What is the thing you do not let your kids get away with, the thing you are willing to be unpopular with them over, late for school over, that you will nag until your dying day about?
Mine is taking your dishes to the sink and pushing in your chair after you eat. There is always time to do that. Running away from a mess at the table after a meal we made for you when we already have dishes/everything else to do afterward is a bridge too far for me. Any child over the age of, say, 3 can clean up after themselves at the table, and I have no qualms over (nicely) asking other kids to do this in my house when they’re over, too.
God, I’m getting riled up, and this is making me want to make my sleeping kid up and make him clean just because.
What’s your thing?
P.S. We all have different “things” so please keep it witchy and remember that just because one person's “thing” may be way different from yours, it’s not an indictment that your thing is wack.
Hard lights-out bedtimes during the school year for my kids even though they’re teens now. (I am squishier in the summer.) Everyone in the house is happier when everyone gets enough sleep.
We are currently having an epic battle about the time that I make kids check in their tech at night. We had to get a therapist involved, it's a whole thing.
If it provides any potentially needed strength, AG’s psychiatrist last week said the single most important thing any parental people can do right now is don’t allow kids on social media and put hard controls/rules around screen access and stay firm.
AMEN. My kiddo lamented having a bedtime in the summer, not long after they complained of being tired after camp all day. 🤦🏼♀️ We explained they'd just settled the argument themselves.
The bedtime thing is also my hill and the thing most likely to inspire my kids to claim that their friends feel "so sorry" for them because we are "the most strict parents". Okay! I'll take that title.
same. The kids need the sleep and there are very few situations where it's 8 PM or later and I think "You know what would make this more fun? 2 overtired little boys."
Closing the damn door. Not getting a cell phone (I work in tech so know too much about them). Wearing sunblock. I would say my branded _thing_ is my kids not being rude/entitled. Can’t handle it in other children either but make my kids say thank you for having me, speak politely to adults, write thank you notes for presents etc. I will not tolerate them being shitty to me or other adults. I’m always proud that other parents tell me they are polite.
This. We talk a LOT about how you are allowed to have cranky/mad/sad feelings but that your family members are not your emotional punching bags. Holdover from having rageaholic parents but I refuse to be that person and I will be damned if I let my kid think it's ok to be mean or rude to us just because we're still going to love him. And what a terrible approach to bring to your future relationships too!
THIS! I have told my teenager a few times when he was being rude that "You would not talk to a stranger or a friend's parent like this, so it's not okay to talk to me this way. You can feel whatever feelings you are feeling, but you can talk to me politely" (this is usually when he is pissy about something that has NOTHING to do with me, like losing at FIFA or something).
So curious to know what age you think is appropriate for breaking the phone seal. I'm going to have to start thinking seriously about this for my two kids in the near future, and I'd rather drive into oncoming traffic than deal with it.
21? I’m only half joking. Probably late teens - it’s impossible for kids at 10 or 13 or whatever to regulate phone usage. Adults are bad at it! Children who are still developing can not possibly be successful. There is also a lot of risk for young girls in particular to receive content that harms their mental health, not to mention issues around being asked to share inappropriate pictures and so on. I think a child would need to be something like 16 or 17 to make the right choices about these things and I dgaf if “all your friends have it”. Phones are designed to be addictive.
Haha yes. I also know a lot of 25 year olds who say they regret their parents allowing them access so young. So I think history will prove me right in time.
This is literally what my kid’s psychiatrist said last week. We are all battling a gabillion-dollar industry and these things are designed for addiction.
I want to hold a line similar to this as well. I do get nervous about the isolation aspect of having a teen who is totally out of the loop, and worry that it will just make them access phones under the cloak of darkness haha. It's so hard!
We gave our kids phones at 13 and if I had it to do over again I would have waited another year or two. If you can hold out until 14 or even 15 I would say do it They went from being avid readers to reading only for school assignments. It's hard to go back. The culture won't be on your side, but the science is.
I have a six year old who constantly demands the age at which she’ll be allowed to do things. I told her she can have a phone when she can drive and that she’s never allowed to have social media 😂 Desperately hoping things have chilled out in ten years, but not getting my hopes up. Maybe she gets a flip phone? When I see kids walking out of her elementary school with their iPhones I can hardly handle it. Oh the world...
For accessibility, it’s hard to beat iPhones/the apple ecosystem, and hand-me-down phones are easier sometimes to set up and manage than a burner flip phone.
I agree. I cant control my own phone usage and im 38 so anything below 16 would be a no for me. Of course my oldest is 5 so it’s easy for mw to say that now
My oldest will be 12 tomorrow and we have a very strong "no smart phone until you're 16" rule in place. I'm not saying there's no way it'll change but we are also pretty solid in why we have this rule and we talk about it all the time with our three kids.
No YouTube. Generally speaking, I try to avoid all streaming services during the week (I hate the endless loop of it all). We have an old TV/VCR setup with a large library of tapes that my daughter is allowed to watch during the week. She gets to have autonomy over what she watches (a vcr is very easy to operate for a 5 YO) and I get control over the content. On weekends she can watch limited amounts of streaming kids shows. A funny side effect of the VCR is my kid gets very excited about previews for movies that came out 25+ years ago.
We were all so addicted to our streaming TV crap that I disconnected the device from the TV so all we can watch is VHS and DVD. Best decision ever! I get excited about those 25 year old previews too. LOL. I think I’m gonna unearth all our old kids’ movies and let the kids choose what to watch- good call Nicole Bloomfield!
My husband works in tech too and this is why we work so hard to limit the addictive aspects of screen time. I know it will only get harder as she ages, but for now we can greatly limit it by going analog. Plus she loves her vcr and tapes! She has full access to our record player too and there are tons of great vintage kids records available at thrift shops and flea markets.
there is a toy called the Yoto I learned about from Strategist--it's a cool audio player but not a screen so the kids can listen to music/stories etc but in a kind of offline way.
