Why some kids are happier now

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seen huge developmental milestones since we pulled the baby out of daycare in early March. Being around him all day has made a hugely beneficial difference in our lives.

I see you are getting some comments trying to refute what you are seeing. There are always some people on DCUM (not all) who can't admit a baby might be better off home with a parent instead of in daycare. You know your baby and you know what's going on with them better than anybody. Obviously it depends on the baby, it depends on the parent, and it depends on the daycare, but in general I totally agree with you that it is likely your baby is doing great in a one on one care situation at home with a loving parent. IN MY OPINION (not trying to start up the mommy wars) this is the ideal environment for most infants and toddlers. Also, it can be the greatest experience for a parent as well. Enjoy it!

Sure you’re not trying to start mommy wars.
Infants don’t know the difference.

Seriously?? Of course they can tell the difference.

Grab your popcorn. Here we go...

[Anonymous]

While I love soo many things about this, I just need a few hours break every day. So if my dd could go to preschool for even 3 hours...

[Anonymous]

I can see there are challenges across all ages!

I think I have it bad because we are introverts, and my only child, 3 yo, is very extroverted. He has made friends with birds on the back deck. "Hey bird! Come back bird!" He stands on a chair and yells at older kids biking through the alley. Yesterday he flung the door open and shouted "I love you!" at the mailman. My DH and I are just not enough for him!

We do zoom calls with his teachers, classmates. Grandparents, cousins. But he is starting to get tired of it-- it was a novelty, but it is not the same, to sing and play games together on the screen vs real life. Better than nothing though.

My little guy had his favorite things taken away-- friends, playground. I know he is enjoying lots of mommy and daddy time but it does not make up the difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids miss their friends and want to be at school but the big silver lining has been that my 14 yr old is well rested for the first time in years. She is naturally a night owl, just like DH and does best when she can go to bed really late and sleep until 10am ish. Of course, this doesn't work with school hours so she is chronically over tired. As a result, she gets sick easily and ends up missing too much school.

We've spent years trying to help her sleep better - strict "sleep hygiene" habits, white noise, no screens in evening, occasional use of melatonin, sleep studies. Ultimately, nothing works. She lies in bed until she can fall asleep at midnight or later. She's just like DH whose ideal sleep hours are 1am-9 or 10am.

Now, she can actually do that and she feels so much better. She now wants to figure out how she can do work as an adult that works with her sleep schedule. DH manages by having a WAH IT job where he doesn't have to log in until 10am for daily meeting.

I’m exactly like your daughter and husband and have the same preferred sleep schedule. My dad is also the same way. It’s been so frustrating to be thought of as lazy all my life because I wasn’t ready to go to school at 7:00am and tired a lot of the day. I have a PhD and two Masters degrees and work full time with kids but I’m not mentally alert before 9:00am. And it’s not because we are lazy! Im much more productive now that I can sleep according to my natural circadian rhythm.

This is my preferred schedule too (hence why I am posting here at 1:10 am after finishing up some work and before going to bed). My husband is a morning person and no longer commuting or traveling for work, so it's been working nicely to have him get up with the kids and let me stay up late working and sleep in. I'm in academia and if it weren't for kids I could totally maintain this sleep schedule. I did it during grad school but not during my postdoc - longer commute and crazy workload that could only be done at the lab. But I could do it now as a faculty member, at least most of the time. I do my best thinking between 9 pm and 1 am.

[Anonymous]

I posit: if your kids are absolutely miserable in this situation, and you don’t have actual hardships in your life right now like loss of income or health, then you’ve raised them poorly.

If they are old enough to understand this is a temporary break but still mope around all day depressed, then they are not going to do well in life.

Success requires adaptation, the ability to make the best of things and try to improve what’s wrong or at least withstand it until it can be changed. I can’t imagine these teens who are depressed about a 2-3 month break will do well with the challenges up ahead in college and the workforce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can see there are challenges across all ages!

I think I have it bad because we are introverts, and my only child, 3 yo, is very extroverted. He has made friends with birds on the back deck. "Hey bird! Come back bird!" He stands on a chair and yells at older kids biking through the alley. Yesterday he flung the door open and shouted "I love you!" at the mailman. My DH and I are just not enough for him!

We do zoom calls with his teachers, classmates. Grandparents, cousins. But he is starting to get tired of it-- it was a novelty, but it is not the same, to sing and play games together on the screen vs real life. Better than nothing though.

My little guy had his favorite things taken away-- friends, playground. I know he is enjoying lots of mommy and daddy time but it does not make up the difference.

That is super cute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I posit: if your kids are absolutely miserable in this situation, and you don’t have actual hardships in your life right now like loss of income or health, then you’ve raised them poorly.

If they are old enough to understand this is a temporary break but still mope around all day depressed, then they are not going to do well in life.

Success requires adaptation, the ability to make the best of things and try to improve what’s wrong or at least withstand it until it can be changed. I can’t imagine these teens who are depressed about a 2-3 month break will do well with the challenges up ahead in college and the workforce.

Um, ok. I'd bet $$$ your teen is sexting and getting stoned to make it through this and you're patting yourself on the back while gazing at your Mother of the Year award.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posit: if your kids are absolutely miserable in this situation, and you don’t have actual hardships in your life right now like loss of income or health, then you’ve raised them poorly.

If they are old enough to understand this is a temporary break but still mope around all day depressed, then they are not going to do well in life.

Success requires adaptation, the ability to make the best of things and try to improve what’s wrong or at least withstand it until it can be changed. I can’t imagine these teens who are depressed about a 2-3 month break will do well with the challenges up ahead in college and the workforce.

