ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now

My kids (7 and 11) are heavily into Huggy Wuggy, Sirenhead, Cartoon Cat and the rest of them, I even bought the older one a Huggy Wuggy plush for his birthday. At first I was a bit concerned that the younger one was scared, but having watched a couple of videos with them it just reminded me of how much I was into ghosts at that age (and a terrifying cassette of Hound Of The Baskervilles) so I've decided to go with the creepypasta tide. I play Among Us with them too, would recommend it as a way to play computer games together in a controlled public online environment (you can fix it so that the chat is restricted to a series of standard options)

Some of those Cocomelon ripoffs feel incredibly uncanny and creepy without anything actually weird happening in the videos

How do you all handle whether or not to "let your kids win" at stuff?

I've had this particular issue with basketball lately with K (now 10) who is pretty solid at bball for her age. I typically try to play just hard enough that she is challenged, but not too hard, however it feels like no matter how I play she gets mad that I am letting her win. But if I turn it up and start to win, she gets mad that she can't beat me. I've tried to be honest with her and say that it's just not realistic for her to expect to beat a grown-up who is trying to win, but she can't accept this either. It always seems to end in frustration, and I don't know what to do, because K loves basketball, I love basketball, I love playing basketball with K, and I want to do what I can to help K practice.

There is no way for your 10-year-old daughter to beat you at basketball. When my kids were younger, I took a couple of approaches: first, make playing together more about instruction and development than about "winning"; second, organize games with other parents and mix up the teams so that you have a mix of adults and kids on each.

I try to take the same approach to games like chess. It all works out; they make me look absolutely foolish when we play video games together.

I’m the most competitive person I know and there is nothing more I would to do than destroy my 8 year old at all competitive endeavors. But not worth the melt down, so I typically let her win. Even on pure luck based games like candy land, I’ll cheat just to lose.

Well, 8 is a little young, so I understand that. My kids are mostly adults now.

The grown ones are all much taller and more athletic than I, so "winning" at sports is no longer an issue LOL

lol xps

imagining Jeff all like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1AtAQM1mNw

https://i.imgur.com/p2YoxZZ.png

See you later

i had this horrific/hilarious Apatow kind of scene in my head recently where a parent is taking their baby/toddler to a public pool. after some time the parent takes the kid out of the pool and eventually recognizes the kid shit in their diaper while in the pool.

....so

you mean a swim diaper? idgi

water may eventually leak out of a diaper, even a swim diaper...?

Yeah, they're not designed to hold water.

Our 2 year old run around the house in a swim diaper yesterday.
So now I've learned the messy way that they don't absorb water. Which, given a moment's thought, I probably should have known.

re: basketball: the only time i played competitively with my dad, it was horse. this worked for both of us

whenever my kids want me to scroll through the hundreds of kids shows available on any given app they say "go up!" meaning move the visible thumbnails up so we can see what's below. I always take them to mean scroll up / move the visible thumbnails down so we can see what's above. hilarity always ensues.

repeatedly misunderstanding child’s instructions to increasing humor of parent and increasing frustration of child is an evergreen genre of parenting. It feels like surfing, I like to see how far I can push it before they completely lose all patience

That reads more sadistic than it actually is, there is an element of corny “dad joke“ type humor to this dynamic as well, that I did not capture

yeah, that's a good bit

4yo has been in a shitty mood all afternoon because we briefly visited a farm and 'the cows looked at me' and 'they were stupid to look at me' and 'the stupid cows shouldn't have looked at me'.
(Think he was a bit scared of them, he wanted to go see a tractor but he'd have had to go past a big barn of cows and they are a bit freaky tbf)

7.5 year old is really into old metal at the moment and wants to listen to Metallica and Black Sabbath whenever we ride in the car. Does NOT like Iron Maiden or Anthrax because of the "screechy" vocals, thinks Slayer is sometimes too offensive on purpose, and seems to like Mastodon but I need to play more of it.

Anyway we were at the beach the other day and he ended up building sand castles and shit with some random other kids who happened to be there and I heard him asking them "who do you like more, Tony Iommi or Randy Rhoads?" before lecturing them about how influential Black Sabbath is.

yeah, anger is often a response to some other emotion that they don't know how to deal with. I wouldn't sweat it too much, sounds like normal 4yo stuff xp

This is going to be one of the lamest things I have ever said (and there's a lot of competition for that), but what do you guys think of kids watching the Simpsons? It's probably too late now anyway, but my now 10yo started watching it obsessively during the pandemic, and I actually in retrospect feel kind of weird about it. There's such a deep level of cynicism and callousness to the show, especially in the post-prime seasons (which she loves for some reason). But, like, I watched it when I was her age or not much older, and likely a lot of worse shit too, so \o/

my parents definitely thought it was too cynical. they preferred cosby and cheers. these days when you stack it up next to something like family guy or south park or rick and morty it looks like fucking anne of green gables

It's very weird and uncomfortable to actually "get it" now about why parents didn't like it back then. I feel in a weird way like it exposes her to too much too soon, like she is getting a lot of negative and cynical messages about so many different aspects of family, education, govt, etc. and it's not like there isn't some truth in those things, it's just that she's getting the cynical version before even getting the uncynical version.

Tried with the 8 year old and she was totally bored with the Simpsons. Said it was too weird.

Yeah my younger one finds it totally uninteresting, older one has I think literally watched every single ep available, some multiple times. I guess that sort of makes it too late for her anyway.

