[deleted]
Ask HN: What's your approach to raising kids?
51–60 of 106 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's your approach to raising kids?
#52Slightly further away than you with a 15 month old girl.
Did a bunch of litterature read before she was born, as well as examined our own raising (my wife grew in a very strict environment whilst I grew up in a do whatever you want environment).
I'd say the following principles apply for us:
- Don't make your life harder. Parenting is tough enough as it is without adding behaviour because of "what will people think". For instance, the UK has very strict guidelines about sanitising baby bottles and milk. According to those (and you'll actually get told of if you don't do it), you're supposed to boil water then cool it down before you can make a baby bottle and other stuff like that. Other countries have no such rule and don't have more disease or mortality, and some actually removed those rules a couple years ago. Doing things "just to be on the safe side" leads imo to over anxiety and guilt whenever something goes wrong.
- Overall Montessori-ish approach to parenting, with a lot of focus on independant play, but also providing her with an environment that will challenge her (rotating toys, giving her different type of material etc.). Similarly she started sleeping at 6 month in a mattress on the floor, not a cot, so that she can start exploring her room by herself when she wakes up in the morning. I say "montessori-ish" as there are a couple stuff of the philosophy we don't like, first of them being "no imagination base play". Maria Montessori did not want children to waste time on unicorns and so on as they are not part of the real world and can dillute their learning. But I would wager that todays world, with video games, movies etc. makes those concept just as useful as knowing what a donkey is. And we value imagination a lot. However, that stops at "pretend play", I'd rather her play by holding an actual carrot whilst I cook (and in some time, actually helping), rather than having a plastic kitchen to pretend cook with.
- In terms of "limits", we treat her like we would like to be treated. No arbitrary limit that has no reason to exist, for instance, we don't try to force her bed / nap time at a specific time and try to lean on her sleepiness instead. In general that has made bed / nap time pretty smooth albeit not really predictable days in advance. That also helped a lot when travelling (plane / car / train) as she usually will nap during those time even if it's not at a "specific nap time".
Re: Ask HN: What's your approach to raising kids?
#53No kids of my own, but I grew up with a big family. This means I got to reflect on the various stages of other people's development at every point in my own development.
The clearest pattern to emerge was that negative personality traits in the parents led to bad outcomes for the kids. Nobody is perfect, but much of this can and should be resolved before starting a family.
In early childhood they imitate you. Then they give you (sometimes very harsh) feedback about what's wrong with your way. Then they pick and choose what to imitate from their peers. All your questions are concerned with what happens in that later stage when they choose to follow their peers.
No offense, but I think you probably already know where you're at with own personal growth and don't need your kids to tell you a few years from now?
Don't overthink it, and like others have said you don't have as much control as you think beyond your natural charisma and success in life otherwise.
Re: Ask HN: What's your approach to raising kids?
#54Every single kid is different. Outside basic survival skills, rules and rewards have different reactions and adoption for each. Each has his/her learning style, interests, and pet peeves. If lucky there won’t be significant health issues to oversee as well. In the end, parents would seek to adapt their style to each kid not so much for equality of treatment (attention, rewards, education, control, etc.) but for minimum fairness in opportunity by overcoming bias or favoritism (which is also difficult and sometimes undetectable by the parents).
There are so many dimensions to raising a kid, that the minimum Olympic hurdle could be: “the kid will be all right, will be able to make enough good choices, and will respect him/herself and treat others with dignity”. To much control you smother the child with no self confidence and afraid, too little control and you may end up with… well something not good in terms of maturity and behavior in society - from super entitled to super exiled.
It’s hard. Just cherish every moment with them, days are long…
Re: Ask HN: What's your approach to raising kids?
#55All those "school of thought" are just trends. Good parenthood is about being present and giving them attention, helping them understand the world and so on. Preventing them to completely use technology is BS. Let them use them, but going back to what I've said before, you need to be present in their lives. This means if they are spending too much time with it, it's up to you to enforce limits. But don't be a rude or…
Agreeing with all that you say, except the claim that preventing technology is BS. If a tablet or smartphone is available it is almost always what kids will choose, if you don't make it available, they can do and learn better things. Sure, you cannot prevent it forever, but that's not the goal, just to postpone it until they are well-equipped to handle it. The same really with alcohol or smoking. You cannot prevent y…
Is that so? So a kid will always prefer to use a tablet than visit their fun friends or do something exciting? They likely use it because they are bored, just like adults are. We're all humans in the end.