I won't answer to someone screaming my name from another room. Get up and come find me if you need something. I will die on this hill no matter how long it takes for them to get that I won't be responding to MOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM?????
my kids' teachers have done that (complete with their whole little adventures lives) and then they kids asked me why we don't have one. I just said "we don't do Elf on the Shelf here." Also reindeer food can low key suck my dick. Glitter and oatmeal on my front stoop until springtime: gtfo
this was from the magical Elf on the Shelf teacher. She recently had her own baby so I am curious to check in with her in about 5 years and hear if she's still doing all that jazz or scaled back d/t sanity
!00% on board the no elf train, my kids are 8 & 11 years old and my line since the first time an elf showed up in their pre-school classroom has been "I don't believe in the elf that's why they never come visit our house."
Sitting calmly at the dinner table and facing our family while we eat. It’s a stupid hill at some level because neurodiversity, but even his brain can handle 10 minutes and a piece of garlic bread.
We used to tell my daughter that feet were not allowed on the table in this house, and even at 3, she was like "When I have my own house I can put my feet on the table!" Hopefully by then she knows better.
YUP. Table manners are my hill. Napkin in lap, stay seated until everyone is done. Eat with fork and knife. My mom used to do a while “what if you eat with a Prince and he doesn’t want to marry you because of your table manners” - I’ve retired that speech and replaced it with “DONT BE AN ANIMAL.” Elbows are ok, that one always seemed dumb to me.
Bike helmet. Kids in my town seem not to wear them ever, and my young teen doesn't want to stick out. So he never bikes, which is sad. But I've been car doored and fallen in traffic on a bike. Helmets are life savers.
nothing makes me age faster and get more rigid/angry than seeing a kid riding his bike down the street with no helmet, texting. I want to find his mother.
Oh! And my other hill is that I will not be yelled it in my home. Not by my husband, not by my kids. The flipside is also true, however, which is that I don't yell at them either. People are allowed to feel their feelings, but yelling isn't okay with me.
(My family of origin was a yelling family and yelling makes me feel unsafe).
Making a good faith effort to look for something/try something before giving up. I lose my mind when my kid is wailing "I can't do it!" when I know for a fact that they haven't even tried lol
I've started 'charging'. I'll help you look for it but it'll cost you 10 minutes of screen time, so do you want to look on your own some more? (My kid is a tween btw, I wouldn't do this with a 6yr old).
Am I the only one reading this terrific thread and thinking how so many of these are my non-negotiables too, but they're constantly being tested so I am always losing my mind/dying on a hill? For instance, I also want my kids to have good table manners but I can't get my oldest to eat with his fork half the time and I am always saying, "Knees down!" because he's folding is legs up at the table. He is almost 12. My 7 year old is always getting up from her seat and I am always telling her to put her butt in the chair while she eats. Every meal. I absolutely will not tolerate rudeness and yet all three are so rude! I will not tolerate someone losing their temper and making personal attacks, and yet, at least twice a day someone is getting upset and screaming, I HATE YOU! YOU'RE AN IDIOT! On and on in this way. Sigh. Anyway, parenting. What fun!
I am low key doing some work on a piece about whether kids are less capable of using silverware than we want them to bed and why. It will involve sweeping generalizations about boys vs. girls but I am really curious about a.) why some kids are so bad about using knives and forks and b.) why this makes us so crazy haha.
My younger son has told me, at 8, "I hate you" more times than I told my parents in my entire life. This is the worst when he's fresh off screens, so, the adaptation is, VERY little screen time. Some parents think I'm doing this just to be some sort of off-screen saint but really it's just me wanting to avoid verbal abuse.
My youngest is a boy who is better at using a fork than anyone, including adults. He also does not like his hands and face sticky and dirty, whereas my other two (a boy and girl) could walk around covered in maple syrup without a complaint. All of them say they hate me, and it started with my seven year old, who has anxiety and a short temper--it's less related to screens (that gets my oldest super mad too), and more about being told to do something she doesn't want to do, or when she is feeling left out or unfairly criticized. The clean and sweet three year old has learned to say, "I'll murder you in your sleep!" from her. I am clearly teaching them well! :)
LOL! Yeah my baby likes to say, "I'll be happy when you're dead." But he is so cute when he says it that I fear it doesn't have the effect he hopes for (that is, so much sadness that I give him a second yogurt pouch.)
In our case our kiddo had/has fine motor skills delays. Communal lunch at his school (so using silverware there daily) plus switching to eating European style has helped a LOT.
I swear to you my 18mo old daughter shows more interest and at times, more capability with utensils than my 7yo son (who also leans back and sits with his knees on the table). His handwriting is also absolute garbage, so part of me thinks this is a fine motor skill thing. Then again, he’s a whiz on the Switch...
Yeah, my oldest was in OT for years for fine and gross motor skill help. My three year old is far cleaner and better behaved at the dinner table than the other two. So I know at least that it's not my child rearing!
Same! Ol I'm more restrictive than most parents in our circle/school community with screens but one of my kids in particular is a nightmare when it's time to turn them off. I'm like, this isn't me on my high horse, it's self-preservation!
OMG my 12 year old (girl) also will try to eat spaghetti or noodles with her fingers when she thinks we aren't looking. Meanwhile, she only eats ramen with chopsticks?
Washing/cleaning hands before eating. I do not care if we are in the middle of the woods, you'll damn well use a wipe and some hand sanitizer if that's all we have. Also washing hands when we come into the house from anywhere. Not even a covid thing, this has been the rule since she was old enough to reach the sink on a step stool.
No multitasking (when it comes to screens). So, if we are watching a movie together then we are watching the dang movie and are not also looking at phones/iPads. My kids understand why I care about this...the only one who won't comply is my husband (arghhhhh).
Washing hands when you get home from anywhere (you little germ-carriers), throwing away snack wrappers, hanging up the bath mat after a shower, and putting laundry in the hamper. For the record, none of these things happen without me nagging incessantly. It’s super fun to follow them around and say these things 12x a day (for years!).
