parenting

There is a new understanding that tantrums, oppositionalism, [and] negativism are not a sign that the child is terrible or that the child’s age is terrible. It’s a sign that the ability of the child to think through a situation has collapsed because of overwhelming feelings of fear and frustration that dysregulates their emotional composure. There is more of an awareness that when we say the “terrible twos” we’re really talking about the adult experience rather than the child’s.

It’s interesting, raising a child, because he has the family that I didn’t have, that I wish I had had. And I’m so happy he does, and it gives me such joy to give him a healthy family. That’s the number one most important thing to me.

Susan Sontag lists her 10 rules for raising a child:

• Be consistent.
• Don’t speak about him to others (e.g., tell funny things) in his presence. (Don’t make him self-conscious.)
• Don’t praise him for something I wouldn’t always accept as good.
• Don’t reprimand him harshly for something he’s been allowed to do.
• Daily routine: eating, homework, bath, teeth, room, story, bed.
• Don’t allow him to monopolize me when I am with other people.
• Always speak well of his pop. (No faces, sighs, impatience, etc.)
• Do not discourage childish fantasies.
• Make him aware that there is a grown-up world that’s none of his business.
• Don’t assume that what I don’t like to do (bath, hairwash) he won’t like either.

I gotta adhere to the rules of getting kids to listen, which are:

• Be consistent.
• Let your kid mess up if they’re hellbent on messing up.
• Remember that, 90 percent of the time, the best parenting is no parenting at all
• Never ask a kid to do anything because they’ll say no; just tell them what you want.
• Keep the words to a minimum because they stop listening after seven seconds.
• When all else fails, BRIBE THE FUCKERS.

How to diffuse a child’s tantrum with one question

When a tantrum starts — either because the doll’s arm came off, or because it’s time to go to bed, or because the homework did not come out the way she wanted, or because he did not want to do a chore — whatever the reason, we can ask them the following question, looking into their eyes and in a calm voice:

“Is this a big problem, a medium problem, or a small problem?”

Sve što uradite umesto svog deteta, uradili ste protiv njega.

Here is what a ‘true and lucid consciousness of the situation’ of fatherhood might resemble: you watch wide-eyed as your beloved pushes a stranger out of a bodily orifice that seems altogether too small for the labour; when the gore is cleaned up, the stranger becomes your most intimate companion and life-long dependent; existence, from that day forward, is structured around this dependency; and then, if everything goes well, the child will grow up to no longer need you. At the end of the existential day, your tenure as a father will end in one of two ways: either your child will die or you will. As Kierkegaard writes in Either/Or (1843): ‘You will regret both.’

Raising children is an uncertain thing. Success is reached only after a life of battle and worry.

Something I explained to my 12 yo: When you're a little kid, your parents create your environment. Then there's a second stage where your peers do. Then for ambitious people there's a third stage where you create your own environment by choosing your own peers.

Taught 8 yo a rule of thumb for avoiding cults and cult-like things: Avoid groups that tell you not to talk to your family.