the fact that he called it a “game” to those girls is really upsetting. Treating anyone’s emotional distress like a game is dehumanizing.
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stop assigning adult intentions and motivations to children, and for god’s sake don’t invalidate someone else’s feelings just because you don’t think it’s a big deal! Who the hell are you to decide what someone’s internal experience should be/determine whether it’s “worthy” of sympathy? Particularly children, who rely on their parents to help them learn to manage their emotions and cope in healthy ways while their btains develop.
To be clear, when we get to be adults, minimizing others’ experiences and feelings is a tactic frequently used by abusers to manipulate and control. It’s not ok to try and manipulate your children to control them.
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When a child is having a temper tantrum over something like the wrong colored cup then it’s often more productive for everyone involved to redirect their attention rather than have a long discussion about the thing that got them worked up.
I was a child once too, and like all children I sometimes got worked up over trivial issues as well as legitimate problems. My parents’ responses helped me develop the sense of perspective to differentiate the two.
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Redirecting isn’t turning your child’s distress into a game and it definitely isn’t telling them this is a “fun game” to play. there are ways to redirect that don’t involve such heavy invalidation of your child’s feelings.
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And yet you are doing exactly that.
dog, I am sorry I read thru this mess…
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Oh no, we won’t with the false equivalency.
“dog, I am sorry I read thru this mess…”
Yeah, it’s almost like the internet is as terrible a place to test out your parenting skills as it is to be a child in.
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/agree
Kids don’t come with operating instructions and neither do parents, at least I don’t remember receiving any. So much judgement and lambasting anything anyone does now. I grew up in a time where my parents broke many wooden spoons across my backside, we rode bikes without helmets or pads, we left to play in the morning and came back when we were hungry. I think they call it “free range kids” now. If I listen to all the “advise” given by people on the interwebs, I’m not sure how I made it thru alive.
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Careful with this line of argument. Sounds a bit like “a bit of beating around the ear didn’t do me no harm”.
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No matter what you do your kids will be as shaped by your frailties, shortcomings, vices, fears, and failures as they will by your wisdom, hope, love, ambition, creativity etc. How exactly though? That’s the thing, every single individual case is different and no child just stops being a child one day and becomes the exact person they’ll be for the rest of their life. That being said, whether some one makes it through or not isn’t a great indicator of anything.
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I guess I was more thinking about “the other things I did” as a kid. You and @TornPaperNapkin are right. The example in the video is not how I would have handled it, but I know I am simply not the person to make that judgement.
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To counter all the hate being sent towards this dad, let me just say that I have some sympathy for him. When my kids were that age, sometimes the only reason they are crying is because they were crying 3 minutes ago. The original bit of sadness/anger/frustration has passed, but they just can’t handle their emotions well enough to calm themselves down. This is especially difficult when you need to get somewhere (like the beach).
There are times when playfulness and distraction is the best way to stop the crying. There are times when it’s not for the best, but you’re a tired and stressed parent and you give your kids a lollipop just to shut them up so you can leave the house in a reasonable time.
As long as the core of your relationship with your kids is love and understanding, this sort of parenting hack is a reasonable when you really need it (though I could do with less mockery myself).
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I think everyone here agrees with you about the difficulties of parenting. What we don’t condone is taking the time out of that parenting to set up a device to FILM the behavior of very young children, and then put the video out in the public domain for all to see forever.
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Fair point. I agree.
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Nah. I doubt this “works every time.”
Remember when kids would try to “jinx” you in grade school, like when you and another kid said the same thing at the same time, “JINX!”, and you couldn’t speak until someone said your name?
“Really, I can’t speak until someone says my name? I never agreed to that. How you gonna make me stop talking, BIlly? You and what army?”
I used to get that one too. As a parent of a 19 year old and a 17 year old i recently remembered that and said to my wife “I cannot imagine saying something that cruel to a child”. Crazy how stuff you think is normal parenting looks awful once you’re a parent!
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I’m a parent of two former children.
I also felt like this entered into mocking territory. You could see her trying to process what was happening, and she was still upset, but he was shaming her into not crying.
Tantrums are a pain in the ass, I get that. Distracting from a tantrum is a good idea, as long as you can do it without rewarding the behavior. But his “crying” sounded so much like a guy making fun of a girl to me. It had a wrongness to it that I can’t really explain.
Also the fact he recorded it and shared it… I just don’t know. If I’d had this advice back when my children were still children, I couldn’t have done it. To me, it lacks empathy.
Now that sounds like it would have worked well.
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I like your comment, but we really don’t have any context to the situation. This could be attempt #3 to address the problem, it could also be his standard deflection. We don’t know. As a parent, when my kids were this age, my default response was #1 hugs, #2 ask questions, #3 problem solve. But I also reached a point where, especially for the 6 y.o., they need to start learning how to calm themselves. This tactic seems like it’s moving in that direction.
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