Screaming in the car. My kid tends to operate at two volumes: high, and screaming. My husband and my kid have a terrible dynamic in which they rile each other up with jokes/teasing until they are both screaming. I'm jumpy in general and jumpier when I'm driving so I like a super mellow environment in the car and I cannot tolerate screaming in there. I have been known to pull over and firmly remind the occupants of my rule. If my kid's super hyper, I always say, let's get where we're going (or, if it's a longer drive, I will stop after X time) and you can tell me everything that's on your mind at any volume you like; in the meantime, draw me a picture of what you're excited about.
I am finding as my kids get older that the only hill I would die on is that they be kind. We teach table manners, clearing the table, make them do their own laundry and do things like limiting social media, no TikTok, no TVs in bedroom, and encourage intuitive eating and moving the body. But none of this matters to me if my kids are unkind to themselves and others.
I will let bedtimes slide on occasion, I will look the other way if someone is staying up late to read, I've even been known to forget to make them brush their teeth, but my hard-and-fast hills to die on are:
1. checking in your tech with me in the kitchen before bed (even the 17yo, not allowed to have her phone overnight, she's got ADHD and I know she'll just stay up scrolling and be a wreck the next day)
2. cleaning up the front of the toilet & seat - the 9yo WILL LEARN NOT TO PEE SLOPPILY IF MY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. I recently wallpapered the guest bathroom and when i got down low I noticed that the front of the toilet had faint stains of pee rivulets down the front, and it smelled like vinegar. I got his butt in there to clean it up so fast. He's going to keep doing this until it has an effect on his behavior while peeing, so help me god.
For the love of all that is good in this world. My kid will freaking learn to be “bored”. There is never a need to constantly be doing something or have your face attached to a screen. Creativity is found in “boredom” and their imagination is far too active to ever be bored.
I have several that have already been mentioned, but also:
No talking from 8:28-8:30 every morning. My ADHD kid cannot focus on the backpack/shoes/snack/coat tasks while his sister chatters at him, so things go a lot more smoothly with an enforced two minutes of quiet before we head to the bus stop. Babble your heart out once we are out the door.
Any time one of them starts whining about X kid having a huge house or a beach house or a pony or some other gross demonstration of wealth, we sign them up for a volunteer community service event that weekend.
Intentional rudeness or cruelty is an immediate timeout or loss of privileges, depending on the offense.
They will go to school/practice/other commitment unless they are sick or there is some real emergency. “We don’t bail on our commitments just because we don’t feel like going” is a thing they hear a lot.
No phones/socials until at least ninth grade, but we honestly might push this even further back. No screens at all during the school week unless we are watching Jeopardy together as a family.
Everyone has to do some kind of exercise and something creative 3x a week. I don't care what those things are.
Things I’m pretty chill about: bathing (twice a week seems fine until puberty starts?), whether their hair is brushed, homework, cussing, dining etiquette.
I am very strict on bedtimes (even for my now high schooler) during the school year and that there are no phones or devices allowed in their rooms after bedtime. My husband works at an elementary school and the number of deeply sleep deprived kids he sees is really sad. Little kids shouldn't be up at 11pm on a school night! This is my hill!
I have my boys write notes too. I mean they are half-assed and not done nicely but they still put pencil to paper. They blithely get so much in life (which is fair, they're kids) I want them to practice showing appreciation, if not to me, someone else. it makes me think back to COVID times when that would totally count as "homework."
Jun 21, 2023·edited Jun 21, 2023Liked by Claire Zulkey
I'm finding the hills I will die on are changing as my kid gets older. Or at least the hills I THOUGHT I would die on are changing. My kid has ADHD/GAD and dyscalculia. That combination means there are things that I would LOVE to die on but no one will care or collect my corpse for a proper burial after. Their brain just isn't developed enough yet to implement the tricks/tools necessary for any of my nagging to do anything other than add massive piles of anxiety onto an already anxious kid.
So! For right now it's no screens after 7:30 p.m. on school nights, 8:30-9 p.m. in the summer. Plus, we don't allow any screens to remain in their bedroom after those points; everything goes in our room. Clear dishes/scrap put in the sink or dishwasher. Some sort of movement every day. Saying hello/goodbye/thank you to adults, and addressing them in the eye, especially when visiting their homes. Bedtimes, always. No cellphone till eighth grade and even then we have a list of things they'll have to prove to us they can handle before we say OK.
My ADHD kid has such a thing for screens sometimes it spooks me out. I'm low key worried about how he'll fare when he's older and I can't (literally) lock the screens away. But there are so many other things to deal with in the meantime....
I see this with my ADHD teen too, which is why one of my hills is that TikTok isn't allowed on his phone or devices. I also have ADHD and I had TikTok for about two days before I realized I was losing hours to it at a time. It is perfectly designed to ruin an ADHDers sense of time. Now that he is older, we do talk about how things like YouTube and TikTok are designed to be attention sucks and why he needs to be even more aware about that than his non-ADHD friends. He gets it but he still struggles to not be on a device unless he is doing soccer or we are forcing him to do something else. It's hard and I do worry about how he'll handle that when he is older.
Our house rule is that there are only screens on the weekends. My kid is 5. It felt easier to say no during the week than deal with the meltdown when a tv episode was over and it was time yo turn off. But this summer I (super controlling parent) am trying to give him some rope bc I cant expect him to learn how to regulate if he never has the chance to. Sort of how Im 38 and still binge around cookies bc they were forbidden food growing up. We shall see...
It's REAL. And our kid right now uses it to create animated stories and it's REALLY cool and creative and engaging. I don't want to NOT encourage that expression; on especially tough days, they head for the animation tool to work out their feelings. But it is STILL a screen and we've had to deal with THREE vision prescription changes in three years. We don't allow social media so that's somewhat of a saving grace, too. That's why early on we instituted hard cut offs and rules around use so at least they know and are used to it.
