked off and hurt, I knew it was the parents. They would also bribe her with Starbucks to ride 4x a week. Just one example. They owned an airport.

As far as the helicopter comments, I do walk to the grocery store for an item or two (3 min walk) but I FaceTime my kids on my walk back. I also let them play outside with the neighbor kids, they just can't ride by the cars. They ride at the basketball courts that are always empty. There's a way to give your children independence safely. Also my insurance is going up every year due to the crazy amount of accidents in my city, don't need some guy without insurance hitting my child.

Why do you ignorantly assume everyone lives in a dangerous city like yours? What if people make different choices bases on the safety of their own neighborhoods? You apparently hate your city and your neighbors who do things differently than you do. Move somewhere better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I assumed this thread was going to be about how so many parents only seem to care about surface level status signaling with their kids, but not actually important things like teaching them right from wrong, how to navigate friendships, how to be emotionally resilient, how to be independent, etc.

I feel like a lot of parents are just interested in securing their kids a good social position and popularity via the right clothes and parties and sports/activities, and don't really put much effort into actually parenting.

I don't see the dichotomy OP is describing.

That has been going on since mass communication was invented.

[Anonymous]

Op get some help for your anxiety if you don’t already. It is the biggest gift you can give your children. I know how much you love them, but you are the biggest harm they face right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had hundreds of sleepovers growing up and was never molested. Just because something can happen doesn’t mean it will happen. Everything can be dangerous, but living in a bubble doesn’t make a good life. I studied abroad in a foreign country before there was even Mapquest. All the challenges I faced in that time, figuring out the language, finding my way through the cities, helped me grow as a person. If my parents had refused to let me go because someone they knew had been pickpocketed in that country, my life would have been limited.

Don’t let your personal anxieties hold your kids back, please. If you read the Anxious Generation, you’ll find that you need to do the opposite of what you are doing now in order for your own kids to be healthy and happy. Try to let go.

This.
I was molested by my friends brother at a sleepover.

That didn’t make me want to ban them for our two kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents are uptight about activities, grades, and social schedules in this sub, yet let their kids play dangerous sports, go to sleepovers, leave them home alone, and let them roam neighborhoods all in elementary.

I think a lot of the elder millennials want their child to have a similar childhood they had, but that's just not realistic. People drive crazier, I wouldn't let my kids bike in the neighborhood roads the way I used to. We know the risks of sleepovers. And I bet half these kids staying home alone can't give their sibling CPR if they choke on a snack or know not to put water on a grease fire...

They are uptight about social status stuff, and don't care about the actual safety of their children. It's like they are little social props.

Because many of us know that creativity comes from autonomy. Autonomy comes from freedom. Clearly you want your kids to be cogs in someone else’s wheel. You do you - stay out of judgement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We come from a long line of equestrians. My great-grandmother rode in her old age and died from complications from a riding fall. Yet it's hard for me to say no when one of my kids really wants to ride. I'm a worry wart, so I researched helmets and found a new type that's more protective than others: the MIPS protection system. For a while we were at a barn that did not prioritize safety, and I'm glad to be out of that environment. We are now at a really excellent one that takes safety seriously: they choose well-trained, even-tempered horses to begin with, take good care of them, and conduct lessons in large spaces with no more than 4 horses at a time (crowding during a lesson is a known cause of rearing, bucking and accidents). DD knows that she needs to listen to her horse's signals, sense how it's feeling and prevent all triggers that might get them to react badly.

In life, you need to balance personal happiness and growth with safety. In some instances, you cannot escape adverse consequences: I was hit by a car at 10 years old.

I don't think you should be so quick to judge others.

OP here. Same, my mother had horses. My grandparents on the other side did too. My sister has a horse. Doesn't make the sport safe. A ride every once in a while is fine, but when I saw that girl get a new horse 2 months after getting bucked off and hurt, I knew it was the parents. They would also bribe her with Starbucks to ride 4x a week. Just one example. They owned an airport.

As far as the helicopter comments, I do walk to the grocery store for an item or two (3 min walk) but I FaceTime my kids on my walk back. I also let them play outside with the neighbor kids, they just can't ride by the cars. They ride at the basketball courts that are always empty. There's a way to give your children independence safely. Also my insurance is going up every year due to the crazy amount of accidents in my city, don't need some guy without insurance hitting my child.

