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The unusual ways Western parents raise children

bbc.com

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Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#611

Post by [deleted] »

munificent wrote: post #312
nix23 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just raise your kids with love. Be compassionate, and patient. Right and i would add, give them as many time with you as possible. Some of my greatest memory's was strolling around my dad workplace, when he had work todo. Children's don't need parent's as entertainment, but as adventure preparers.

> give them as many time with you as possible. Children in the West today already spend more time with parents than at any point in the past: https://news.uci.edu/2016/09/28/todays-parents-spend-more-ti... Quality time with parents is important, of course, but we have become so focused on parental time that children are sacrificing solo time where they learn independence and initiative, and peer time where they learn…

[deleted]

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#612

Post by voisin »

faitswulff wrote: post #526
voisin wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! My wife did a lot of reading in this when our kids were babies and her takeaway was that alcohol/drugs are responsible for most smothering events and that SIDS is actually reduced by co-sleeping - something about the mother’s breathing training the baby to breathe rhythmically. I believe she found a study on this point - I’ll try to dig it up and if I find it I’ll edit this comment with a source.

Please do, I’d enjoy reading that.

Ball & Russell (2014), SIDS and infant sleep ecology. Evolution, Medicine and Public Health 146. [0]

Not a study, but I believe this was the article that got her started down the rabbit hole of looking more deeply into this research. We were both surprised to learn that SIDS is significantly more prevalent in western societies that do not have cultures of co-sleeping, and that SIDS primarily occurs when babies are alone. I am struggling to find the article that discusses the breathing component directly, but this touches on it with reference to poor neurological development of human babies and associated weak physiological regulation.

This was the a ha! moment:

“SIDS-deaths are a phenomenon of infant sleep in Western post-industrialized cultures, normally occurring while infants are alone. … Immigrant groups who maintain their ‘traditional’ sleep ecology in ‘Western’ environments typically exhibit substantially lower SIDS rates than the host community.”

This UNICEF page compiled good research on co-sleeping too. [1]

[0] https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/2014/1/146/1846850

[1] https://www.unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/news-and-research/bab...

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#613

Post by exporectomy »

ericd wrote: post #571
exporectomy wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About to be a parent and the main conclusion I've come to is that being consistently reliable, caring and responsive to any distress the baby has in the first 6-9 months is number one more important thing to keep in mind. Those physical health things are either obvious or hardly matter but making a kid who grows up to experience a lifetime of emotional suffering due to poor attachment styles or mental health problems…

I'm curious, does your conclusion preclude sleep training, which frequently involves some amount of "crying it out"?

Yes, it precludes it in that early age range. I was taught this in parenting class and read it in a library book. I've never heard anyone advocating for leaving your baby alone to cry when it's that young except as a "least bad" choice if the parent is losing control of themselves and might shake the baby in frustration/anger. It's probably different when they're older but I'm not up to that yet.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#614

Post by exporectomy »

kinghtown wrote: post #547
exporectomy wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trusting your instincts is how intergenerational cycles of abuse and neglect happen. If you were raised well, then yes, otherwise you have to work consciously to reject your harmful instincts.

Well, sure but I’m advocating to trust your instincts in terms of their general health and well-being. Abuse or gross neglect are entirely different matters. Abusive parents are probably not going to be online doing heavy research on what is the optimum thing to do as a parent. They probably just feel tired and bitter about their children, or worse. A lot of modern, new wave parenting to me feels an awful lot like me…

I'm talking about hardly visible emotional abuse and neglect, not some extreme criminal activity that only really bad people do. For example, not loving your child and going through the motions of looking after it without really caring. Or inconsistently responding to it with dismissal sometimes and kindness other times so it can't really trust you and feel secure. That can lead to harmful attachment styles as an adult.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#615

Post by kaba0 »

NovaJehovah wrote: post #427
novembermike wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that the research around this is very poor. It's in the realm of things where flipping a coin might be better.

Most of it is, but not all of it. My own conclusion (which is not the one I wanted to reach, believe me) was that when you throw out all the bad research, the evidence, while not conclusive, does clearly point more in one direction than the other.