I love this question and Im curious - how do yall handle these hills when your spouse does not exhibit the behaviors that is your hill. This has been hard for us bc it feels like Im nagging him and them
That would drive me crazy both in terms of him being a bad roommate and also not being a supportive partner--how am I going to get them to XYZ when you seem to show it's not important at all??
This happened with my first husband. I had to tell my daughter that he's an adult and makes his own choices, and when she's an adult she can make choices. Until then, I am the boss of you.
My (teenaged! able-bodied! bright and capable!) stepkids have to fold and put away their clean clothes in order for me to wash their dirty clothes, or they can wash their clothes themselves. I finally got my husband to back me up. I think we’re going on week 3 of this standoff...?
I’m kind of the opposite. My kids wash their own clothes (since about age 8). I do wash their sheets and towels when they appear in the laundry room every other week. And then after that, I don’t care what happens once the clean laundry in their rooms except for no hoarding laundry baskets.
Laundry is one of those things I want desperately for them to do on their own but the tradeoff is supervising it and nagging them about getting it done in a timely way instead of letting each step take forever and backing up the whole system. Right now my older one is at least putting his clean clothes away for money (he should not get money for this since I don't, but at least it's happening.)
Basic table manners -properly setting the table, napkin in your lap, elbows off the table, ask politely for things to be passed to you, asking to be excused/clearing your plate/push in your chair. No phones at the table.
This was my hill (and still is). I have had a No Whining sign next to my computer for 40 years (yep, I'm a computer crone), and enforced it with kids, visitors, and anyone else in my space. I'll listen to any rant. I'll be an ear and a shoulder for anyone. But start whining, and I shut down. I've been known to order teens out of our apartment because they were whining.
Now my daughter has a button saying No Whining on the corkboard in her office space. You can see it when she does anything with her webcam.
No commenting on peoples bodies!! Kid and husband. lol. No making sex talk "weird" or "gross." My son is 12 and has questions and my husband and I are both from sex negative backgrounds so we both have to take deep breaths and speak with intention to sex positivity.
This comments section is teaching me that I am a disgusting goblin and need to get my life together before my baby is old enough to adopt my goblin habits
Screaming for fun, minor stuff, as a game, etc. Unless there’s active danger or blood or genuine panic attack no kid or mine needs to be screaming. Toddlers get somewhat of a pass but elementary aged? Absolutely not. We are not screaming for fun.
I grew up on a lake and this was a hard rule in my family growing up. My parents said if there's always screaming while playing/swimming, it meant they would be unable to tell if someone was screaming because they genuinely needed help.
We don't have a TV in our bedroom, so it wouldn't have occurred to my kids to ask for one. So my 'thing' was that phones had to charge in the kitchen at night, well into high school. I think my daughter may have been a junior, my son a freshman, when we started letting them have their phones all night. First weekends, then school breaks, then summer, then 'set your own alarms' with me as back up. Same for school IPads, even though most apps were banned from the devices.
I have a weird set-up where I spend half the week in another city. My husband and son came to visit and my son was in awe that my housemate had a TV in her bedroom... he didn't even realise that was a thing.
I skimmed so maybe I missed it...but I"m shocked that no one said CHEWING WITH YOUR MOUTH CLOSED. I started very young with gentle reminders to "Please chew with lips closed" and my kids are pretty good at it. I WILL NOT listen to your food EVER. (Misophonia? Never heard of it......)
No inside locks. If one of my kids locks their bedroom door, I will take it off the hinges. Fortunately this has only ever been in the threat stage, I have never actually taken a door off (yet.) I inherited that rule from my mother.
Mine is ingratitude. I lose my ever-loving mind if I feel like either/both of my kids are being ungrateful. Related: god help you if you are rude to one of your grandparents (all of whom are loving, generous, accepting, and mostly sane). Zero tolerance for that BS.
OMG, my son complained about a casual park hang birthday party "But there won't be any party bags!" and I threatened to cancel his own birthday party. I just went from "It's fun, blah blah blah..." to "I did not raise you to be ungrateful, I will cancel your party!"
Steal this if you want--after I paid about $500,000 for a full-class inflatable park party a girlie asked me if there were goodie bags. I told her her memories of the day was her goodie bag.
Omg... I refused to buy bags last year and just hanged people a Lego minifig and some bubbles in the way out, which was awkward. My mom has taken charge this year and got some cool cloth dragon bags (Viking themed party...)
If I were a true Evil Witch I would have done zero goodie bags but I was feeling sentimental this time around. But I couldn't find cute little giftie bags every other mom in the world seems to have a hookup for. So everyone got a ziploc bag on the way out with a few pieces of candy in it.
It’s funny because I’ve noticed that I have these things when taking care of other kids and it’s just random what I’m enforcing versus other parents. For instance, I am envious of kids who put away dishes and I try to enforce but it only lasts a few days. But mine are wearing shoes on the right feet, wearing socks (usually matching) and having properly brushed hair.
ha and on the other hand my kids almost always wear mismatched socks and neither owns a brush or comb. That's how I carve out the time to yell at them about the dishes.
Once I was watching a dad brush his daughter's lonnnnggg tangled blonde hair at the YMCA (very cute actually) and I realized I had short-hair-boy privilege. I have saved a lot of time not-combing, not-arguing over the combiing, and the only gross long hairs on the floor are mine.
I have never let my girl-children have anything other than a bob. Now they're asking to grow their hair long (at 6 and 9yo). I am all for supporting their body choices -- while also helping them take responsibility for their own physical selves, insofar as that's realistically possible -- so I tell them if they want long hair, they have to take care of it, INCLUDING BRUSHING. My older kiddo has some sensory issues and will literally scream and cry for 30 minutes after the most careful, painstakingly gentle brush, so she's immediately like, hell no. My younger one is still at that age where she's down for whatever her sister is doing, so she agrees. And we all go on with our happy, short, easy-to-manage hair.
