Reaction to the Parenting Mistakes We Should Learn From
Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash
In today’s episode we’re sharing our reaction to 10 Parenting Mistakes We Should Learn From Before it's Too Late, According to Reddit
During this episode we’ll share our thoughts on the following parenting tips:
When to give in to your child
Handling our emotions
Accepting help from others
What baby products to splurge on
Being part of the clean plate club
And more
If you like what you heard, please consider subscribing, writing a review, and purchasing something from our merch store.
Resources:
TRANSCRIPT
[music]
Dave: In today's episode, we're reacting to 10 Parenting Mistakes We Should Learn From Before it's Too Late, According to Reddit. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Papa est Fatigué Podcast. The podcast for dads, by dads. We recently ran across a list of 10 parenting mistakes and we'll be sharing our thoughts on these 10 tips. First, here's my deal. I'm Dave. I have an eight-year-old daughter and a five-year-old son.
Jim: I'm Jim. I've got two daughters; five and eight.
Dave: The first tip we've got here is from kazuwacky, and it says, "Baby gowns are designed with wide necks so they can be taken off down the body rather than over the head. In the case of huge fecal disasters, this is important info." Jim, what are you thoughts on this first tip here?
Jim: I was confused when I read it because it never occurred to me to take the clothes off over the head.
Dave: Over the head. Yes.
Jim: Especially in a blowout situation. It says gowns. I'm not sure what a gown is but there's the onesie with the zips and the buttons. The best ones we had went from the neck all the way down to the foot so you can just unwrap them like a burrito or a tortilla or something. [laughs]
Dave: [laughs] Yes.
Jim: We did have some sleep sacks, but same thing. Unzip down the front then you just open it up. I'm not sure what this article clothing is but regardless of what it is, I would not take it over the head. We had some legendary blowups [laughs] that we still talk about today.
Dave: Yes. I remember I had to take a picture of the first blowout [inaudible 00:01:41]
Jim: [laughs] For posterity.
Dave: Yes. I do have it. It's probably about three-quarters up her back. It was pretty impressive. When they're young, the poop has that certain smell, like that sort of sweet smell and mustardy yellow color. Our kids are what? Eight. We still remember very distinctly.
Jim: Very visceral.
Dave: I will say one plug that I do in talking about clothes is I found that-- We had bought a few baby clothes from UNIQLO, and I got to say, man, Japanese-designed baby clothes are much better in terms of their functionality. The way that the buttons are made and how they open and close is just way better than the stuff we have here. If you are in the market for clothes for newborns, I highly recommend them because the snaps and everything, it's just way easier to operate because, yes, you will absolutely have the blowouts to deal with.
Jim: This reminded of another tweet and I'm going to murder it, but it's along the lines of, "If you like to do puzzles, you should have a kin because then you can learn what it's like to do a puzzle when it's trying to kick you and scream at you when you're trying to do the buttons and the snaps."
Dave: Yes. Advanced level, right?
Jim: Yes. The easier, the better.
Dave: The second tip we've got here is from Curiosity Killed Me. They say, "If you're going to give in, give in early. For example, if your kid wants ice cream and you say no and they beg a little, that's when you give in. If you give in once they've started kicking and screaming, then you've taught them that that's how they get their way. I'm saying always give in, and I'm not saying that you should in the first place, but if you change your mind or decide to give in, do it quick. Otherwise, follow through and keep it at no."
Jim: Yes, I think that's good advice. Lately, I've been having this experience where it's-- I'm not sure. It's not that I don't care but they'll say, "Can we have ice cream after dinner?" and like, "No." and then, "Please," and then, "Okay. Sure, why not." [laughs] Like, "Who cares?" It's kind of like, "What's that could happen? Do I really care about this? Is it just a knee-jerk reaction? Fine, absolutely. That's fine." Lately, there's been a lot of nos followed, "please." "All right, fine."
Dave: A quick acquiescence.
Jim: I think that the times that I have hung onto it, the problems it becomes about something other than what they're asking about. For me, it becomes a battle of wills of like, "I say so. You need to listen to me. This is the rule." This becomes different than, "Can I have ice cream?" It becomes the sort of communication thing. The latest thing where I've been backing out early, it seems to be working out all right, and they still respect when I'm very firm about it. If they say, "Please," and I say, "No."
That's just the way it is. They ask three times and I make them aware of it. "You've asked me three times. My answer hasn't changed. Let's move on." That seems to be working out okay. There have been times where I'm sure I've done it where you're at DEFCON 5 or-- What is it? DEFCON 1? Whichever ones the most severe, and you just want it to stop.