Could you show such a research? Because you have been saying it all around the thread, some proof would be handy.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#616

Post by kaba0 »

alistairSH wrote: post #350
carabiner wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My coworker did this with her son. She was spread thin with afterschool programs, sports, projects and so on. Well, the kid got into Caltech. Where he'll probably meet amazing people and receive an excellent education. So maybe it worked? How many YC founders had this overbooked childhood? I'd guess over 70%.

But did the overbooked childhood enable that, or was the kid destined for a top-notch uni regardless? The students gaining admissions to top unis are largely self-motivated, extremely smart, and would have chosen high-quality activities on their own. Looking back at my own childhood, I chose my sports, music, and other activities. My parents enabled them, but never forced me into them. Would forcing me to play an add…

Well, I believe that some minimal pushing is necessary. Like you can’t be motivated in a topic you don’t even know exists, so if nothing else, giving a broad view of the “palette” is the task of a parent. And of course as you write, enabling said activites.

Also, I do find it bad when parents push their child from an overly young age into some specific thing, but at the same time the reality is, that both physical and mental development improvements in such a young age have a really profound effect. So looking at a 5 years old play the violin is sad in one way, but at the same time at his/her teenage years he/she can choose (at least hopefully) to continue the efforts and with an inner motivation he/she can have a bright future, much more than only starting it at 10+ years old.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#617

Post by krageon »

exporectomy wrote: post #614
kinghtown wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, sure but I’m advocating to trust your instincts in terms of their general health and well-being. Abuse or gross neglect are entirely different matters. Abusive parents are probably not going to be online doing heavy research on what is the optimum thing to do as a parent. They probably just feel tired and bitter about their children, or worse. A lot of modern, new wave parenting to me feels an awful lot like me…

I'm talking about hardly visible emotional abuse and neglect, not some extreme criminal activity that only really bad people do. For example, not loving your child and going through the motions of looking after it without really caring. Or inconsistently responding to it with dismissal sometimes and kindness other times so it can't really trust you and feel secure. That can lead to harmful attachment styles as an adu…

This is a broader issue, one where it is so extremely unlikely that you will make progress you have to take a step back and think about what the realistic goals for you actually are.

That came out way more depressing than I expected and I'm not sure what conclusion I was going to arrive at.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#618

Post by krageon »

cma wrote: post #419
CodeGlitch wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK the NHS have posters and leaflets about how parents should NOT sleep with their baby as deaths have occurred from parents "lying on and suffocating their new born". Of course this from drugged-up and/or drunk parents. If you don't fall into the "bad parent" category you'll be fine.

Or if you take ambien or something like that it might not be a good idea.

The post you are responding to mentioned drugged-up right there in the conclusion.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#619

Post by JoeAltmaier »

throwanem wrote: post #4
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #2

They say because people from India that move to Britain still have low SIDS incidence, that its cultural. How about, genetic?

I look forward to your GWAS results!

I look forward to a helpful reply to a question. Instead of snark.

Re: The unusual ways Western parents raise children

#620

Post by aaron695 »

ragnese wrote: post #301
bhandziuk wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my wife and I went to pre-baby classes they'd often use the phrase "Fed is best" and I thought it was strange because it sounded like something that could have rhymed and was a missed opportunity. Then I was informed that the phrase used to be "Breast is best" but, like you're saying, women who could not breast feed for whatever reason were subjected to this level of guilt and ridicule so much so that now they'v…

That is very positive and reassuring to hear. When my then-wife and I had our son, it was still very strong "breast is best" messaging. It really has made a lot of parents feel awful amounts of guilt and shame. Personally, until we have very strong evidence that breast milk is significantly better for the baby, I think the messaging shouldn't even be "breast feed if you can"- it should be "breast feed if you want ".…

> If you are not a scientist who has actually conducted one of these studies; if you are not intimately familiar with the methodologies and the math techniques used in the analysis; if you've only ever read the headline and maybe an abstract of a study- then please don't give advice to anyone on the topic. Please don't spread "information" that X is better than Y.

Do you have a good article backing this -

> I think the messaging shouldn't even be "breast feed if you can"- it should be "breast feed if you want".

Preferably a solid journal article, or an analytical news article. The top ones on Google are just emotive.

Nutrition from womb to 2 years is vital, it's probably the most important deal-able issue in the world today. I'll assume that advice is only for HN users who have clean water and access to good baby formula and the IQ's and education to do it properly.

I don't see why formula is not as good as, if not better than breast. But evidence is breast is best as far as I can see.

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