Ask HN: What's your approach to raising kids?

When my twins were about 6 months old I started reading to them before bed. 12 years later, I still read to them every night before bed. They are avid readers, and that has helped them so much in school. It is a routine that helped them settle and instilled a love for reading. (point of pride, I've missed TV on weekends, but not after school. No tablets or smart phones.

Kindle readers are their only tech.. This saves on the cost of physical books.

"The wolf cares not for fair." My kids know that life is not always fair.

Oh.. twin tricks. Alternating days one kid is "the leader" this means they get to pick the activities or what's for lunch ect. It also means they (as the leader) have to feed the dog and pick up the poop. Being a leader comes with power and responsibilities. Also they make deals with each other, because tomorrow they will not be the leader. When they have a disagreement, you simply have to say "Who's the leader?" and tada fight over.

Net safety. https://rickriordan.com/series/kane-chronicles/ Knowing someones real name (their REN) give the evil people power. Good books and you can use it to teach your kids about privacy.

Now.. not a style thing, but when you go through potty training get your kids CROKS. Pee on leather shoes does not wash off. Crocks a mall sink and a paper towel, and you're back to happy.

Regarding the nagging. We always been pretty relaxed in term of sugar, candy, ice creme and snacks in general. As long as she eats real food first, we don't impose strict limits on when our daughter can eat snacks.

The result is pretty interesting, she's eats a lot less than any other child I know, almost never nags about candy and never over-eats. When we see friends it's pretty clear that they child have an unhealthy relationship to snacks. It is a constant nagging and if they the parents finally cave in, the kids will eat as much as possible as quickly as possible.

> Kids do not need expensive toys,...

Completely agree with this point. It's the bulky plastic toys that are the most wasteful. One exception for us was good quality roller blades and a good balance bike. We wanted to help our kid with her motor skills and to spend more time outside. She started riding the bicycle before the age of 2 and we go hiking as well, learning to ice skate & roller blade before age 3. A lot of other parents in our circle seem to be more protective and think it's too early for outside activities like this.

In the next year or two, try to get settled in a kid-friendly neighborhood where there are at least some good families with similar-age kids nearby. Schools need to be good, but don't obsess over the best. Try to stay there, or close enough to not upend their social lives, until they're through high school. Good, stable friendships are important for social development.

By age 3-ish, get the kids into the habit of helping with regular household chores. Yes, it'll take more time than just doing it yourself. Like teaching 'em to talk, you are investing in social development. And having real-world useful skills (vs. being a talking pampered pet) can be important to self-esteem.

Having some quality extra-curricular activities is important, but do not let yourself slip into the "my kid's doing more/bigger/better rat" race. A mix of a few stable, ongoing things (like soccer) with occasional "let's try this for a bit" stuff (say, piano lessons) can give 'em some variety, and perhaps stumble on them loving music.

From what I've seen, having at least one team sport that they enjoy is pretty important for teen girl self-esteem.

For some kids, things like travel league sports and horse shows are extremely important. But if you don't have the kind of time & money that those require, then either gently steer them away early, or be up-front with them about the economic facts. How you handle the latter is more important, long-term, than the immediate situation. Unless you're a Bezos/Musk/Gates/etc., your kids will get regular exposure (if only through social media) to other kids who are "obviously" wealthier, luckier, better looking, ...

There's a lot of great entertainment for children. We lucky enough to have DR (Danish version of the BBC) which produce really high quality children's TV. The various streaming service also have a lot of nice shows. My daughter loves Scooby Doo, so that actually something we can watch together.

As for YouTube... There's some really high quality content, for adults. For children, it is basically all garbage. There are a few harmless channels, but the YouTube algorithm will quickly steer the child toward the loud obnoxious content. Yeah, YouTube requires a high level of monitoring if you let your kids watch.