I sometimes have to deal with the ways she negatively impacts me and I am having a hard time navigating that. Example: this morning, she got in the way of me putting on my shoes.

I recognize that pattern of social/communication problems. You'd do well reading Alfie Kohn's "The surprising gift of anger" as well as a certain parenting blog that I'm going to link once I finally recall it.

This is sweet and useful, and also a good mindset for protests / actions:

Should your efforts bear fruit, you’ll have a dozen or so children show up, and your Plan A will pan out. But you should have Plan B ready — just your child and a couple of staunch friends. If this is the situation, be prepared to roll with it as if this was exactly the best outcome.

And if no one turns out at all, you should be prepared for this. Address any disappointment your kid might express, but don’t show any disappointment of your own. Just tell your kid, now you can just relax, not worry about a big party, and just celebrate family style.

Sure but could you explain what's this all about, lol?

some interesting stuff here, although:

Transition takes four to five years (at least).

seems like a strange generalization based in binary normativity, everyone's goals and journey are going to look different.

The majority of substantiated maltreatment charges in the child welfare system are for neglect, which typically means issues like lack of food, child care, or weather-appropriate clothing

weather-appropriate clothing

Well, I'm fucked. My little ice-child loves the cold and never wears weather-appropriate clothing.

the link doesn't work anymore, so i found the current one and archived it. it seems to be formatted a little oddly, still readable though

https://archive.md/jCEzc

Invoking #TraumaSurvivors from this article because you feel invalidated is actively offensive to real trauma survivors.

shut up

This is so powerful. I had read years ago that positive reinforcement was just the other side of punishment. So we strove not to do any positive reinforcement with our kid. We basically try to just live with her, and explain things to her. This article is a good refresher for me. I sometimes have to deal with the ways she negatively impacts me and I am having a hard time navigating that. Example: this morning, she got in the way of me putting on my shoes. My back has been out a lot lately (I am seeing a chiropractor and going to physical therapy for it). The last time it went out was being in a bad position tying my shoes. I tried to tell her she was in the way without pushing or telling her what to do but I still somehow upset her. I wonder if it felt like name-calling to her...thanks for posting this, it gives me something to think about.

Great piece! (and a nice easy read)

The part about positive reinforcement is something that I haven't seen talked about much. Seems pretty obvious how blatantly manipulative it is but it apparently few people have a problem with acting this way.

As if there weren't enough reasons to avoid having a baby

Thanks for your reply!!

I made this post a while ago, the twin are already born and turned 3 months old recently. We got gifted enough disposable diapers by friends and family that I still haven't had to buy any. At this point, I don't think I can convince the miss's to use diapers.

The elimination communication bit is really interesting and something I something I would like us to apply but I got told "you do it" which isn't very productive because I spend most of the day at work.

It's almost like human mothers and children co-evolved...

Unlike cows, goats, and all the other mammals out there humans like to drink the milk of.

She was very proud of her parenting. It horrified me.

I like this book already! Teaching kids "grit" is really in right now, and while I think that's a valuable trait, purposely creating difficult situations for kids is definitely the wrong way to go about it. Kids are going to experience enough trouble and challenges in their lives, and if you're supporting them and encouraging them to work through it, that's what's going to be important. I feel like that quote about setting them on fire sums up the whole argument pretty damn well.

wtf, that person should not be working as a therapist

exactly and the first couple of chapters are just the author going through and showing, with actual evidence, how this way of thinking and behaving is harmful and just plain wrong.

I love this quote. It reminds me of some fucked up shit my therapist told me. She said when her kids were younger she would purposely disappoint them. Like, she'd say they were going to a birthday party or some shit and then randomly just say "nope, it's cancelled." She said this was to get them used to disappointment. It made no fucking sense to me. Why would you pre-traumatize your child? Wouldn't it be better to be there for your kid when they did experience disappointment rather than create disappointment for them? Life sucks enough.

you'd have to read the book and it challenges exactly what you're saying with actual evidence not just popular thought

this is just one little snippet, I'm only a couple chapters in and the whole thing has been great and helping me in trying to rethink what I'm doing and why. highly recommend this for anyone who works with kids in any way.

Nice quote! Thanks for sharing!

This is the sort of thing that makes me crazy. My daughter is 7 but mature. I can see the school from the back bedroom of my house. I could watch her from my house enter the school. Yet no students are allowed unless accompanied by an adult. I hear so many stories of walked to school at 5, 6, 7 to the other side of town "when I was a child". Yet, she can't go even though she begs she is old enough.

Don't get me wrong. I would panic as much as the next parent of "has she got there safe", but this tight control of you are a bad parent for letting them out to roam for 2 minutes needs to stop.

I went to visit my grandparents with my mother and her sister. My grandfather, who is I'll from Parkinson's and has little he can do physically very well now, started the visit with a discussion of who was thinner than whom between his daughters and his wife. Both daughters present suffer from anorexia. I have no doubt in my mind he is to blame.

At work, I was joking with a coworker about how much of a corn chip addict I am, saying I could eat nothing but chips and salsa and be happy. She then told me something that horrified me. She said she gets the big Costco bags of corn chips and then when her daughter comes home from school, if they see her wolfing down too many of them "on the cameras", they tell her through the house to stop eating so many chips. I was so disgusted. They have cameras in their house to monitor their children when they aren't home!

Haha that's about the look I get from my kid after a minute or two of trying to explain life. You're right though, kids rarely ever get to hear "You're right" from parents. My kid told me the other day, "It was your fault Daddy" and my first instinct is: You don't get to say that, you're a kid. Thankfully I stopped before I actually said that, and admitted that indeed I had been in the wrong.
Also, I have the hardest time keeping a straight face whenever my kid says "Fucking." It's just so innocent and adorable, and I want to laugh so hard! We try so hard to watch our language, but that just sneaks out sometime, and he knows it's not a good word so he always pauses for a moment before saying it, and then usually uses it as an opportunity to list off the other impolite words :)