If your child is in the middle of some activity and clearly enjoying it (and wasn’t supposed to be doing something else instead), DO NOT interrupt them and have them do chores that will “only take 5 minutes or so!”
You haven’t asked them to do anything before they got out the Legos, started reading a chapter of their book or painting the complicated picture, or began playing their video game.
As a result of being repeatedly interrupted, they will learn that their presence in public space of the household=availability to do chores, so they will make themselves scarce so you can’t find them and order them around. They will also become suspicious of your efforts to engage with them as they play, as they’ve learned that these pleasantries are a prelude to “Take out the trash”, or “move your boots and vacuum the entryway, there’s dirt everywhere ”.
“But I need my children to help me around the house!”, I hear you cry. I understand. Children should not be treated like royalty and left to their own devices 24/7.
An alternative is to give the kids a clearly delineated chore chart and stick to it, resisting the urge to add anything to it. There are some chores that are easier and quicker with two people, though. A (in my opinion) even better option is to divide the child’s day into “on-duty” and “off-duty ” time. When they’re on-duty, you can interrupt them as before, but you have *consulted with your child beforehand * and they understand that during this time they can relax, but they must be ready to jump in and lend a hand.
That way they won’t start trying to level up in their video game or break out the clay and make stuff. When they are off-duty, you leave them alone and their only responsibilities are to clean up whatever mess they make at the end of this time.
Also, if they are tearing around the house or whining about being bored, don’t make them do chores so they will “have something to do”; this could make the child conflate extra chores with punishment for whining and make them reluctant to help out when you randomly tell them to at other times because they might think they’re being punished but they have NO IDEA WHAT THEY DID. And IMO children should see chores as things everyone has to do no matter what, not punishments.
I may seem unqualified to offer parenting advice as I have no kids, but I was talking with my dad today and he said: “I wish you didn’t hide from us in your room so much, but every time your mom walked by she’d give you a chore to do, so I can’t blame you for that.” A kid who hides in their room to play has an entirely different relationship to the family than the child who sprawls on the livingroom floor and excitedly describes the city they are building out of Legos.
And today, in times of Covid I play a complicated game of hide-and-seek with my mother as I try to do my online coding homework and apply for jobs. I am now attempting to turn my bedroom into my own tiny office because if I work in our home office, she’ll find me and go “I can’t attach this file to my email,” and so on.
Children *have* to obey their parents when they are young. But true respect and honoring collective responsibilities is stronger than forced obedience. If you demonstrate to your children that you respect them and their time, they will reciprocate.
Tl;dr if your child is “always hiding in their room”, there is a reason for it and setting a regular routine and boundaries will benefit both of you in the long run.
why is everyone in the notes of this being so rude. yall are cringe. let people have things, jesus. they arent hurting anyone by putting more thought into raising their child
Relying on pseudoscience to tell you how your kid will behave actually is some pretty traumatizing stuff (Especially if they’re a “bad” sign like Gemini or Scorpio). I wouldn’t call it fun and games when kids are potentially being brushed off and misunderstood.
Example; I’m a Cancer, and all my life my mom and stepdad teased me for being so sensitive and wouldn’t take me seriously when I told them I was in pain or crying. Well, 20 years later I find out I have fibromyalgia.
If you don’t know what that is, it’s a neurological disorder that causes my nerve endings to be constantly wired and makes me feel pain 24/7. There is no break, no relief, no cure. But you can manage it so it doesn’t become too bad when you’re older. I did not get that option, because my mom assumed that I was just being a crybaby. Because I’m a Cancer. And obviously I’m a liar too, because whoops I was born on the Gemini/Cancer cusp!
Now obviously not every mom is as bad as mine, but as fun as astrology is it can absolutely blind you to what your child is going through. If your child starts lying and you figure it’s because they’re a Gemini you’ll never get to the root problem.
And by the way, your kids can TELL that you don’t know anything about them. When I talk to my mom she just rattles off the admirable traits of my star-sign like it’s a compliment. She doesn’t know anything about my life or personality, but she sure can speculate based on a few very sad memories and a Zodiac facebook page. Let people have what they want, let them celebrate their zodiac signs; Do NOT mistake a fun trivia question for a guide on how your child should/will act because that DOES hurt people.
This is?? A thing that people actually? Do????
What is wrong with people?
The notes are full of people talking about how their parents neglected their needs and abused them and never got them mental health treatment because of their zodiac signs and my mind is fucking boggled
I thought this stuff was like. For fun?? I had no idea people believed in it to this extent?? What the fuck
I hope all of you know that actively exposing minors to sexual situations Is a part of the definition for pedophilia. If y’all guys are in the notes saying âOh, me as a parentâ or say âitâs naturalâ or that âthey should get used to itâ or anything of the sort, you could be a goddamn pedo. That donât look to good, huh?
It is not okay to expose me or any other minors to sexually explicit situation. It doesnât matter if a teen is sexually active, this isnât okay. It doesnât matter if you kid has snapchat, because even if theyâre not supposed to to be on it, they could be as young as 5 years old. It doesnât matter if itâs ânaturalâ, sure intercourse is natural but being loud enough to include your child isnât.