Just let them use it, but if they use too much, you need to give a good example of what would be an alternative, also what are their responsibilities. If they are getting good grades and keep their room organized, why can't they do whatever they like? This smells like abuse.
Is it really different if a kid is exposed to cigars at 12 or 18? I don't think so. I just wouldn't give them cigars and would make sure that they know how bad this is for their health, as well live in a community that would lessen the likelihood of such thing happening. You don't have control of whether this will happen though.
But in the end, they'll fulfil their own destiny, if their ultimate destiny is to smoke cigarettes or do heroine when they grow up, let it be.
Try to conquer them with your example, and they will want to follow your footsteps. But if you are boring adult with a shitty life and sad, be sure they'll find another example to aspire to.
Re: Ask HN: What's your approach to raising kids?
#56Our approach overall in raising out 2.5y/o and 6m/o boys is a consistent one I think, but we don't have a particular strategy thought out in advance. We go with the flow. We pick up on queues, to eg. start potty training when he shows interest in it. No use in forcing it before then.
Our 6m/o still spends many nights sleeping between mom and dad. Getting him in and out of his own bed & room after breastfeeding is not so easy, so better have relaxed parents in the morning than tired ones. So, yes, very much now also coming out of the survival mode.
Concerning technology, if anything, I have to keep technology (ie. my phone) away from myself to not use it on the side while playing with my kids. I feel terrible each time afterwards; the addiction is strong.
But for our oldest, no iPad or something, unless very very occasionally on our lap to play some puzzle game. Our TV can do YouTube Kids, and he really likes to watch stuff with tractors or cranes etc. I hate that stuff since it just watching some kid play with tractors and it just goes on and on. If he has to watch TV to cool down after some intense playing (head or body), I'd rather put on Peppa Pig, Pat & Mat, Shaun the Sheep or Sesamestreet, anything that has at least a story and maybe some educational content to it. Not just mindless stuff.
Re: Ask HN: What's your approach to raising kids?
#57"All parenting advice is BS" ... paraphrasing from a friend who had 6 kids, and says that she had to be an entirely different Mum to each of them, as what they needed / what worked, was different for each child. That said, making sure you're around for them enough not at work all the time, is very important. Reading quality books with them so they find reading a fun and exciting way to discover the world rather than a chore to make the grade in school, is good. Teaching them to "love your neighbour as yourself" while also not being a push-over, is good, leads to decent friendships, hopefully decent relationships when they grow up. That's it really. :) I think its hard for a decent loving caring adult, who listens to their kids, to screw up too badly. Sometimes you try one technique for a while and it appears to blow up in your face but works in the end, or you change tack then that works. Sometimes they'll have tantrums and express rage and disgust at you, then a bit later tell you you're the best parent in the world and that actually not letting them do "Thing X which is dangerous / bad for them" means you actually DO care about them after all. ;)
Re: Ask HN: What's your approach to raising kids?
#58Our strategy so far with our 3yr old is to invest time and effort into emotional and social development. We avoid smartphones and screens, except for video calls with grandparents. We've seen the effects of "screenism" up close with relatives. After that comes physical development and skills, plastic knife, dancing, bicycle, etc. Academics is last in our list, we figure there will be a time for that later. She wants us to read bedtime stories and adores books, so there will be a desire to learn all the letters, numbers etc... One other important thing, we don't want to break her spirit, so if she doesn't want to something, we respect her boundaries when she says no. Of course, some things aren't negotiable (like brushing teeth), but it's paramount for her to have a sense of control and autonomy (giving choices is also important). Eg, if I pick her up, but she protests, I will apologize for not asking first. Sometimes these little things matter to them a lot.
Re: Ask HN: What's your approach to raising kids?
#59These are just my reponses on my experiences with my children. Please do not think they are solid advice or something.