[laughs]
That's fine. You could take whatever it is you're yelling about. I just want it stop. Like I say, I'm sure I've done that more than once but I am very sensitive about that that does reinforce that bad behavior. Good tips all around.
Dave: Parenting definitely is a series of compromises with the kids at time. I would also say that-- The kids are pretty good about nos. My younger one can go through a little bit more of the mini freak out. It's not to the level of tantrums but they're generally pretty good if we know. There's sort of a-- I think they get it after a few times asking that it's been the third time, nothing's changed, and they get the point. I feel like we try to often say why no, and usually the no is like, "You've had candy yesterday," or "You've already had candy tonight."
I think that by doing that, they seem to at least understand the rationale versus just no because I said so. My hope is just that helps them process a little bit more and then there's a rationale behind it that they can grasp. They might not agree with it, but they understand in concept why you're saying no. We haven't had too many of these issues thankfully.
The other thing I guess I wan to say is that kids are also always pushing the boundaries and they're always trying to test and see how far they can go, and it's interesting how they're different in school versus at home, and they're very different at my parents house too.
It's sort of an extension of I guess the school in terms of, "I need to be on slightly better behavior than when I am at home." I think there's also this dichotomy too of who's saying no and where this is all happening. My guess is if they were to ask something to a teacher the teacher said no, like, "Okay, it's fine." When it's mom and dad, it's a little bit different. The grandparents may be a little bit different. Depending on the group that they're speaking to, they will either say, "Okay, I understand that no after the first one," or they'll keep pushing it as far as they can until you get to that point of a freak out.
Jim: Grandmas never say no anyhow so that's off the table. There's also a strategy that we use. It's from a book. I think the title of the book was Say Yes To No Club. It's about a guy who does exactly that. It's some kid who always won't take no for an answer. The strategy is that the kid say yes to no. Take it as no. If you want to know why, ask about it later. That seems to work because that takes it out of the moment of, "Can I do this?" "No." "Why not?" The kid's supposed to learn to ask about that later so they make up that sort of rationale. Every once in a while I pull that out of my back pocket. It's Say Yes To No Club. Learn how to say yes to no and then we'll talk about it later.
Dave: The next tip we have here is from suspiciousmusic494. They say, "Make time for your kid. Really make time. My son is nine now, and I'm lucky that I'm not able to give him the attention he deserves. When I was working myself to death, I was only home to sleep and get ready for work and it affected him emotionally a lot. Now he's doing better with schooling, he has way less tantrums, is eating better, sleeping better, and just doing better overall." Then actually, there is another person who added in here to add to this. "Make time for each kid individually," which in bold. What are you thoughts here?
Jim: Yes, I agree with both of those, especially the, "Each kid individually." When we were in the pre-COVID days when both my wife and I were working out of the house, and you and I have talked about he swim lessons, the birthday parties, whatever, just that thing were overscheduled. We would have some time for-- Earlier on, my wife and I would stagger the day so that one of us would go to work early and come home early, the other would go to work and just be late.
There were times when maybe we got home too late, and it was already close to bedtime. We didn't have a lot of time together. We had this other tip from somebody or some book or whatever it is [unintelligible 00:09:14] where we had this special daddy-daughter time or mommy-daughter time one on one. It was remarkable. It was like black magic or voodoo or something. We'd sit down for 10 minutes, and the girls knew that they had our undivided attention. We were going to do whatever they wanted to do. Like I said, we did 10 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour, but it didn't matter how long we did it. The effect was still the same. It was remarkable how that helped their anxiety and helped their-- I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it is anxiety because there was-- Again, when we got to COVID, there was a time when we could not keep our girls off of us when we're trying to work at home. They were just all over us all the time. After a while, they got used to the idea. I got the sense that they were getting enough of us, and so they weren't so desperate to climb on us in the middle of a conference call or whatever. They knew that we were there and they knew that they could come talk to us if they needed to. I think that absent, that COVID anomaly making that special one-on-one time was really powerful.
Dave: That time is so important, and you think about these days, it's so easy to be sucked out of the moment because we have our mobile devices. Then sometimes if you have an apple watch, you put down the mobile phone and you're still getting text messages. You're getting news alerts or whatever. It's just so much harder to stay in the moment with the kids. I think that really that intentional time of saying, the phones are down, the distractions are down, I'm just going to spend 10 minutes with you one-on-one you get my undivided attention, it is so important.
