A Global Guide For Parents: How Your Kids Can Have Fun Without Stressing You Out

[Jilly_in_VA]

Admitting this makes me feel like a bad mom, but it's the truth: I don't enjoy "kid-friendly" places. At birthday parties, zoos and play areas, I'm either completely bored or utterly overstimulated. The noise, the lights, the chaos! After an hour or two, I'd leave, say, the children's science museum exhausted, on edge and feeling like a small piece of my soul had died back at the snack bar after spending $10 on a slice of cheese pizza.

Nevertheless, I packed my daughter's schedule with these activities, and I told myself: This is what a good mother does. This is optimal. I have to sacrifice what I want to do on the weekends for her.

But what if that's all baloney? What if that thinking is needlessly making my life more stressful and hectic?

About four years ago, I began to report on parenting around the world for Goats and Soda. I looked into why Cameroon kids crushed the marshmallow test (which tests whether or not a kid can wait to eat a marshmallow in hopes of receiving two marshmallows), why Maya children wanted to help around the house and why many kids up in the Arctic seem to have better control over their anger than I do.

Through this research, I started to see my own culture with fresh eyes. I begin to see that Western culture has several deeply entrenched myths about parenting. Myths about what "good" parents do and what children need to grow up healthy, confident and — this is a big one — helpful. Myths that you don't really find in any other culture around the world.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/08/15/1027425635/a-global-guide-for-parents-how-your-kids-can-have-fun-without-stressing-you-out
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The other one

[Phoenix61]

1. One of my favorite parts of many previous jobs

was, for lack of a better word, parent education. My main point was they needed to give their child the opportunity to learn the skills needed to be a self-sufficient adult. So teach them how to take care of their belongings, manage their time, work through conflict etc instead of doing it for them. If you want to have fun going out to eat with them you have to teach them what they need to do. If they decide to twist off, don’t cajole, yell, or threaten just leave. As they are crying bloody murder while you escort them to the car calmly explain that you’ll try again another day. No lecturing, not another word about it just straight to the house. The next time you take them out to eat and they start to twist off, ask them if you need to leave. It’s amazing how fast they can get themselves together.