- Did you think about what sort of parent you'd like to be and work backwards?
Only on some things. When i knew it was going to be girls, i thought some things over and over in my mind in how not to be a bad or weird dad to them. The oldest is hitting puberty and still loves me. I call that a big win.
- Did you think about what makes a good kid and work backwards?
I realized a lot of their behaviour comes from how we as parents and other people around them speak, act and do. Being good to myself, my wife and others also kinda taught my children how to behave around people. It also taught me very quickly to be careful in how to express (negative) feelings towards other people or things. We have alo had a lot of bad examples around us and we learned a lot from those people on how NOT to do some things.
We taught them both to properly thank people who help/assist/take care of you. I'll never forget that nurse who told me they were the first children in many years that actually thanked them. For me it was a normal human thing to do and i damn well made sure my children knew it was a normal human thing to do to properly thank people. Years later that nurse still remembers my children and asks how they are doing.
- Did you align with a "style" of parenting?
No. I'm more a go-with-the-flow type. Every day can be different with different challenges. There is no perfect plan, but there is no total chaos as well. I also try to give them as much knowledge as possible, but will tell them i can also be very very wrong and that it's very important to do your own research and not trust everything just because someone said it would be so.
The youngest is interested in religion. I have a very strong negative opinion about religion, but i think it is also very important that i don't just tell only the negative experiences and knowledge but also the fun and joy it may bring to people.
Both of them can get bored quickly because i like to over explain things a lot (I am kinda scared of forgetting or missing things) :)
Once in a while i ask them if i'm still a good dad.
- How did you use technology to help you?
I taught them very quickly how to use remotes and controllers when they were interested (never forced them). My first child was once very curious about my xbox controller. She tried to eat it first and toyed around with it for half an hour. After that the interest was lost. Later on she quickly realised that when the remotes or controllers don't function, the fun on the screen also stops. So it was in their best interest to keep things running smoothly. We never had any problems with electronics whatsoever. This was also in our benefit, since we're not rich and cannot buy a new tv just because we want to.
I also try and teach them the importance of maintenance and cleaning, but it's tough making that a fun thing.
- Did you keep your kids away from technology (like watching TV) for the first couple of years or just go for it?
All in balance. You can get very crazy yourself after 24 hour cry sessions. A little tv won't hurt them while you regain some sanity.
Nowadays the oldest knows i can practically control everything on her smartphone. I told her so the minute we setup the phone together. I also told her we are not going to do that or monitor her 24/7, but if things seem strange to us we will check on things. I also told her how we think about TikTok, but i'm not forcing her to remove it. She must decide it for herself. If i decide for her and she still loves using it, she will find other ways of using it and the only thing i would have destroyed is her trust in me.
- What would you do differently if you had your time again?
Be less vocal about frustrating things. Sense more when they want explanations and when not.
Re: Ask HN: What's your approach to raising kids?
#60For twins specifically, have them checked for congenital muscular torticollis. Ours suffered from that and we only caught it due to an observant mother at a playground. It’s easily correctable if caught young.
Raised three kids, each had a different personality, learning style, needs, strengths, interests.
Suggest you observe your kids and figure out what works for each of them. One size does not fit all.
For us, co-sleeping worked well.
We tried toilet training one kid too early. Pointless stress. Six months later they had no problems.
We let our kids have computers, tablets and phones early, but confiscated them each night to encourage sufficient sleep. One kid borrowed a hand-me-down Gameboy from a friend to get around this. Only caught them because it showed up on our WiFi.
IMO screen time limiting apps do not work well. Kids are creative at circumventing them and are happy to play whatever games are available to them. Confiscation works well.
We bought them quality devices and quality cases. They only broke a couple screens over the years. “Find my device” was very helpful.
Beats headphones absolutely suck for reliability.
Only one tech-related regret so far: in the first year of high school we accidentally let one child play too many computer games, which tanked their grades for a semester, which messed up their chances of attending our over-subscribed state university system (which admits almost solely based on unweighted high school GPA.) They had to attend a much more expensive, somewhat lower ranked, out-of-state school. They did well there, but it was an expensive mistake.