We try and do some of that through meal times where we sit down together all the time and really have a conversation. I've noticed this year, the kids are really pretty good, especially my five-year-old, about when I ask, how was your day and who did you play with, and what was the snack? What did you learn? We're engaging in conversation whereas maybe just a year ago, it was like, "I don't know," or like a head nod or nothing coming out of his mouth.
I think at five, he is capable of carrying on a conversation and so we can get a little bit of insight into his day and that exchange of learning what he did. Also, I think maybe to let him know, "Hey, we're interested in what's going on in your life." Finding those times whether it's mealtime or we read together every night anywhere between, it can be 10 to 15 minutes per kid. You're read from roughly about 20 to 30 minutes a night and that's each kid.
A lot of times what we'll do, assuming my wife's schedule works it out as, we'll actually switch kids. I might start with the son while my wife is reading to the daughter, and then after our time, we'll actually switch children. Maybe we'll continue the same book, usually, we'll switch books entirely also. Part of it is selfishly when I'm reading a book to her, I want to continue to just-- I want to know what's going on, so I don't have to catch up. Yes, I think that's one of the ways that we do it.
The other thing to think about is when we think about all this time and we think about how we spend time with the kids, I find that my five-year-old is really self-sufficient. He can play Lego all day long, which is both good and bad. I'm glad that he has the attention span and can amuse himself, but the bad side, it's not really about him, it's more about us is that we go, "Oh, he's so easy, we don't have to-- we can just let him play." That's not really what that means. Then he ends up getting the short end of the stick, if our daughter is like, "Oh, I need some help with whatever the sewing machine or this art project or whatever."
Because she's the more vocal one, she ends up getting a little bit more of the time that he doesn't because he can sit there and play by herself. If you're in that situation, I think it's also important to remember to spend time with that child who is more self-sufficient or can do things that doesn't pull away from your time, but you have to make sure to give that child their time as well so that you don't have this imbalance as they continue for.
The next one we've got here is from Pancake Dan, and he says, what a great name, he says, "Refrain from making one person be the disciplinarian and the other the consoler, try to share the load. You may fall into one category naturally, but there will be times that you want to be in the other role, and it will take time to transition out of the role you had, especially if you've done it a long time. This can turn into teenagers who do respect the consoler or in the opposite teenagers who cannot open up to the disciplinarian."
Jim: Discipline is a big one with parenting. Obviously, that's the statement. Yes, obvious. In our family, my wife and I are pretty good at sharing the disciplinarian rules, but we have different methods. I think it's probably a function of my spending more time with the girls during the day when my wife is working and then she spends more time with them in the evenings. I think just by virtue of having more time with them in the afternoon after school, I think we've come to this understanding, I like to say I've done something right because they seem to understand. My discipline doesn't have to be hard or loud or angry or whatever.
We have a very matter-of-fact thing, I asked you three times, I don't want to talk about consequences, and they'll just do it. They'll do whatever it is I'm asking about. We've got a transactional style going on. Whereas, my wife, I think is a little bit more the authoritarian, not the disciplinary, but more of an authoritarian approach. I think it's pretty fair. I'm not sure if that's entirely true because each of the kids has a different attachment parent. The younger one is more attached to me, the older one's more attached to my wife. Sometimes in that sense, we will console-- the disciplined child will come to the attachment parent for consultation. I think that's less about roles and more about relationships.
Dave: Before you guys had kids, or I guess while you were expecting, did you have the discussion about, who did you think is going to be the disciplinarian? Did that ever come up?
Jim: I don't think we did. Did you?
Dave: We did. I don't know that we necessarily had an agreement. It was really more that we were talking like, "Who do you think," versus less like, "This is your job, and this is my job." I think we both agree that the kids are going to walk all over me. Ultimately, that is exactly the opposite of what has happened, I've been the one. I think part of it, too, is I guess where I've been the disciplinarian is I think that there are certain things where I'm like, "Look, if we're trying to accomplish certain things--" and discipline can mean all sorts of things.
For me, disciplinary or disciplinary is also, "Hey, it is 8:30, lights out," or something like that. It's just having that framework. For me, I've always thought of the sleep such an important part of not being a child, but they need a certain number of hours of sleep to be refreshed and to be ready for the day, whereas my wife would let that slip a little bit more when they were younger. I think now we're the kids roughly know when it's time to go to sleep anyway. I think there's the disciplinarian in that sense and then there's also the, "Hey, you're acting out," or you're," whatever, "throwing a haymaker at your sister," those kinds of things.