I guess on that note, Stranger Things seem alright for a 10yo? My gut says yes, it's scary but not depraved, but I only watched half the first season and that was a while ago.

it gets steadily scarier as the seasons progress. everybody’s different. watching with them is pretty key if you’re unsure imo.

these days when you stack it up next to something like family guy or south park or rick and morty it looks like fucking anne of green gables

Speaking of kids and music, my 12 year old just clicked with the Beach Boys. I played Pet Sounds which made a big impression and then talked to her about their relationship with the Beatles and the Smile sessions. Then played Brian Wilson’s Smile which blew her away and afterwards SHE ASKED TO HEAR THE BEACH BOYS VERSION OF HEROES AND VILLAINS SO SHE COULD COMPARE THEM

PROUD DAD PROUD DAD PROUD DAD

#hero

I definitely wouldn't let a 10yo watch Stranger Things xps

There's some pretty brutal & gory deaths across the seasons

My daughter, 11, has no interest in watching Stranger Things, but a number of people in her D&D party have seen all of it(with their parents).

My daughter, 11,

The age 11, not the Stranger Things character.

lol!

My 19-year-old wrecked the car I let him drive. It was pretty clearly his fault. Thankfully, he was not hurt, and the car is salvageable. No one else was involved. I am probably going to make him pay the insurance deductible and take a remedial driving course, but am wondering if there is anything else I can do to help him understand how he's put everyone out. Oy.

Jesus, kids and cars...

My 18-year-old just got his license last fall. He was delayed slightly due to covid, but also due to a bunch of behavior stuff around age 15-16 where his mother and I were just like "you aren't ready for a learners permit yet." In retrospect, despite passing the test, he still isn't ready for a driver's license.

Anyway, he's been working hard at a shitty job since last spring. Bought himself a used pickup the day he got his license. Crashed it in March, the week of his 18th birthday. Not hurt, but damaged someone else's property and had to pay for it. Took the truck around and found that it would cost more than it's worth to have it fixed at a professional mechanic so he decides that one of his friends, who is an amateur mechanic, will help him fix it.

Without telling us, spends $1,000-ish on a BACKUP car to drive while he's "fixing up the truck." So now we have 4 cars in our household, one just taking up space in the driveway. In early June, he skids out driving too fast on a wet road and crashes the backup car. Fortunately, no one is hurt and this car remains driveable. A week or two later, he gets pulled over doing 60 in a 45 and gets a ticket, which under the terms of the provisional license means he has to go to traffic school, and the next offense will be a suspension.

Before he has a chance to go to traffic school, he goes to senior week (every graduating senior in the state ends up in Ocean City, which must be pure hell for anyone who is not a teenager). Rents a fucking MOPED and gets into an accident on THAT. Gets tickets for operating too fast for conditions and NOT WEARING A HELMET.

So he's looking at a suspension, but we're going to a hearing to try to get him out of it so he can have a car to drive to community college in about a month.

And I still have to help him get registered for community college...

sending up sanity prayers for both of you, that shit is stressful!

UUUUGH, reflexively/sympathetically saying WHAT WHERE YOU THINKING ?!? to myself in reaction to all that.

plus the fear of what could have happened to them in any of those accidents! i imagine it is hard for that not to compound your reaction

like as a parent that all would be so terrifying to me

It is terrifying, but somehow you learn to live with it.

I console myself with the thought that I did plenty of stupid shit at that age and survived. But . . . sometimes it was just out of pure dumb luck.

My daughter, 11,
The age 11, not the Stranger Things character.

― peace, man, Thursday, July 21, 2022 12:43 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Catching up on the thread and cannot stop loling irl at this

Many xps but I think with the Simpsons, at least during the classic seasons, a lot of the more cynical stuff goes right over kids' heads. Or, they get the basic vibe of why a situation is funny but not the granular details that might lead to actual cynical beliefs about society/life/whatever. otoh, it's also possible that kids are exposed to so much more now that they are more fluent in parsing the cynicism.

Cow_Art, love that post about the Beach Boys! A Beach Boys greatest hits CD of my parents' was one of the first "adult" albums I ever took an interest in as a kid myself at age 8 or 9, though it was then another 15 years before I came back around to exploring them. I am looking forward to my kids geeking out about music but also emotionally preparing myself that it may not happen to the extent of my dreams

I kind of caved on Stranger Things because she has been stuck home sick for days and because she has several friends who watch it and has this really strong "wanting to feel mature" thing lately. I try to check in with her about it since I can't watch with her. I asked her not to watch the 4th series because it's not appropriate for her age, but I guess we'll see if that stops her. I've been trying to talk about some of the scary parts with her just to see how she feels about them and how she's handling them. She does kind of like dark stories so I'm not surprised it appeals to her, plus it has a strong and somewhat introverted female lead character, which I would bet she relates to.

Seeing how much grim/dark TV our daughter can tolerate is one of my favorite things. Recently we watched Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which I love and she was really in to. I don’t think we’re ready to level up to Death Note though.

I was pretty surprised at how unperturbed they were by the Harry Potter Movies, which they started watching at like 8 and 5 respectively

my 5 year old daughter loves Spongebob and I feel that show is a little grotesque for her

Oh lord I had at least 4 different kinds of car accidents between ages 16-22, one of which was hitting a deer in the dark which is the only one that was definitively not my fault. Sorry to hear things are so rocky.

i recommend raising raffi by keith gessen.

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