(Our daycare provider once actually *thanked* me for their short hair. 😂)
My kid is always dishevelled, his uniform is muddy before he gets to school, he doesn't comb his hair, but he has impeccable manners, so I feel like the teachers don't judge me too much? Right?
I saw the subject line and thought... oh, mine's all around eating and table manners, *most importantly* cleaning up after himself and bringing his plates to the kitchen. We shall die on this hill together! He does it at EVERY house, even when it's a birthday party and they're paper plates and the parents insist he doesn't have to. I am relentless about it!
I feel reallllllly good about myself when someone tells me my kid cleaned up after himself at someone else's house. There are some days I have real concerns about them and then other times I'm like maybe I'm not doing too bad.
No phones at the dinner table. Currently this is a rule for my husband and me, but we are setting an example for the inevitable future for our child. Also, you have to try the food. The phones have occasionally slipped (hrmph... dear husband), but we have never slipped on the try the food rule. It has almost always lead to eating it, sometimes with grumbling, but I recognize that we are lucky in this regard.
My (mostly successful) hills where enforcement started early and caught on: clearing dishes from the table, no individual screens during the week (we will still watch sports or occasional group show)
My hills I am constantly dying on: turning their gross socks (especially baseball socks ugh) right side out and separating the undies from the pants before putting in the hamper, wiping the pee off the seat, not using your shirt/pants as a napkin... aka all the gross stuff that they just don’t seem to understand/care about, and probably won’t for years 😒
for me it doesn't have to be one side but making it NOT be balled up would be ideal b/c then you get these damp semi-clean socks out of the dryer that are somehow grosser than before they went in.
Bedtime lights out and no solo screens after dinner—pbs kids family night is a cuddle ritual on fridays that actually helps speed bedtime and on mondays she can watch a streamed jazz concert with her dad if she wants but those are on tv!!
She is great at sleeping and total crap at going to/falling asleep which means a lot of work goes into smoothing that process and literally this week, two weeks before her 7th birthday, we moved her bedtime to 7:55 instead of 7:10.
Screaming. Being intolerant of or rude about someone else's hurt feelings or difficulty (this is hard to police but when I see these friend interactions I try to intervene.) And here's the one that seems like it makes me weird: In addition to not literal swearing, there's certain manners of speaking that I think are a problem. Does nobody remember that "sucks" refers to women sucking men's peniuses? Let's not have children saying "sucks." And "freakin'" as an adjective is just a stand-in for "fucking." Let's not have children saying a word that means "fucking" when they don't know what that means. I'd rather not hear "crap" from a kid. I believe in swearing for when something is really wrong or really hurts, not just for whenever you want to sound cool. Nice language is powerful. Swearing all the time makes people seem weak, messy, and unaware.
Oh I'm the same way!! I wasn't allowed to say "sucks" as a kid and so neither are my kids (I find this more acceptable to them than explaining why I don't like it.) The little one especially saying "Freakin"--who do you think you are, Tony Soprano? Once he said "What the f-word!" which was both awful and funny.
Our kids think we are weirdly strict about this too. No “frigging” or “fudging” and no saying “oh my god” because... could you just sound like little kids while you are little kids? My 11 year old still thinks the c word is “crap” 😂
the thing that sucks is that we can't say "shut up" in this house but I come close to saying "shut up" more often than I wish was true. I say a lot of "Shut....[deep breath]"
Mondays (the days after screentime weekends) are pretty rough for us with the whining about screens. He's already getting more screentime this summer than normal and I'm thinking we're going to have to taper off slowly rather than do a hard stop right before school starts.
Clearing dishes, turning off lights! Flushing the toilet (sometimes the kids bathroom has pee that sits there for so long it smells horrific), going to sleep at a reasonable hour.
I don’t respond to whining or crazy demanding shouting like I WANT MILK. Must ask nicely. I’m pretty easy going other than that but rudeness is totally unacceptable.
I was very intense about no food in the car seat until my son was about 2 and a half. I just couldn’t shake the image of him choking and trying to do the heimlich with him in the seat. Similarly, I’m still pretty intense about him sitting on his butt when he eats! Doesn’t always have to be at the table, but he better be sitting!
No iPads at home until kindergarten (only on an airplane for now!). Fingers crossed I can keep it up.
Jun 21, 2023·edited Jun 21, 2023Liked by Claire Zulkey
Lexie! Hi! This was YOUR thread question. :) We don't have ANY iPads at my house and Bean will be 12 tomorrow (at least not any that work...we have two very old ones that we were able to use for travel up to a year or two ago). I think a regular old TV does the job and keeps everyone involved in what a kid is watching--for better or for worse. My kids won't get smart phones until 16 (I hope), and even now they never play games on phones or any personal devices. (Editing this so that that the almost-12-year-old does have a Nintendo Switch, just no phone...) That said, they watch A LOT of TV. Ginger got to do educational games on the iPad at school and loved it so much, but that was enough time on one for her, as far as I'm considered. Anyway, you can do it!
This is definitely a thing. Someone else I spoke with once talked about how he could tell the difference in his kids' behavior after they had watched an episodic show with actual humans rather than Youtube cartoons. And I definitely consider l live sports a freebie.
I am finding the 'shutting doors' thing funny as my three year old is deep in a shutting [slamming] the doors phase and driving me bananas. And then he switches off the lights. Every person's hill truly is different 😂
Weather appropriate clothing. Raining? Raincoats and boots. Cold? Jackets and pants. Really cold? Hats and gloves. Park or walking long? Sneakers.
My son is 7 and daughter is 3 and I have many people warning me that in fact I will DIE on this hill because at some point the demand for shorts and no coats year round wins out.
Do not sit on my bed in your outside clothes. Take off your shoes.
We changed clothes at home into house clothes and never wore shoes in the house. All the things you carried in from the outside had to stop at the door. I went to college and noticed people going out in all types of weather then sitting on their beds. Imagine my shock and disgust. I catch my husband and chastise him. I won’t budge. Never.
Hard lights-out bedtimes during the school year for my kids even though they’re teens now. (I am squishier in the summer.) Everyone in the house is happier when everyone gets enough sleep.