I fall into both of those roles, but I do think that this is not quite what the original poster was saying. I think the way it netted out for us, because I am a little bit more of the disciplinarian, is that the kids, I don't want to say respect me more, but I suppose when I talk, they understand the consequences more than when my wife asks them to do something. I think that that's something that we have to work on, because there's a sense of like, "I can get away with this with mom," or "I'm going to make her ask me to do this thing five times versus I know with dad, he's going to ask me twice, and if I don't do it, there's going to be problems."
I think some of that is right there-- Again, like these boundaries. They understood the roles that we play and they're pushing those as far as they go and it's really a function of how structured and rigid are you. That's not to say though that, that doesn't create problems for my wife. When she's asking them to do something and it takes her five times and sometimes she's like, "Look, can you ask them to do it?"
I'm like, "I asked them once and they jumped to it." We have to even that out a little bit, so the kids really-- Look, we'll also find the kids that they'll ask me something, I say, no, and then they'll go to mom because maybe she'll say something different. It's just figuring out how to all be on the same page. I think that distributing those roles is probably the ideal, but it's not quite how we've kind of rolled into it yet.
The next one we have here is from ThrowawayForYou2021. They say, "Start learning about your emotions now. Not how to control them or make them go away, but how do I identify name, acknowledge, breathe with love and accept them. Then learn what they're trying to tell you about what you need and want. Life gets a lot easier when you can do this. It also saves your child years of therapy." Then they say, "The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read," which is I guess the name of the book.
Jim: I having kids really helped me understand my emotions better as I try to relate to them. The thing that I thought of with this tweet or Reddit post, I suppose, is that my behavior is exactly the same. It's just I cloak it in adult sophistication and big words and behaviors, but it's totally the same. It's either comes down to either not getting my way or then I'm afraid of something. That for having, let's say there's a meltdown in the store and I'm not getting my way and that they're not going fast enough, or there is a tantrum in public and I'm taking a personal opinion. Parents are looking at me and so then I'm embarrassed and so then I've got fear that people are judging me or whatever. A lot of the behaviors in my kids are exactly my behaviors. They just look a little bit different and I realize that it's just in my head. I'm having a temper tantrum meltdown inside. I just do a better job of putting up a good face on it. I think because I pay attention to whether or not there the girls are hungry or tired or thirsty, all those things end up contributing to clear behavior.
There get to a place where it's like they lose the rational thought and there's just no way that they aren't responding. Well, certainly when they were younger, not so much now, but they're not quite responding to the words and it becomes something else. Again, that's something that happens to me. If I can recognize that a lot of how I'm feeling in the moment is about me, I can take that out of the picture and then start to be of service to my girls, start to figure out what they are thinking of from their perspective. It helps me have empathy.
Dave: I think that we talk about emotions also. Certainly one of the most important ones as a parent is just patience because especially when the kids are younger, they're going through things. It's natural. All kids are going to process things differently. It's just having the patience to let them work through things, or also for yourself, to not freak out and lose it. For me, certainly, I try and-- What you can tell when your frustration is building and when you're getting close to losing it.
Then the thing is, can you step back from the abyss, or do you push through that and just lose it? One of the things that I'm working on doing is to just taking that breath.
Once you start to recognize that your frustration is starting to creep up, just take a step away, let it settle back down, get back down to zero, and then come back into the situation and see if that helps you handle it better. I find that it does for myself. It doesn't mean that, look, if the kid's crying, you know what, if you need to compose yourself, let them cry for a little bit. It's okay.
This is not the end of the world. That's the same for a newborn as it is for an eight-year-old. If they're freaking out, just let them freak out because if they're freaking out is stressing you out and then you start freaking out because they're freaking out, right now we've got this unknown this terrible cycle of frustration and stuff going on. You're better off to understanding where you are walking away from the situation, let them keep going.
Then when you've calmed down a little bit, assuming it doesn't take like an hour for you to calm down, but for you to come back into the situation with a bit of a cleaner head and one where your own you've ratcheted down the emotion there. For me, also, as I notice things getting a little bit out of hand, I'll give them a verbal warning, like, "If this continues, things are going to get pretty bad for both of us," and then usually everybody usually gets the sense that, "Okay, we're hitting the red line, let's all back down. Let's all take a breath. Let's all just calm down before world war three erupts."
That seems to work. I think it does give both sides the beat of like, "Okay, I need to check myself, because I have now said that we are at the very limit of where I'm going and the kids also go, "Okay, this is going to start turning really ugly pretty soon." I think it helps us both come back from the precipice as they say.