You let you kid have social media which is the worst danger in modern times then sit on your high horse (literally) judging everyone else?! WTF!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We come from a long line of equestrians. My great-grandmother rode in her old age and died from complications from a riding fall. Yet it's hard for me to say no when one of my kids really wants to ride. I'm a worry wart, so I researched helmets and found a new type that's more protective than others: the MIPS protection system. For a while we were at a barn that did not prioritize safety, and I'm glad to be out of that environment. We are now at a really excellent one that takes safety seriously: they choose well-trained, even-tempered horses to begin with, take good care of them, and conduct lessons in large spaces with no more than 4 horses at a time (crowding during a lesson is a known cause of rearing, bucking and accidents). DD knows that she needs to listen to her horse's signals, sense how it's feeling and prevent all triggers that might get them to react badly.

In life, you need to balance personal happiness and growth with safety. In some instances, you cannot escape adverse consequences: I was hit by a car at 10 years old.

I don't think you should be so quick to judge others.

OP here. Same, my mother had horses. My grandparents on the other side did too. My sister has a horse. Doesn't make the sport safe. A ride every once in a while is fine, but when I saw that girl get a new horse 2 months after getting bucked off and hurt, I knew it was the parents. They would also bribe her with Starbucks to ride 4x a week. Just one example. They owned an airport.

As far as the helicopter comments, I do walk to the grocery store for an item or two (3 min walk) but I FaceTime my kids on my walk back. I also let them play outside with the neighbor kids, they just can't ride by the cars. They ride at the basketball courts that are always empty. There's a way to give your children independence safely. Also my insurance is going up every year due to the crazy amount of accidents in my city, don't need some guy without insurance hitting my child.

I thought this was a typo. YOU (not your kids) walk 3 mins to get one item at the store. So you are saying your kids stay home alone occasionally for 10 minutes? While you are a couple blocks away and FaceTiming them? That… doesn’t seem to show the freedom and independence that you seem to think it does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op get some help for your anxiety if you don’t already. It is the biggest gift you can give your children. I know how much you love them, but you are the biggest harm they face right now.

Op reminds me of my mom. My childhood was miserable at times because of her anxiety and control issues. I'm not particularly close with her because I could never talk to her or ask her for advice because it would set off her anxiety

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I assumed this thread was going to be about how so many parents only seem to care about surface level status signaling with their kids, but not actually important things like teaching them right from wrong, how to navigate friendships, how to be emotionally resilient, how to be independent, etc.

I feel like a lot of parents are just interested in securing their kids a good social position and popularity via the right clothes and parties and sports/activities, and don't really put much effort into actually parenting.

I don't see the dichotomy OP is describing.

OMG, exactly the same thought.

That said, I will say that as a parent, I struggle with my desire (shared with my partner) to create resilient children, which means they need to take risks and do dangerous things from time to time. There was an excellent New Yorker piece on this many years ago about the damage helicoptering has done to our children, and why kids need to experience thrills, fear, speed, danger (in appropriate ways - riding their bike down a huge hill, getting lost, climbing too high in a tree) to grow emotionally and develop tools to handle these emotions later in life. But of course I agree that our world is different now. I lean more toward enabling independence and teaching my kids to handle tricky situations (and then, yes, sometimes hovering out of sight to make sure they're able to do it the first time). I remember the first time I let them ride their bikes to a practice sneaking behind them in my car to make sure they stopped and looked before crossing, and got to their destination.

Let's also not forget the tools we have that make things safer - drivers today have many more tools to alert them to small children, we can track our children using phones/watches, and cell phones everywhere mean we can always be reached. I lived in Europe at 18 and only checked in with my parents once a week. Imagine that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I assumed this thread was going to be about how so many parents only seem to care about surface level status signaling with their kids, but not actually important things like teaching them right from wrong, how to navigate friendships, how to be emotionally resilient, how to be independent, etc.

I feel like a lot of parents are just interested in securing their kids a good social position and popularity via the right clothes and parties and sports/activities, and don't really put much effort into actually parenting.

I don't see the dichotomy OP is describing.

+1

There are so many aspects of parenting, this post is just rage bait.

[Anonymous]

I let my elementary-aged kids race in the Isle of Man TT and try wingsuiting. Is that too much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Besides all the other silly premises... the idea that neighborhood surroundings (drivers, people, etc) are any different now then they were 30 years ago is plain dumb. The issue is kids being over-nannied and not given opportunities to learn, making them awkward and not able to handle a simple bike ride or a few hours home alone.

Hard disagree.

+1 for examine They didn't commonly have huge SUVs that you can't see over so good never know of there's a child in front of your vehicle

Have you never ridden in a Cadillac from the 70s/80s? You are just making assumptions without any experience. Traffic safety stats prove you objectively wrong.