Tag: parenting

shapeshiftinterest:

star-anise:

imnotevilimjustwrittenthatway:

star-anise:

dotdollplushies:

405blazeitt:

i hate the trope of kids giving their favorite stuffed animal to a younger child as a sign of compassion and coming of age, as if this is something that should be expected of kids as they grow up

im 22 and i dont care who you are you’ll have to pry my ikea shark out of my cold dead hands

I can’t remember the name of the study, but there was a theory, supported by pretty good evidence, that if you have your comforter, be it blanket, plush, pacifier, whatever, taken away when you’re not ready to give it up, even if you’re a dinky little kid, it can have really long lasting effects. People who kept their comforters into adulthood were less likely to smoke, drink or do drugs, tended to have better family relations and home lives etc, while those that saw their comforter removed or destroyed were more likely to be drawn to more serious “comforts” elsewhere. The more extreme the removal, the more extreme the result. Typically.

We learn at our own pace to make and break connections and emotional ties, and the situation is forced upon us, we seek comfort. But whoa wait, you can’t possibly have comfort anymore, you’re five. You’re a big kid now.

So when parents are forcing you to “grow up” by tearing the only comfort in the world from you, they could actually be messing you up big time.

In psychology they’re called “transitional objects” and they help the neurobiological process of helping children learn to internalize the experience of being loved and cared for, which is an essential part of learning to regulate your emotions.  They are REALLY important.

I wonder what it means psychologically that I’ve started getting a few more for myself?

Well, there’s a process we call “re-parenting yourself” where you give yourself the love you missed out on in childhood, and thereby start to heal the pain you’ve carried since then.  And using childhood comfort objects can be part of that.

I’ve had this stuffed cow pillow (it’s like the size of a small child) since before preschool and it’s really hard to sleep without it whenever we went on family vacations and had to stay in hotels

i’m weak as hell and don’t know anything about fighting or self defense but let me tell you that there is a VERY high chance I would push you in the path of an oncoming truck if you tried to throw him away

once-and-future–emrys:

florianesque:

fullten:

It bothers the fuck out of me that adults try and take away creative outlets for kids, but would never think about doing that when it comes to sports.

All little kids are actors. All little kids are story tellers. All little kids are musicians. All little kids are creative, are artists.

And to see it just slowly be torn from them so they can “grow up” and settle for whatever life the adults want for them, is heartbreaking.

my mom trains teachers and one of her specialties is creativity, and when you give kids creative outlets their performance in everything else improves, including sports. when denied creativity, their grades go down, they act out more, they even have behavioral problems at home, mental illness flourishes- because creativity is a necessity for a developing brain. developing brains NEED that creative outlet.

being told exactly what to do every single day for 12 years genuinely results in different brain chemistry because it creates the same kind of fear that occurs in people like me with ptsd. over time, having others control every aspect of your life results in ptsd. we see it in prisoners and we’re seeing it in students now. our school system requires a lot of rigidity, so the only relief a child may have is music or art class and those two seemingly useless classes can make a world of difference.

in denying kids creativity, we’re literally destroying them. we’re giving them anxiety and depression at alarming rates, and setting them up to fail because we think sports are better than art and music.

And then because we took away that creative freedom, when you let us out of a rigid structured environment to fend for ourselves , we don’t know how to handle it .

I graduated trade school a few years back and I’m STILL struggling to find direction in my life because suddenly NOBODY IS GIVING ME INSTRUCTIONS

Do you know how jarring that is to a kid who’s spent the last 18 YEARS being told how to do ,what to do, when to do ?!

I was raised to follow directions,not to think for myself.

When you take away the rules and rigidity from someone who’s programmed to think that way , it’s like you’ve flipped their world upside down.

To this day I’m more comfortable with other people deciding my life than making my own choices because THAT’S HOW THEY RAISED US

riderofpern:

spinelsong:

when your child comes to you and says “this is something that makes me uncomfortable and unhappy and makes me not want to spend time with you” and you respond with a 20 minute speech that boils down to “deal with it because life sucks” you have no respect for your child and you need to change your parenting tactics

YES! This is why we parent with respect for our child. Doesn’t like tickling? we are a tickle free house. Doesn’t like it when I call him my baby boy? Ok, sucks for me, but I get it, he’s a big boy now and so I don’t call him my little baby boy. At the end of the day, we are teaching him NOT to ignore his own intuition and autonomy. If I kept on tickling him, even after he told me he doesn’t like it, I’m teaching him that he doesn’t have the right to say who can and cannot touch him, that he should ignore that voice inside of himself, and that because I’m bigger he has to do what I say. I ABSOLUTELY do not want a child who:

1. is afraid to tell people (especially grownups) to stop touching him/stop talking to him in a certain way

2. thinks that he has no right to ask an adult to stop touching him/saying things to him

3. thinks that his parents won’t listen to him when he expresses himself, especially if someone has done something his intuition says isn’t right.