All right. The next one is from Culps001. They say, "For the love of God, except all the help. Let other people clean, bring you food, and watch your kids while you sleep. It really does take a village. For some reason, we want to be able to do everything ourselves. It's complete nonsense." Jim, I know we both have strong opinions on this one. Why don't you go ahead and take the lead here?
Jim: Yes, this one's easy. This is not the time for the pride of self-sufficiency. This is the time to get help. There is an impulse to just, "How was everything? "Everything's fine. I'm fine." "Can I do this for you?" "No, you can't." Then I think that's the other side of it is as those people who are offering help it's anytime I say, "Hey, is there anything I can do for you?" The answer is going to be no, but if it's, "Can I bring you some food," maybe they're going to say yes. More importantly, is to be like, "I'm going to bring you some food." Then they've got to say, "No, no, don't do that."
They think, "That's my thing. It's not yours," I'm going to bring you some food. I think for the other people being aggressive about offering help in a very matter-of-fact way, I think is important. Then accept the help. This is everyone else knows you need the help right now, particularly those who have been through it. You're not telling anything that-- you're not fooling anybody, so just take the help when it's offered.
Dave: I'm glad they talk about food in particular because I think when you have a newborn, food is honestly the greatest gift short of somebody saying, "I'll babysit your child for a little while," but when they're a newborn, you don't want anybody, anyone you don't want to be away from your child. That's not a realistic thing. I think even if it's, says, your brother or sister who already has kids, who knows what they're doing, you still you want to be with that child all the time. I think food is so important because that's one of the first things I think that goes when you have a newborn because you're so tired.
You're like, "I don't have the patience to eat well and to make anything and to do the dishes and then cook and clean," and all that other stuff, but that's so important to just keep you in the right headspace and you're already sleep-deprived. If on top of that you're sleep-deprived and you're not eating well, or you're just eating cereal or a sandwich and a bag of chips or something, that's not helping either. Food absolutely is great. Cannot underline enough that except the help when it's offered. Certainly, the people that have been there, they know you need it and there's nothing wrong with taking that help and they're offering it because they genuinely would like to help you.
They've been through the process, they know what it's like, so take that help. Here we've got something from, it looks like Hanging on With two Fingers, and they say, "For infants buy everything at IKEA, the infant furniture/toys is ridiculously overpriced. You don't need a $200 high chair. You don't need a $500 crib. You don't need a $500 nursing chair. You don't need a $150 baby carrier. Save your money and only spend it on a really good car seat. Don't agonize over the stroller, rockers, swinging baby carrier. They mostly do all the same thing and a small difference won't be noticeable when you're using it."
Jim: Yes, I partially agree with this. So much of the stuff they're going to outgrow or developmentally it's only gonna be for a short while. That stuff, I think definitely it's all functional. If it's on the market, it's going to be safe. There's no reason to splurge, and it's easy to do as parents. Sure there's the like, "I want my kids to have the best," but more importantly, it's what is if I'm going to spend $400 or $500, why not? What's the extra $500 and earn an extra $100. Then it's easy to get ratcheted up in that way.
My wife and I, we did spend some money on some high-end stuff that we got lots of use out of, for example, we had a bassinet that turned into a crib. Then we use that for both the girls. We had car seats that were the click-in style with the baby carrier. Then that somehow converted into a car seat. Now we've got car seats that convert into booster seats as the girls are getting older. We had a stroller that started with the bassinet. You could put the stroller in there, and then you could put two seats on there. T
hen you could have two seats with the rolling skateboard. It was able to be configured for in almost all childhoods. We didn't have to upgrade or buy anything else. So I agree. C cheap when you can, but I'll add the caveat that I went ahead and spent money on the things that we are going to use for a longer time an that could be converted for multiple developmental stages.
Dave: Yes, I absolutely agree with you. I think that generally speaking, you don't need to go out and buy the best stuff. It's, they're going to grow out of it pretty quickly. I also agree that there are certain things that are worth paying for. I've talked about this before we bought the GB Pockit Stroller. There's a little bit of a premium to that because it's the smallest stroller apparently in the world when it's folded up. When you're traveling, that is absolutely critical and it saves you time and all this other stuff. I think just like you, there are certain certainly targeted things that it makes sense to spend a little bit more on.
Also, for those things where if you buy the stroller that can handle all stages, then you're not constantly buying a new stroller every year or a year and a half. There's also that piece to it. I think that's where it makes sense to spend a little bit more. I'm curious, so you did say that you had splurged on a few areas. Is there anything that you purchased that you regretted because you're like, man, in hindsight, that was a newbie parent move and I got bamboozled by a bunch of marketing and it was a complete waste of money?
