No parent gets it right 100 percent of the time, and anyone who tells you otherwise is dead wrong. But some lessons are more harmful than others, and they can take years to unlearn.
After Redditor strange03 asked the online community, "What harmful things are being taught to children?" parents and people without kids shared their experiences and advice.
"How is a child supposed to..."
Teaching kids not to question things just because someone is older, or allegedly wiser, is one of the most frustrating things that I see on a daily basis. How is a child supposed to ever develop any individual and nuanced ideas if they can't think for themselves?
"That's why many people..."
Being wrong is bad. That's why many people don't change their mind when they were given trustable sources, they don't want to be wrong.
"Nobody cares..."
Nobody cares about children's/teens issues. "Well it's only going to get worse from here.""You think school is hard? Have you ever paid a f*cking bill" "You're just a kid you can't feel this way."
It breeds an emotional disconnect from parents and their kids. And makes kids feel alone in their emotional struggles, that nobody cares because they're not adults and they don't have "Adult Problems."
"My own experience..."
Children do learn about sex at a young age, it just isn't usually in a productive way. I know I did.
My own experience: questions like this are why I believe in being infinitely clear with my kids…."you are going to hear total crap from other kids. If you hear something you don't understand, come talk to me. You can ask me anything and expect a decent answer." And I would give examples of the total crap I had heard as a kid, most of which would result in pregnancy.
Son, age 6. Daughter, age 7. Riding home from school: daughter says "Tiffany said she had sex with my brother." Which left me a grand total of 3 minutes to gather my wits before we got home.
OK, do you guys know what sex is? Blank looks. Sex is when you take off all of your clothes and rub privates together. You can make babies that way. Looks of shock and disgust. Do you think your brother had sex with Tiffany? Nooo! I think she was using a really bad way of trying to say she likes him, and maybe she watches the wrong TV shows where if people like each other they always have sex.
Were my kids really ready for a sex talk? No, not really. They didn't care. Did we really need to have one about then? Yep. My job as a parent is to be there to put things that come up in context for them, not run around after them deciding what and when they need to know things.
"I also think parents are way too open..."
Kids are starting social media so early these days, and I think that's very dangerous because it puts a lot of pressure on the kid to attribute their worth to their social media success. I also think parents are way too open with their social media when it comes to their kids, and it's totally a violation of the child's privacy, of which some parents will never admit.
"It's okay to not get something now..."
Teaching them that it's not okay to fail. Some people need a little more time than others. It's okay to not get something now. Kids should be given more time to process things. Imagine having a poor grade because of a low score from the beginning of the year. How can we show children that it's not pass or fail, it's try and improve?
"It will only cause them..."
To repress their emotions. It will only cause them to bottle them up and accumulate them to the point of exploding in an instant.
"Many adults use it..."
"No backtalk." Many adults use it as "you're not allowed to challenge what I have to say." Makes sense if it's a cranky toddler being negative for negativity's sake, but suddenly older children can't question things or raise valid points of their own.
"Like sure..."
That complaining is the same as not being grateful. Can't count the number of times growing up when adults basically told me to shut up whenever I was complaining about something and that I should be grateful that I was born where I was. Like sure, I'm glad I wasn't born into some starving African family, but that doesn't mean everything is perfect over here and that we shouldn't try to improve things here as well.
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