No.714
Yeah, child rearing has never been something only handled by two fucking people u too recently. Children need a community to develop into normal people. Otherwise, perfectly healthy children will end up with shitloads of problems with hygiene, social skills, and or self management as adults for basically no fucking reason.
I think most adults view kids as potential alter egos of their elders.
Most adults have an empathetic deficit towards kids.
They think childhood is supposed to be some universal cultural experiemce, that fashion, media, etc is supposed to remain the same as back in the old days.
I'm not a parent but I think it's important to be careful in taking too much credence in all the parenting fads. The "correct way" to raise a child is changing all the time and everyone has their own opinion about it.
My opinion is that just focusing on the obvious ones is already doing quite a lot:
>nutrition, make sure they're getting a varied nutrition and enough protein
>exercise. Any type is OK. Helps to have them try different sports and see what they like. Sometimes it's the people they don't like. Swimming, bouldering, gymnastics, there's tons of sports, don't just force your kid to like whatever the dominant sport is. If they're old enough, the gym is great for a bunch of reasons as a supplement to some sport.
>education. Getting them quality education is good. Also getting your kid to bump shoulders with richer kids can be good for long term prospects but the wealth disparity can cause trauma. So just beware. You can also supplement education by providing your kid with things they like to do.
>sleep hygiene. Very important. It's also good to explain these things to your kid. Giving them autonomy and shit.
>basic skills like cooking and cleaning. Chores fucking suck but if done together they can become a way to feel useful in the family and bring people together.
>socializing. Super important to socialize a lot during all stages in life. We live in a society. Beware that socializing has become less and less common nowadays. people are more shut in and paranoid of each other. Also online gaming is pretty big which isn't really proper socializing. A LAN party would be though, for example.
then the basic don'ts.
>don't hit your kid or anyone for that matter
>don't scream at them
>don't just order your kid "because I say so". Try to have them contribute, rather than be ordered around.
Then my personal suggestions,
>explain sexual and gender orientation early on
>explain the idea that others think very differently
>teach your kid to say no when sexually advanced
>limit screen time
>promote reading
Absolutely never hit your children as a form of punishment. Not only can it produce psychological trauma but it's not even effective as a way to correct bad behavior.
I think its better to be too strict than too lenient, otherwise you're releasing an adult into the world who is narcissistic and entitled at best and a sociopath at worst.
I think corporal punishment is justified but only as an absolute last resort to if a childs not listening and you need to stop a child from doing things that will actually ruin their life as an adult (death, serious injury, underage pregnancy/lifelong std, messing up academics so badly they drop out, drug addiction, etc.). Basically you have to stop kids from making unrecoverable mistakes which will really fuck up their adult life.
I also think kids today have far too much screen time and also at far too young an age. Kids should not be allowed to use any electronic device at all (maybe even TV) until maybe 9/10 and even then extremely restricted until they're a teen.
I think giving below middle school age children screens as a babysitter is really crippling them for life. They need to learn to touch grass and play outside with friends and sports like baseball or whatever and if they are the studious type and not athletic then at least read books instead of having their brain cells melt while watching tiktoks and skibidi whatever the fuck.
OP's question is probably better answer by someone with an actual formal background in early childhood education or child psychology.
- Talk to your kid as a collegue, not a pet.
- Positively reinforce good behavior
- Create an environment where good behavior is possible, using material analysis.
- Have the hard conversations necessary as soon as the bad behavior happens. Negative reinforcment / punishment teaches them not to get caught.
- Identify if you have inadvertently created an environment where only bad behavior is possible, using material analysis.
- Don't whedonize them when they share their interests with you, or their attempts at learning things you think they "should already know" or they will actively try to hide any information they think you can antagonize them with for the rest of your time with them.
- They'll live about as healthy of a lifestyle as you do. Get off that damn couch.
- Don't sneer at them for swearing, use the fact that they are swearing as a sign something is wrong that is stressing them out enough to swear.
- Once they're approaching puberty, them how to pirate and look at hentai BEFORE they give the family laptop a virus.
- Abstinence narratives don't work, actually educate them about sex and drugs BEFORE they fuck up their body.