We are currently having an epic battle about the time that I make kids check in their tech at night. We had to get a therapist involved, it's a whole thing.
If it provides any potentially needed strength, AG’s psychiatrist last week said the single most important thing any parental people can do right now is don’t allow kids on social media and put hard controls/rules around screen access and stay firm.
AMEN. My kiddo lamented having a bedtime in the summer, not long after they complained of being tired after camp all day. 🤦🏼♀️ We explained they'd just settled the argument themselves.
The bedtime thing is also my hill and the thing most likely to inspire my kids to claim that their friends feel "so sorry" for them because we are "the most strict parents". Okay! I'll take that title.
100%. My kid and I are both neurodivergent and everything goes off the rails if we don't get enough sleep. Kiddos psychiatrist fully backs us up here.
Yep strict bedtime for me too. Very occasionally make exceptions but it’s pretty rare.
same. The kids need the sleep and there are very few situations where it's 8 PM or later and I think "You know what would make this more fun? 2 overtired little boys."
😂 for real.
Closing the damn door. Not getting a cell phone (I work in tech so know too much about them). Wearing sunblock. I would say my branded _thing_ is my kids not being rude/entitled. Can’t handle it in other children either but make my kids say thank you for having me, speak politely to adults, write thank you notes for presents etc. I will not tolerate them being shitty to me or other adults. I’m always proud that other parents tell me they are polite.
This. We talk a LOT about how you are allowed to have cranky/mad/sad feelings but that your family members are not your emotional punching bags. Holdover from having rageaholic parents but I refuse to be that person and I will be damned if I let my kid think it's ok to be mean or rude to us just because we're still going to love him. And what a terrible approach to bring to your future relationships too!
THIS! I have told my teenager a few times when he was being rude that "You would not talk to a stranger or a friend's parent like this, so it's not okay to talk to me this way. You can feel whatever feelings you are feeling, but you can talk to me politely" (this is usually when he is pissy about something that has NOTHING to do with me, like losing at FIFA or something).
So curious to know what age you think is appropriate for breaking the phone seal. I'm going to have to start thinking seriously about this for my two kids in the near future, and I'd rather drive into oncoming traffic than deal with it.
21? I’m only half joking. Probably late teens - it’s impossible for kids at 10 or 13 or whatever to regulate phone usage. Adults are bad at it! Children who are still developing can not possibly be successful. There is also a lot of risk for young girls in particular to receive content that harms their mental health, not to mention issues around being asked to share inappropriate pictures and so on. I think a child would need to be something like 16 or 17 to make the right choices about these things and I dgaf if “all your friends have it”. Phones are designed to be addictive.
My speech delayed child really struggles to create full sentences. But damned if he can’t say “my tablet is gone! Where is my tablet!?”
So yeah I think we’ll be controlling that access for a looooooong time.
Haha yes. I also know a lot of 25 year olds who say they regret their parents allowing them access so young. So I think history will prove me right in time.
This is literally what my kid’s psychiatrist said last week. We are all battling a gabillion-dollar industry and these things are designed for addiction.
I want to hold a line similar to this as well. I do get nervous about the isolation aspect of having a teen who is totally out of the loop, and worry that it will just make them access phones under the cloak of darkness haha. It's so hard!
I know it’s definitely going to be a battle. Parenting is hard!
We gave our kids phones at 13 and if I had it to do over again I would have waited another year or two. If you can hold out until 14 or even 15 I would say do it They went from being avid readers to reading only for school assignments. It's hard to go back. The culture won't be on your side, but the science is.
I have a six year old who constantly demands the age at which she’ll be allowed to do things. I told her she can have a phone when she can drive and that she’s never allowed to have social media 😂 Desperately hoping things have chilled out in ten years, but not getting my hopes up. Maybe she gets a flip phone? When I see kids walking out of her elementary school with their iPhones I can hardly handle it. Oh the world...
For accessibility, it’s hard to beat iPhones/the apple ecosystem, and hand-me-down phones are easier sometimes to set up and manage than a burner flip phone.
I know. My 7 year old had classmates with phones. Hate it.
Did you know that my kid is the only kid his age in the entire city/state/country who doesn't have a phone? According to him
Sorry not sorry buddy
I agree. I cant control my own phone usage and im 38 so anything below 16 would be a no for me. Of course my oldest is 5 so it’s easy for mw to say that now
My oldest will be 12 tomorrow and we have a very strong "no smart phone until you're 16" rule in place. I'm not saying there's no way it'll change but we are also pretty solid in why we have this rule and we talk about it all the time with our three kids.
Yes!
No YouTube. Generally speaking, I try to avoid all streaming services during the week (I hate the endless loop of it all). We have an old TV/VCR setup with a large library of tapes that my daughter is allowed to watch during the week. She gets to have autonomy over what she watches (a vcr is very easy to operate for a 5 YO) and I get control over the content. On weekends she can watch limited amounts of streaming kids shows. A funny side effect of the VCR is my kid gets very excited about previews for movies that came out 25+ years ago.
Literal LOL about the previews. We are the same about YouTube - the ads and the rotten content just make it untenable.
This is BRILLIANT.
We were all so addicted to our streaming TV crap that I disconnected the device from the TV so all we can watch is VHS and DVD. Best decision ever! I get excited about those 25 year old previews too. LOL. I think I’m gonna unearth all our old kids’ movies and let the kids choose what to watch- good call Nicole Bloomfield!
Yesssss! I don’t let mine watch YouTube either it’s horrible. Similar to what I posted above, I work in tech and it’s all very bad. No thanks.
My husband works in tech too and this is why we work so hard to limit the addictive aspects of screen time. I know it will only get harder as she ages, but for now we can greatly limit it by going analog. Plus she loves her vcr and tapes! She has full access to our record player too and there are tons of great vintage kids records available at thrift shops and flea markets.
there is a toy called the Yoto I learned about from Strategist--it's a cool audio player but not a screen so the kids can listen to music/stories etc but in a kind of offline way.
