Typed Jan Faull’s advice on my Obsidian vault. Some of the things he said resonated with me. Also liked his choice of nouns: proximity control, chore force n stress-proofing. Can’t wait to sprinkle these into my conversations to sound more like I know what I’m doing.
Darn Good Advice Parenting
  • Try not to respond the same way each time your children have an argument. You don’t want to become the predictable player in each fight
  • Hold your player tongue when a sibling pair is interacting positive. Don’t destroy the moment and disrupt the positive nature of the interaction.
  • Encourage your child to come into the bathroom with you. He can hand you toilet paper, and when you’re finished, he can flush the toilet.
  • The act of brushing one’s teeth can be deconstructed into 14 steps.
  • It isn’t unusual for children to have a meltdown when they get back together with their parents at the end of the day. It’s release after good behaviour. All day kids do their best to manage themselves as best they can. Once home they feel the need to let down or let loose.
  • To reduce the chance of your child having a temper tantrum, give her lead time from one activity to the next.
  • When your child shifts into high gear with emotion, shift yourself into low gear and move toward your child. Stay by his side for five minutes and say: “You can be as angry as you like. When you’re finished being angry, then you’ll need to complete your homework assignment.”
  • Excessive guilt can lead to shame.
  • After a visit to the doctor, a toddler needs to reenact the experience.
  • Academic discipline occurs when children acquire good study habits related to school work.
  • Resilient kids aren’t stoical. When faced with adversity, they respond emotionally, recoil temporarily, and then, more often than not, return to their prior emotional state.
  • Children learn to manage their emotions somewhere between eight and twelve and then lose it again through the emotional roller coaster ride of adolescence.
  • Teenagers need to release their emotional energy.
  • Communicate information they need to hear in sound bites.
  • Use proximity control
  • Use chore force - it’s a force similar to gravity; no one really likes it, it just happens and we all learn to live with it.
  • Employ stress-proofing. Know how much stress is enough and how much is too much for each child. Also work into your everyday routine activities that relax and calm your child.
Crowdsourcing time! What’s one piece of advice you would give to fellow parents?
  • Praise their good behavior, and ignore or keep comments brief when dealing with bad behavior.
  • Always plan extra 30 minutes when going out with kids, allowing for enough time to dress up.
  • When angry, count to ten before speaking.
  • Set clear boundaries and enforce them consistently, as kids will test them if they're too lenient.
  • You don't have to limit your reading to just silly stories; kids will eagerly listen to serious topics as well, especially if they have pictures to accompany the stories.
  • Teach children about the hard money from a young age
reply
"keep comments brief when dealing with bad behavior"
I suck at this one. My wife harps on me about it all the time. "You are talking to a 5 year old not giving an employee a performance review". Haha
reply
lol old habits die hard
reply
Not really about serious topics, but my 5-year-old son only reads non-fiction books on animals (hippos, dolphins, aquariums). As an English teacher, I’m a bit disappointed at how I don’t get to immerse him in fairy tales, though I know I should encourage his reading interest haha
reply
Encourage your child to come into the bathroom with you. He can hand you toilet paper, and when you’re finished, he can flush the toilet.
This one left me a bit perplexed 🤔
What’s one piece of advice you would give to fellow parents?
I grew up in a place where violence towards children is the norm, and as a result, there is a lot of mental problems in society, many people grow up without learning proper negotiation skills (why negotiate, if you can use force, bullying, or be passive aggressive to get what you want?). Victims perpetuate and even praise the same violent behaviours. I always advise to refrain from using threats or violence (verbal and physical) towards children, and treat them with the utmost respect. I know its easier said than done, especially when children behave in a way we don't approve, but how we as parents react in these situation is a choice we make...
reply
I think the idea is to get the child used to being in the washroom and seeing that adults poop into the toilet bowl.
I grew up being caned because my parents belonged to the spare the rod n spoil the child generation. I still remember feeling nonchalant when my primary school classmates pointed at my cane marks haha. Respectful parenting is trending in my country these days, and I think most of us try to use positive discipline on our children instead. I wouldn’t even know where to buy a cane.
reply
Enjoy the ride. Relish the little things. Don't try to be the perfect parent, you will screw up, just learn from it and apologize to your kiddos when you screw up just as you would expect them to apologize to you if they screwed up.
reply
That’s true, especially when we are trying to avoid the mistakes that our parents made with us, such as physical caning. Modelling how to say sorry will prime our children’s minds to stay humble n stack sats in future
reply
"Physical caning"? Sounds a bit more extreme than a tap on the butt. Haha
reply
Rattan cane, no less.
Guess it’s an Asian thing.
reply
Most white parents just used a belt. I respect the fact that your culture has a specific tool for child beating.
reply