Um, ok. I'd bet $$$ your teen is sexting and getting stoned to make it through this and you're patting yourself on the back while gazing at your Mother of the Year award.

If your teen is sexting and smoking weed now, he or she was doing it before Covid too. Having classes moved online and the baseball season cancelled doesn’t cause an intrinsically-motivated teenager to start wasting his or her life. Plenty of teens are continuing to work out and practice their pitching, or buy materials to study subjects they are interested in.

[Anonymous]

^^ I don’t mean to imply that teens will not have occasional low points when they’re upset about not seeing their friends or missing important occasions. Of course they will, we all do. But they shouldn’t be sitting around smoking weed or playing video games all day. That’s just poor parenting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can see there are challenges across all ages!

I think I have it bad because we are introverts, and my only child, 3 yo, is very extroverted. He has made friends with birds on the back deck. "Hey bird! Come back bird!" He stands on a chair and yells at older kids biking through the alley. Yesterday he flung the door open and shouted "I love you!" at the mailman. My DH and I are just not enough for him!

We do zoom calls with his teachers, classmates. Grandparents, cousins. But he is starting to get tired of it-- it was a novelty, but it is not the same, to sing and play games together on the screen vs real life. Better than nothing though.

My little guy had his favorite things taken away-- friends, playground. I know he is enjoying lots of mommy and daddy time but it does not make up the difference.

My 4 year old is very extroverted and video chats with family and teachers can't give her the same social connection. She has several imagary friends though.

[Anonymous]

People who find the silver lining must’ve had crazy busy lives before. I don’t need a pandemic to spend time with my kids or prioritize family. So no, none of us are happier. We miss our lives.

[Anonymous]

There are things that we enjoy, family dinners and family walks, but for the most part we are done with this. We are both fortunate to still be working and we have the worlds easiest going kid. He is doing his school work and anything else we assign on light days, to keep him busy while we work, without complaint. DS is able to play more on the Switch and has been enjoying playing with his toys and occupying himself. So it has not been horrible.

But DS misses his friends and his activities. We are all bummed that we have missed time visiting with my family over Spring Break and are preparing for the 2 week long family vacation this summer to be cancelled. It has already been altered because the hotels we were staying at have announced they won't be opened. We were able to make other arrangements but they are not ideal. Totally doable and enjoyable but not what we had planned.

We have worked our normal schedule so that one of us is home when DS is home from school, that means I am in the office when the rest of the family is waking up, and DH comes home after DS dinner time. But we have lots of things we enjoy doing during the week and on weekends. There is plenty of family time.

Toss in worry about elderly parents living in a retirement community in California and yeah, I am done with this.

We are not the most extroverted folks but this is not enjoyable. Doable and worth doing but not how I want to live. We will be happier when we can start to resume some normal life, especially play dates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I posit: if your kids are absolutely miserable in this situation, and you don’t have actual hardships in your life right now like loss of income or health, then you’ve raised them poorly.

If they are old enough to understand this is a temporary break but still mope around all day depressed, then they are not going to do well in life.

Success requires adaptation, the ability to make the best of things and try to improve what’s wrong or at least withstand it until it can be changed. I can’t imagine these teens who are depressed about a 2-3 month break will do well with the challenges up ahead in college and the workforce.

Yeah, why don't teens have the emotional intelligence that adults have? Parents, you effed up!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids miss their friends and want to be at school but the big silver lining has been that my 14 yr old is well rested for the first time in years. She is naturally a night owl, just like DH and does best when she can go to bed really late and sleep until 10am ish. Of course, this doesn't work with school hours so she is chronically over tired. As a result, she gets sick easily and ends up missing too much school.

We've spent years trying to help her sleep better - strict "sleep hygiene" habits, white noise, no screens in evening, occasional use of melatonin, sleep studies. Ultimately, nothing works. She lies in bed until she can fall asleep at midnight or later. She's just like DH whose ideal sleep hours are 1am-9 or 10am.

Now, she can actually do that and she feels so much better. She now wants to figure out how she can do work as an adult that works with her sleep schedule. DH manages by having a WAH IT job where he doesn't have to log in until 10am for daily meeting.

I’m exactly like your daughter and husband and have the same preferred sleep schedule. My dad is also the same way. It’s been so frustrating to be thought of as lazy all my life because I wasn’t ready to go to school at 7:00am and tired a lot of the day. I have a PhD and two Masters degrees and work full time with kids but I’m not mentally alert before 9:00am. And it’s not because we are lazy! Im much more productive now that I can sleep according to my natural circadian rhythm.

This is my preferred schedule too (hence why I am posting here at 1:10 am after finishing up some work and before going to bed). My husband is a morning person and no longer commuting or traveling for work, so it's been working nicely to have him get up with the kids and let me stay up late working and sleep in. I'm in academia and if it weren't for kids I could totally maintain this sleep schedule. I did it during grad school but not during my postdoc - longer commute and crazy workload that could only be done at the lab. But I could do it now as a faculty member, at least most of the time. I do my best thinking between 9 pm and 1 am.

This is nice to hear. DD (I'm the PP) has long wanted to be a professor doing science research at a university. Good to hear that it might actually be a lifestyle that also works with her sleep needs!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People who find the silver lining must’ve had crazy busy lives before. I don’t need a pandemic to spend time with my kids or prioritize family. So no, none of us are happier. We miss our lives.

OR, they are optimistic people capable of viewing positive things even in adversity.