Jim: Yes, I'm sure there was. I think a lot of those things were the things that I can think of that had those reactions were probably gifts, things that I probably wouldn't have bought myself, but things that other people bought me and they did just seem like a joke. As an early parent, a lot of it it's just desperation. Obviously, the big theme of this podcast is sleep. Anything, anything that was going to help the kids sleep, man, I would've thrown money at it all day long. I think the one thing that comes to mind is we had a little self-rocking chair, a little swing, and it did not live up to the hype. The cats ended up swinging in it more than the kids did. That was probably money we didn't need to spend.
Dave: Our swing experience was the exact opposite. That thing was golden, pop the kid in, get a little bit of quiet. It worked for both kids, thankfully. Yes, that was awesome. The one thing that I regretted purchasing? I remember reading about how certain kids just take to certain nipple types, and you're like, "What?" They're all different. We had already decided, or I guess my wife had already decided she wanted a nurse. I was like, "Okay, just in case." I went out and bought some bottles before we had the kid. I believe I bought five different brands of bottles, because I'm like, "Well, all the nipples are different." The one that I absolutely hated was the Doc Brown's.
Jim: Yes. I was just going to say that.
[laughter]
I do regret that.
Dave: We had like seven parts to that thing and it takes you forever to clean it. I do know people that have had colicky babies and they swear by Doc Brown's.
Jim: We had colicky and [inaudible 00:31:32]
Dave: It didn't work for you.
Jim: Didn't work.
Dave: That was not a really expensive thing, but I'm like, "Man, that was money not well spent. That's not well spent at all." Neither kid ever showed a preference for one type of nipple or the other. That's like newbie parent worrying stuff, where the second one comes around and you're like, "Whatever. Who cares?" As the newbie parent, I'm like, "We got to spend on five different types," and it all made sense at the time.
Jim: We had a lot of spending on bottles because we'd had a colic, the older one was colicky. Again, there was that desperation of we had to try everything, and a lot of it is just gimmicky. The Doc Brown's is one of them. I don't remember the name of the bottle we ultimately settled on, but the other four or five we had were just worthless. It just cluttered up the kitchen and hard to clean all that. I guess we had to go there to get here. We had to go through all those bottles to find the one that we liked.
Dave: Speaking about splurging, one thing that I absolutely would've splurged on and I looked for it, too, is I wanted a tabletop dishwasher that was small enough for just the baby bottles because I didn't have enough baby bottle-- There were only two adults and one child at the time, for our first one. It wasn't enough to fill the dishwasher quickly enough. I absolutely hated doing those baby bottles and I would've thrown any sum of money if you could just make me a countertop dishwasher that handled, say, five bottles, just a day's worth of bottles, or seven bottles and that was it. Just low amounts of water and just put that thing in at the end of the day, and then I wake up in the morning and all the bottles are done. I would've thrown any amount of money for that.
Jim: [chuckles] Million-dollar idea.
Dave: Yes. Alas, I believe we're still not there, but anyway. The next one we've got here is from WorkMeBabyOneMoreTime.
Jim: Before we go on, what is your Reddit handle, if you want to share it? Is it as good as this?
Dave: No, it's not. It's been a little while since I actually logged into Reddit. I cannot remember anymore, [chuckles] but yes, these handles are getting better as we go down. Actually now I'm looking, the last couple aren't as good, but yes, we had a nice little run here of good handles.
Jim: Yes. All right. WorkMeBabyOneMoreTime, what do they say?
Dave: WorkMeBaby is saying, "Making my kids be members of the Clean Plate Club. So many arguments over the dinner table, bargaining, et cetera, for nothing really, especially with my son who vomits if he eats the wrong thing. Just dumb. Pick your battles. This was not a good battle to pick. It damaged my relationship with my son. Also, teenagers are a pain to wake up. Their body is on a different schedule."
Jim: I'll skip the teenager thing because that was certainly my experience as a teenager but we're not there yet. The Clean Plate Club never really made sense to me. I don't force that on my girls. We loosely follow the three-bite rule, that they've got to at least try three bites of everything on their plate. That's fine. Then I trust them. I ask them, they want to be excused? Is their stomach full? I trust them. Again, what's the worst that could happen? They get a little bit hungry later.
I want them to learn how to regulate their own-- have some physical education and learn about their body, and when they're full and when they're not. I'll take their word for that. Sometimes there's some bargaining for, "If you want to have dessert, you've got to finish your vegetables." There will be times when they'll make that decision that they won't have ice cream because they don't want to finish their vegetables, and that's fine. Really, I put the onus on them for making sure that they're full and that they're having food that they like.