I love this topic so much.
I won't answer to someone screaming my name from another room. Get up and come find me if you need something. I will die on this hill no matter how long it takes for them to get that I won't be responding to MOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM?????
yep. I answer verrrry quietly "I can't hear you, I'm in the other room."
That one episode of Stewie off Family Guy. This, right here.
There will never be an Elf on the Shelf in my house. No thank you. Also sunscreen. I tell my three-year-old she’ll thank me in 30 years.
I am dreading kindergarten because I have heard of teachers locally having an Elf on the Shelf in the classroom. Which (1) what? And (2) no.
my kids' teachers have done that (complete with their whole little adventures lives) and then they kids asked me why we don't have one. I just said "we don't do Elf on the Shelf here." Also reindeer food can low key suck my dick. Glitter and oatmeal on my front stoop until springtime: gtfo
Glitter and oatmeal? What sadist came up with that? At our house, Santa's reindeer get carrot slices, placed neatly next to cookies.
this was from the magical Elf on the Shelf teacher. She recently had her own baby so I am curious to check in with her in about 5 years and hear if she's still doing all that jazz or scaled back d/t sanity
Like…what if you have students who don’t celebrate Christmas? Jews? Muslims? Jehovah’s Witnesses? Wtf?
Catholic school, baby. Jesus and that Elf, palling around back in the day.
Ugh, I’m more worried about her finding out that her friends have one and asking us about it
!00% on board the no elf train, my kids are 8 & 11 years old and my line since the first time an elf showed up in their pre-school classroom has been "I don't believe in the elf that's why they never come visit our house."
Eff no on Elf on a shelf. He doesn’t come to our house kid!
Sitting calmly at the dinner table and facing our family while we eat. It’s a stupid hill at some level because neurodiversity, but even his brain can handle 10 minutes and a piece of garlic bread.
Also absolutely no feet on the table.
you monster. ;)
We used to tell my daughter that feet were not allowed on the table in this house, and even at 3, she was like "When I have my own house I can put my feet on the table!" Hopefully by then she knows better.
We once told our kids “we don’t say potty words in this house.” My cheeky 4YO replied, “Can we say potty words outside this house?”
YUP. Table manners are my hill. Napkin in lap, stay seated until everyone is done. Eat with fork and knife. My mom used to do a while “what if you eat with a Prince and he doesn’t want to marry you because of your table manners” - I’ve retired that speech and replaced it with “DONT BE AN ANIMAL.” Elbows are ok, that one always seemed dumb to me.
God, I want to die in this hill but i would always be soo dead and with a 6yo gleefully hopping off her dining room chair to dance on my grave.
Bike helmet. Kids in my town seem not to wear them ever, and my young teen doesn't want to stick out. So he never bikes, which is sad. But I've been car doored and fallen in traffic on a bike. Helmets are life savers.
nothing makes me age faster and get more rigid/angry than seeing a kid riding his bike down the street with no helmet, texting. I want to find his mother.
Omg yes same. I am so upset.
Oh! And my other hill is that I will not be yelled it in my home. Not by my husband, not by my kids. The flipside is also true, however, which is that I don't yell at them either. People are allowed to feel their feelings, but yelling isn't okay with me.
(My family of origin was a yelling family and yelling makes me feel unsafe).
Hard same!
Making a good faith effort to look for something/try something before giving up. I lose my mind when my kid is wailing "I can't do it!" when I know for a fact that they haven't even tried lol
I've started 'charging'. I'll help you look for it but it'll cost you 10 minutes of screen time, so do you want to look on your own some more? (My kid is a tween btw, I wouldn't do this with a 6yr old).
That is GENIUS
STEALING THIS.
This is brilliant.
Wow you are smart. Love this.
Am I the only one reading this terrific thread and thinking how so many of these are my non-negotiables too, but they're constantly being tested so I am always losing my mind/dying on a hill? For instance, I also want my kids to have good table manners but I can't get my oldest to eat with his fork half the time and I am always saying, "Knees down!" because he's folding is legs up at the table. He is almost 12. My 7 year old is always getting up from her seat and I am always telling her to put her butt in the chair while she eats. Every meal. I absolutely will not tolerate rudeness and yet all three are so rude! I will not tolerate someone losing their temper and making personal attacks, and yet, at least twice a day someone is getting upset and screaming, I HATE YOU! YOU'RE AN IDIOT! On and on in this way. Sigh. Anyway, parenting. What fun!
I am low key doing some work on a piece about whether kids are less capable of using silverware than we want them to bed and why. It will involve sweeping generalizations about boys vs. girls but I am really curious about a.) why some kids are so bad about using knives and forks and b.) why this makes us so crazy haha.
My younger son has told me, at 8, "I hate you" more times than I told my parents in my entire life. This is the worst when he's fresh off screens, so, the adaptation is, VERY little screen time. Some parents think I'm doing this just to be some sort of off-screen saint but really it's just me wanting to avoid verbal abuse.
My youngest is a boy who is better at using a fork than anyone, including adults. He also does not like his hands and face sticky and dirty, whereas my other two (a boy and girl) could walk around covered in maple syrup without a complaint. All of them say they hate me, and it started with my seven year old, who has anxiety and a short temper--it's less related to screens (that gets my oldest super mad too), and more about being told to do something she doesn't want to do, or when she is feeling left out or unfairly criticized. The clean and sweet three year old has learned to say, "I'll murder you in your sleep!" from her. I am clearly teaching them well! :)
this made me laugh so hard.
My son when he was 5 or so told my husband, "You're gonna die someday." Sweet.
LOL! Yeah my baby likes to say, "I'll be happy when you're dead." But he is so cute when he says it that I fear it doesn't have the effect he hopes for (that is, so much sadness that I give him a second yogurt pouch.)
In our case our kiddo had/has fine motor skills delays. Communal lunch at his school (so using silverware there daily) plus switching to eating European style has helped a LOT.
