Thread by @TheDaveMadden

Alright, time to participate: opinion thread (inspired by @vgr's threadapolooza) time.

Subject: Parenting

https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1205983999274840064

@vgr 1. The goal of parenting is not to raise a well-behaved child. It's to raise a well-adjusted, fulfilled human being capable of contributing to the world and forming meaningful human relationships.

@vgr 2. These two competing goals are often mutually-exclusive.

@vgr 3. The way you talk to your children will be the way they talk to themselves as adults. Your voice becomes their inner voice.

@vgr 4. Often, in order to be a good parent, you have to look like a bad parent (ie not reacting to a public tantrum, which only reinforces the behavior in the long-run). This requires a lot of confidence in your approach.

@vgr 5. A good way to measure success: will your children choose to include you in the fabric of their everyday lives when they're no longer reliant on you for financial support?

@vgr 6. Parenting is the single experience in my entire life that has lived up to (or exceeded) the hype. The stereotypes are all 100% true: it changes the way you see everything.

@vgr 7. Raising kids well is the hardest thing I've ever done.

And I was a Navy SEAL Officer for over a decade.

@vgr 8. Most parenting books are absolute dogshit. But there are some real exceptions, like "NurtureShock" and "Simplicity Parenting"

@vgr 9. What you model in front of your kids matters far more than what you say. Both matter, but if you tell your kids to eat their vegetables while they've never seen you eat a salad, you're wasting your breath.

@vgr 10. In this way parenting can make you a much better version of yourself. Because you're always being watched. And, because you often care more about the wellbeing of your kids than you do your own health, you'll often do things you SHOULD do but wouldn't otherwise bother with.

@vgr 11. Another amazing effect of parenting is that children are brilliant and incredibly interesting. The way they put words together to explain things they don't understand has been an invaluable source of insight and perspective to me.

@vgr 12. They're also hilarious. My middle child (the feral one) once put his hand in my wife's cleavage and asked:

"Mommom, is that your butt?"

My wife said "No buddy, that's not my butt."

"Oh, then it's your milk-butt!"

@vgr 13. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom about how having children adversely affects your work ethic, I've found that (if anything) my work ethic is far stronger:

I'm not working for myself or my ego anymore.

I'm working for THEM.

@vgr 14. Children know they're vulnerable and need their parents to show them we have it under control.

Routine/predictability is all-important here.

@vgr When life becomes too unpredictable for them, they take control into their own hands the only ways they know how.

Often this means they restrict the foods they will eat.

@vgr When our children start limiting the variety of foods they're willing to eat, my wife and I reevaluate what we're doing.

Often we've let some routines slip or let chaos enter the house somehow.

Once we tighten back up, the kids go back to their normal eating habits.

@vgr 17. It seems crazy, but chronic low-level stress can have the same impact on a child's psychology as a single, violent, acute stressor.

@vgr 18. See this book, where a child psychologist sees the same symptoms in children from both refugee camps and affluent NYC dual-income families:

simplicityparenting.com

19. Listening to your children is underrated.

Often you can get them to do what they need to do (vs. what they want to do) by simply saying:

"I know you really want to play with your Legos right now, and we can do that when we get home, but right now we have to..."

20. Obligation in the parent-child relationship is a one-way street.

I owe my children everything.
My children owe me nothing.

If I want to be in their lives when they're grown, I have to earn it. Every day.

Hugs are optional.

Even for grandparents and parents.

Coerced physical contact teaches children that their bodies are not their own.

Upside: when you get a hug, you know they mean it.

22. Some people are natural parents.
Some people have a lot of work to do.

I am naturally a terrible parent. I have to intellectualize everything to get it right. Often I fail.

My wife is absolutely brilliant. Her instincts are almost always right.

23. If you fuck something up, like overreacting to some minor frustration, apologize. Explain why you did what you did, why it was wrong, and what you're going to do to improve yourself.

You have no idea how powerful a positive message it sends to your children.

24. The importance of physical contact cannot be overstated. It helps them regulate their emotions and makes them feel safe/secure.

See what happens in the extreme situations where children are not touched:

npr.org/sections/healt…

25. Children need to feel useful. Give them jobs to do.

Just be prepared to suppress your (my) pathological for perfection and efficiency.

Instead, your OKR for success should be: how much joy/fulfilment your kids experience.

26. Boys and girls are very different, on average, from the get-go.

I used to think that gender differences in their preferences/behaviors (pre-puberty) were almost entirely socially-constructed.

That idea seems laughable now.

Just look on Instagram for #boymom and you'll see

27. When enabling hobbies/passions in children, a system of allowing children to guide themselves (with parental support) vs. saying "you're going to learn the violin" is preferable.

Neither of the Tiger Mom's children still play the instrument their mother chose for them

28. Test scores are the easiest way to "rate" a school, but they aren't very important past a certain threshold.

Much more important: how do the teacher talk to the children?

A proxy for this: check suicide rates at the HS the elementary school feeds into.

29. We should all read to/with our children every night.

30. It is IMPOSSIBLE to "spoil" your children with too much love, affection, or attention.

That's not to say you shouldn't give them space when they want it. But if they need your attention and you feel they're being needy, give it to them anyways.

31. Your children can tell when you're actually enjoying their company.

Put yourself in a psychological position to see them and hear them. Let yourself feel how much you love them when you're talking to them.

ESPECIALLY when you're having a hard conversation.

32. Your children learn how to treat their partners (and how they should expect to be treated themselves) by how you treat their mother/father.

And they are always watching.

33. Most people are aware (a little) of postpartum depression. It's a very real thing that is often exacerbated by social isolation in the wake of the new birth.

34. But few people are aware of how difficult it can often be for new fathers to bond with their young children.

Fairy tales (and some real people) talk about this immediate, life-altering bond on first contact.

For many fathers, this doesn't happen.

35. You can see it on their faces.

"This was a huge mistake."
Combined with:
"I'm a terrible person for not immediately falling head-over-heels in love with my child."

36. It took me months to form an emotional bond to our first child.

I felt an immediate obligation/pressure to take care of him, but it wasn't the new-father-high/immediate swoon that PG wrote about in his essay.

So I felt like a failure. A trapped failure.

37. This is far more common than you'd think.

So, to every new father struggling with this:

IT GETS BETTER.

What feels like a huge mistake will be one of your life's greatest gifts. It just might take a while. And that's okay.

38. "Sleep training" is the practice of letting your child cry, by itself in its crib, without comfort, all night.

If that seems fucked up, it is.

This doesn't teach your child to "self-soothe."
It teaches them to give up hope you will be there for them when they need comfort.

39. An abandoned child is a dead child, evolutionarily speaking.

That is probably not the psychology you want imprinted on your children.

40. Costumes turn boring errands (like picking up a big brother from school) into an adventure.

41. Yes, what you feed your children really DOES matter.

https://twitter.com/michaelpollan/status/1207066136887599104?s=20

42. There's something to be said for this. Never done LSD, but that part is optional:

https://twitter.com/yashkaf/status/1205967205172731905?s=20

43. Children change so quickly that they really are different/new people every day.

Sometimes you can almost SEE their neural pathways connecting. Like their brain is wiring itself right in front of you.

44. When one of my kids does something wrong, they almost universally meant to do something REALLY kind and failed in the execution.

Option A: Get mad, they shut down, you miss out.
Option B: Ask them calmly and lovingly about what happened and why. Be prepared to choke up.

45. This.

https://twitter.com/diviacaroline/status/1206457055969591296