Dave: I feel the whole Clean Plate Club thing is a vestige of more of the older parent generation. [crosstalk]
Jim: Depression Era?
Dave: Yes, and even for people that grew up in the '80s, all the hunger, the famine stuff, think about all these poor kids who don't have any food. That's not to make light of the fact that there still are tremendous issues around food and all that stuff, but that I think was a big social issue in the '80s. Again, not to underplay that, and certainly, in the United States food insecurity is a huge thing. It feels like that is a vestige for when Xers were growing up and hearing that from their parents, like, "You got to eat all. Clean everything out."
I do think that that's an outdated concept. I think most days now, yes, I agree that most people think about food and the relationship that you have to food and understanding that if I just tell you to finish your plate, that's not helping you understand the signs that you're full. I recognize this in myself that sometimes I'm eating and I'm like, "Wait a minute. Why am I eating here? I'm not actually hungry. I should stop eating." I think that if you grow up with that sort of, "I have to finish, clean plate, clean plate, clean plate," I think that, yes, you do learn to ignore the signs that you are full, which is not very healthy.
I will say that it's really difficult, though, when you have a picky eater and how you manage the balance between eating something and the fact that they don't want to eat anything, and just how you manage these. Also again, it's that pick your battle. With a picky eater, are you going to sit there and force them to eat something when they may not want to eat something, or do you just say, "Okay, they didn't eat much for dinner, but they'll probably make it up tomorrow for breakfast or during the course of the day"?
I think overall, food is an overall, it's not just the thing you consume that one day. It's, "Did you have enough to eat over the course of the week," is much more important than, "Did you have enough calories during that one day?" I agree with that as well. The next one we have is from Normac6423, and they say, "Say sorry when you're wrong. I apologize if I punish too quickly or too harshly, or if I get moody. I always her why I think I did what I did. I don't just say no. My dad was a dick and would often say no for no discernible reason, without explanation.
I've lived my life in keeping with my promise to never say, 'because I said so,' and I'm proud of it. It's all in treating them like people and not like objects you own. I don't mean to sound condescending, but this is information I needed. I still do. I was treated as second class, told to, 'shut up and listen, go away, stand in a corner,' et cetera. My wife has really helped me become a parent. I actually never wanted a child because I just knew I'd be the worst dad because of what I went through. Got to break the chain."
Jim: That's a heavy post.
Dave: Yes.
Jim: What resonated with me is "treating them like people". That's something that I had to realize, and it became easier as they became more conversive and had more stronger, less taking care of a little screaming thing and more of a relationship with a little kid, and recognizing that they are just little people and it's important to be fair. I acknowledge my mistakes. If there was a time where maybe I snapped at them, a little bit later I'll say, "I'm sorry. I was frustrated and I'm tired, and I didn't make a good decision. I want to apologize." It's as much for me as it is for them, just to know that I'm trying to treat them with respect as little people.
Dave: Just like hopefully we would do for an adult to apologize when we were out of bound or whatever, I also do that with the kids. I think, yes, saying, "I'm sorry," and explaining why things happen I think is important. I also like this explaining the reasons why you said no. I've talked about this on a couple of other podcasts, where I had a play date with another parent at the school and our kids were in the playground and one of the kids was going to eat some flowers, unbeknownst to me, apparently he's learning actually what vegetation can be eaten in an urban landscape.
There's actually a reason for it. What both of us said was, we both said, "Don't eat the flowers and the leaves," and I left it at that, but this parent said, she said, "We don't do that, why don't we do it?" I thought that that was really interesting because it wasn't something that I'd really thought of. I mean, my kid was already whatever 4years-old. It really hadn't occurred to me that yes, of course. It helps them, if you tell them why you're saying what you're saying, as opposed to just the hard form no, which it's a no because I said so which is not super useful for anybody. You're not learning anything from that experience.
I always look back on that and I try and think about that experience, what I am telling the kids to know, especially when I have a reason that might not be obvious to them at first, simply because it's maybe more complicated, and certainly is when the kids are younger their ability to project the consequences of their actions is not there yet. I think that that helps them understand we don't eat flowers because we can get sick or whatever it is.
I think key to that is really the sort of don't just say no and just leave it at that. It really is that explaining it to them. I think that shows that you're treating them as equals.
I do think that the kids do pick up on the difference in how you interact with adults. When they get a sense that, "Okay, you're interacting with me as an adult," I think is good for their confidence as well.