Leave minors and your children out of your sex life.
so i will never understand tumblrs obsession with reactionary politics and the death of nuance but here we are.
children need healthy platonic friendships with adults. children need all manner of platonic relationships with adults and segregating children from ALL interactions with adults simply because some adults would like to cause them harm not only doesnt stop that from happening but also makes children EVEN MORE susceptible to abuse.
children should have literally no shortage of adults in their lives who they know, feel comfortable with, and are safe around. isolation ALWAYS increases the risk of abuse. children who dont have positive interactions cant identify behavior that isnt okay because they dont know any better! a child that has a healthy network of adults in their life does! they can compare behavior between adults and say âthis isnt how everyone else treats me and i feel weird about it. maybe i can ask xyz who doesnt treat me this way if this is weird or notâ
this also gives them more places to turn when things go wrong. a child whos in trouble but only has their parents and peers has a very limited number of options. ESPECIALLY if their parents are the adults in their lives who are harming them, which is overwhelmingly the more likely option. children are much more likely to abused by a family member than by a stranger. a child with more adult friendships, like for example, the woman who works at the library and always talks to them about tv shows they love, the guy from the comic book store who they see every week and who always recommends them new titles to try, the college age coach of their after school sport, the nurse from their school who they eat lunch with because the feel more comfortable there, that child has a large number of adults who they can now turn to in a crisis.
yes, there will always be bad people with bad intentions, but the solution isnt to isolate children from all adults therefore making them even more susceptible to harm if and when it happens. the solution is to surround children with as many examples of healthy positive relationships as possible so that they can easily identify when a situation is not right and then have an unlimited number of resources to go to for help.
When I was 16, I was hit on by what I will generously describe as a silver fox. He was charming. He was also a professor at a local art college. He said he was interested in seeing my portfolio and asked for my phone number. Being interested in a career in art at the time, i thought it was sensible.
And then almost immediately i realized i was an idiot. I was so careful with my identity online as a teenager, yet here I was just giving personal information out to random strangers. Random adults. I was going to end up murdered on the news if I wasnât careful.
But I didnât want to rope my parents in because that would have meant admitting that I had done a foolish thing and at that age, there was no greater horror or shame. So instead I went to my French teacher, a jovial eccentric that I spent my free period with, by choice, watching claymation movies and talking about comic books.
When I told her about the interaction, she was immediately concerned without being judgmental or disappointed, and that was honestly such a gift. She helped me track him down. Her support empowered me to be able to trust my instincts, the people around me, and to go forth with a solution that I arrived at myself, rather than immediately going to my parents or pretending nothing had happened and hoping it would go away.
So when the dude called later, breathing heavy and asking if i thought he was attractive, i KNEW he was being a creep. And with my sisterâs help (because I didnât know how to phrase things strongly without being terribly rude, and she seriously didnât give a fuck) we told him off and then called his employer to express our concerns. He never called again.
Just because an adult is friendly with a young person doesnât automatically make them predatory. Predatory behaviors make them predatory.
I will never be a friend to the children and the teenagers in my life like I would be a friend to someone my own age, but that doesnât make my friendship with them any less real or genuine. Itâs just a different set of parameters.
We occasionally get asks about age gap friendships on here and I believe this is a very good post illustrating how a healthy adult/child relationship can look like
sigh. disabled people are allowed to have kids. i hate that this is debated
people, even other disabled ppl sometimes, always argue its cruel. âwhat if they end up like you? its cruel to do that to a child.âÂ
our existence and the existence of any biological children disabled people have isnt a fucking tragedy. if our kids are disabled too, then thats literally fine. some of you think youre such hot disability advocates and then turn around and parrot eugenicist ideas and its so fucking frustrating to hear.Â
anyone can have a disabled child. ANYONE. abled people are fully capable of having disabled children, but theyre not told to avoid having kids, or coerced into/forcibly sterilized, or have their children taken even if theyre fully capable of caring for them. yet because a disabled person could pass on a disability, the idea that we could want biological children is suddenly âcruel?â is that the hill youre going to die on? fucking analyze why you think its a tragedy for a disabled child to exist. think about why you hate the idea of disabled people reproducing
abled ppl are encouraged to reblog bc a lot of you need to hear this but i dont wanna hear yr fucking thoughts on the matter i swear to god
When I was a kid I was genuinely horrified by the idea of growing up and I think a large part of it was the insistence by adults in my life that puberty would turn me into someone completely different. They were like âsure you donât like make up and boys now but youâll feel differently after pubertyâ or like âsure you think you wouldnât want kids now but youâll see once youâre olderâ
itâs like damn, stop invalidating kidsâ personalities and listen to them and maybe you wonât be so shocked when they donât transform into a new person later
My wife and I donât ever plan on having kids, but my Dad always had one piece of parenting advice Iâll never forget.
He said âPay attention to who your children are when theyâre little. If you do that, youâll never be surprised at who they become. The only people who think kids suddenly become other people when they hit adolescence are the ones who never listened to what their kids were telling them the whole time.â
ifesbob 