Trends come and go in popularity, and those pertaining to parenting are no exception. Redditor GroundJealous7195 asked, “What parenting advice accepted today will be criticized or outdated in the future?” Here are some parenting trends that people would love to see go extinct.
1.
“Never saying no to children. We teach kids by modeling behavior. I do not want my daughter to internalize that ‘no’ is a bad word, or that we don’t say it to people we love, or that it’s only for emergencies, or that she needs special extenuating circumstances to give her permission to say no. I say no when I mean no, and I want my daughter to do the same.”
2.
“Over-scheduling children. So many kids go from daycare to lessons and then straight to bed almost every day of the week. On top of that, they have multiple lessons or activities on the weekends and no downtime to be bored at home. Kids need time to be bored.”
3.
“The popular idea that time outs are bad. Time outs work great. It’s an immediate natural consequence. Can’t play nice? Go sit over there and calm yourself away from polite society. “
4.
“Waiting so long to potty train. It is not normal for typically developing kids who are almost five years to still be soiling themselves.”
5.
“Not teaching kids to deal with frustration and other negative emotions early on. Instead, parents give in to every demand, which lets kids expect that everyone else will do the same.”
6.
“Kids online, and I’m not just talking about letting kids on social media. Rather, I’m pointing to family bloggers/vloggers sharing images of their kids everywhere.”
7.
“I think we’re going to see pushback against over-involved/helicopter parenting. These parents don’t allow kids to practice independence. Their kids have no opportunity to learn to cope with mistakes and disappointments until these realities are thrown on them all at once as adults.”
8.
“Beige everything. We went from overstimulating colors from the 2000s to everything being beige and understimulating.”
9.
“Accommodations. Back when I was a kid, accommodations were hardly even a thing. Some kids just weren’t cut out for academics, end of story. We just let them fall by the wayside. I made it, but none of my brothers did. Oh well. We don’t do that anymore, thank goodness. We support students with additional needs. Up to a third of all students now have IEPs or 504s, including both of my own kids and when done right, it allows them to succeed. However, what I have observed is that outcomes vary. A lot…”
10.
“Letting babies play on iPhones and iPads. As a Kindergarten teacher, I’m crossing my fingers that this becomes outdated. The research is out there, but it’s also the easy way to keep a kid quiet all day every day, so I don’t know if enough people will change.”
11.
“Parents being present for every single moment of a child’s life. Many children these days have no unsupervised time. In the future, we will realize how harmful this is to children’s development and parental wellbeing.”
12.
“Cry it out sleep training. I understand that as babies get older, they need chances to self-soothe, but I think some parents take it really far. I have heard of people who put the baby down for bed at 7 p.m. and don’t respond to them until morning. 😭”
13.
“Not giving children any privacy. I don’t mean posting pictures of them online. Rather, I mean parents who track their kids’ phones, texts, and emails. Kids have zero privacy. My son is 14 and most of his friends’ parents are shocked that I don’t check his location, have parental alerts on his phone, or go through his messages. My parents couldn’t track me. Yes, I did dumb things, but that’s part of growing up. They don’t have real independence and the opportunity to make mistakes if you’re constantly watching them. I can access my son’s location, but we have it set up to alert him if I do. Trust goes both ways. I trust him to make good choices and he trusts me not to read through his discord, messages, and emails.
14.
“Feeding kids ultra-processed food as part of our regular diet. I think the next generation will be appalled by what we feed our kids today. They will ask why we let our kids eat food with so many preservatives and artificial products lol. I think our grandkids will wonder why we allowed companies to put so much crap in our foods!”
15.
“Not demanding that toddlers help with chores. Yes, it’s inconvenient. Yes, it makes the chore take longer. Yes, it means you sometimes have to reset the table because your two year old put all the forks in her mouth. But toddlers want to help, and getting them to participate when they’re young makes them feel more connected to the household. It also means they’ll know how to do things when they’re big enough to do it independently. I see so many kids aged ten or even older who can’t or won’t help with basic tasks like doing the dishwasher or setting the table.”
16.
“Giving your kids screentime will be the smoking of our generation for kids under five.”
17.
“Limited and inconsistent parental leave. I hope that when our kids are having kids, they are shocked to hear how difficult it is for many Americans to stitch together sufficient leave.”
18.
“Exclusive breastfeeding rather than bottle or breast and bottle when needed. It may take a while for the evidence to catch up to policy, but the current trend of telling mums to avoid the temptation of formula feeding is unhelpful nonsense.”
19.
“Baby-led weaning! This seems so unnecessary and so dangerous if done wrong. Hell, if it’s done right, it still seems scary and dangerous. Kids will learn to eat, there is no reason to rush them into eating solid whole pieces of food so early.”
21.
“Wake windows. I hope one day we all look back on our obsession with following wake windows and think, WTF?!?”
Do you have something to add? What is a piece of parenting advice or a trend you think will (or should) fall out of popularity? Tell us in the comments or in this anonymous form.