All right. The last one we have here is from KatRBeanie. They say, "Feeling embarrassed when my kid had a tantrum. I no longer give a crap about being stared at when my seven year old autistic son is screaming on the ground in the supermarket, street, wherever. People walk past, and yes, some are silently judging you, others are there in silent solidarity having been there themselves. Every parent has had a moment like that. I don't give a crap when people think. Deal with your kid and move on. No point worrying about people you'll likely never see again. You have nothing to be embarrassed about."
Jim: I can only imagine with an autistic child, it sounds like that maybe an exceptionally challenging tantrum situation. From my experience, the tantrum, it happens and it happens everywhere: restaurants, airports, whatever. My approach has always been just to stay calm because maybe even lower my voice just a little bit more because I think the worst thing would be when the parent loses their control, loses their temper, and then it becomes two people having a temper tantrum.
Then I've witnessed that as another parent watching one parent really escalating a tantrum, and it's painful to watch for both the parent and the kid. If I could just stay calm and it is it's their deal. We talk about our kids as little people. Their temper tantrum really shouldn't be a reflection on me as a parent. It's something that happens. I'm going to do my best to control it talk it out quietly and firmly and move on.
Dave: The post is correct in saying that there are absolutely a group of parents that are there that are feeling sympathy for you. That they have been in that situation before. They're not judging you. They know what it's like to be in your situation. As they say, you're never going to see these people ever again. It just kind of you do you and take the time that you need to sort of deescalate the situation, but don't worry about all these other people around you, whatever, who cares what they think? You're never going to see them again. Just kind of control the situation and in terms of the way that it makes sense for you and your child. I think that's all you have to worry about there. If we reflect back on this whole list, Jim, I'm wondering what the one bit of advice that you think here is missing.
Jim: Kind of piggybacking on the last topic, it's saved the judgements. There's no reason to be judging yourself or your spouse and deal with facts, deal with problem-solving, deal with co-parenting, work on a co-parenting relationship that that is healthy and helpful for everyone in the family. Otherwise, it's easy to get wrapped up in emotions and blaming and resentment, and that just causes problems. I've read once in some article that there are spikes in divorce at ages two and three, and then again in the early teenage years.
I wish I could find the citation for that because this is just anecdotal at this time. What the article said is that the ages two and three that's when things are really getting challenging. As an infant, you're in the moment, you can deal with it but 2 or 3. That's when these sort of behaviors that we're talking about start to come out and it can be really challenging. Then if there are fractures in the relationship or some sort of weak spot, that's really going to expose that.
Then the other is in the early teenage years, when I guess the one parent will start to see some unattractive behaviors in the kid that they think they got from the other spouse. Then it's something about seeing that reflected in their kids can be very challenging. Those are judgments, and saving that, learning how to recognize when I'm judging, and take steps to turn that around, I think it was really important. Those sorts of judgments, particularly of each other are just going to get in the way of the relationship and parenting.
Dave: The one that I have talked about frequently that I think is missing here is the self-care piece. If you're not taking care of yourself, that's when things go south. If you're not taking care of yourself, it's so much harder to take care of someone else, especially a little person who's growing into the world and everything. I think that that's when your emotions start to get frayed and when your fuse gets shorter and then a lot of these negative things happen where you've ratcheted up the stress level and all these things.
We talked about in Episode 29, where we were talking about going back to school, how your anxiety, if you have anxiety around the return to school this year, likely, depending on how it manifests itself, it may end up being transferred to your child, where they sense that you're anxious about them going back to school, and they then take that anxiety with them. They may not even understand why they should be anxious or really what's going on outside of the fact that, "Oh, I have, maybe I have to wear a mask to school."
You can be creating a situation where your child is anxious, where they're not themselves. They're not feeling any bit of anxious other than the fact that they're picking up on your anxiety. I think that self-care piece is really important. If you can't take care of yourself, again, it's just so much harder to be responsible for other people and how your own emotions interact with those other people. That is the big one.
That to me has always been one of the biggest challenges is just finding the time to do that self-care in whatever way that it makes sense for you, whether it's reading the book or going to the gym or sewing or whatever it is, cooking, but really do spend the time that's necessary to take care of yourself. We hope you found today's episode informative. If you'd to support the podcast and hear more discussions around fatherhood, please subscribe and drop us a review. If you have any questions, hit us up on the Facebook page, facebook.com/papaestfatigue, that's P-A-P-A E-S-T F-A-T-I-G-U-E. Thanks for listening.
[00:48:21] [END OF AUDIO]