I swear to you my 18mo old daughter shows more interest and at times, more capability with utensils than my 7yo son (who also leans back and sits with his knees on the table). His handwriting is also absolute garbage, so part of me thinks this is a fine motor skill thing. Then again, he’s a whiz on the Switch...
Yeah, my oldest was in OT for years for fine and gross motor skill help. My three year old is far cleaner and better behaved at the dinner table than the other two. So I know at least that it's not my child rearing!
Same! Ol I'm more restrictive than most parents in our circle/school community with screens but one of my kids in particular is a nightmare when it's time to turn them off. I'm like, this isn't me on my high horse, it's self-preservation!
OMG my 12 year old (girl) also will try to eat spaghetti or noodles with her fingers when she thinks we aren't looking. Meanwhile, she only eats ramen with chopsticks?
Washing/cleaning hands before eating. I do not care if we are in the middle of the woods, you'll damn well use a wipe and some hand sanitizer if that's all we have. Also washing hands when we come into the house from anywhere. Not even a covid thing, this has been the rule since she was old enough to reach the sink on a step stool.
Same with the hand washing!
No multitasking (when it comes to screens). So, if we are watching a movie together then we are watching the dang movie and are not also looking at phones/iPads. My kids understand why I care about this...the only one who won't comply is my husband (arghhhhh).
I'm bad about this too! I'm shocked I haven't fallen down the stairs because I was looking at my phone while doing it.
Very guilty of multiple screens
Washing hands when you get home from anywhere (you little germ-carriers), throwing away snack wrappers, hanging up the bath mat after a shower, and putting laundry in the hamper. For the record, none of these things happen without me nagging incessantly. It’s super fun to follow them around and say these things 12x a day (for years!).
Screaming in the car. My kid tends to operate at two volumes: high, and screaming. My husband and my kid have a terrible dynamic in which they rile each other up with jokes/teasing until they are both screaming. I'm jumpy in general and jumpier when I'm driving so I like a super mellow environment in the car and I cannot tolerate screaming in there. I have been known to pull over and firmly remind the occupants of my rule. If my kid's super hyper, I always say, let's get where we're going (or, if it's a longer drive, I will stop after X time) and you can tell me everything that's on your mind at any volume you like; in the meantime, draw me a picture of what you're excited about.
The noise thing really gets me too and it’s especially frustrating with driving!
I have pulled over for that too!
I am finding as my kids get older that the only hill I would die on is that they be kind. We teach table manners, clearing the table, make them do their own laundry and do things like limiting social media, no TikTok, no TVs in bedroom, and encourage intuitive eating and moving the body. But none of this matters to me if my kids are unkind to themselves and others.
I will let bedtimes slide on occasion, I will look the other way if someone is staying up late to read, I've even been known to forget to make them brush their teeth, but my hard-and-fast hills to die on are:
1. checking in your tech with me in the kitchen before bed (even the 17yo, not allowed to have her phone overnight, she's got ADHD and I know she'll just stay up scrolling and be a wreck the next day)
2. cleaning up the front of the toilet & seat - the 9yo WILL LEARN NOT TO PEE SLOPPILY IF MY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. I recently wallpapered the guest bathroom and when i got down low I noticed that the front of the toilet had faint stains of pee rivulets down the front, and it smelled like vinegar. I got his butt in there to clean it up so fast. He's going to keep doing this until it has an effect on his behavior while peeing, so help me god.
My fave is pee on the FLOOR. For when the toilet seat is too aspirational.
For the love of all that is good in this world. My kid will freaking learn to be “bored”. There is never a need to constantly be doing something or have your face attached to a screen. Creativity is found in “boredom” and their imagination is far too active to ever be bored.
SIT WITH IT, CHILD. 😂
If you're bored, clean up. Oh you're suddenly not bored anymore? Interesting.
If you say "I'm bored" at daycare, our provider makes you clean her toilets. She's my hero.
I’m always like oh I guess we should get rid of all your toys because they’re boring, right?
Magic, isn’t it. 😮💨
I have several that have already been mentioned, but also:
No talking from 8:28-8:30 every morning. My ADHD kid cannot focus on the backpack/shoes/snack/coat tasks while his sister chatters at him, so things go a lot more smoothly with an enforced two minutes of quiet before we head to the bus stop. Babble your heart out once we are out the door.
Any time one of them starts whining about X kid having a huge house or a beach house or a pony or some other gross demonstration of wealth, we sign them up for a volunteer community service event that weekend.
Intentional rudeness or cruelty is an immediate timeout or loss of privileges, depending on the offense.
They will go to school/practice/other commitment unless they are sick or there is some real emergency. “We don’t bail on our commitments just because we don’t feel like going” is a thing they hear a lot.
No phones/socials until at least ninth grade, but we honestly might push this even further back. No screens at all during the school week unless we are watching Jeopardy together as a family.
Everyone has to do some kind of exercise and something creative 3x a week. I don't care what those things are.
Things I’m pretty chill about: bathing (twice a week seems fine until puberty starts?), whether their hair is brushed, homework, cussing, dining etiquette.
"No talking from 8:28-8:30 every morning." that's SO specific and hilarious and perfect. Same thing about the service projects. I love you.
I’m indeed a very specific person 😂
I like the family Jeopardy! exception!
I am very strict on bedtimes (even for my now high schooler) during the school year and that there are no phones or devices allowed in their rooms after bedtime. My husband works at an elementary school and the number of deeply sleep deprived kids he sees is really sad. Little kids shouldn't be up at 11pm on a school night! This is my hill!
And includes Apple watches--a lesson I learned from my friend who discovered her 10 year old was up at 2 AM texting with his buddies.
Omg!
SAME. We’ve forgotten to shut off our kid’s iPad after we’ve brought it to our room and all of a sudden we get woken up by some 11 pm ding! WTF?
Handwritten thank you notes. Call me a hold out but if someone spends the time/energy/money to get you a gift my family will be writing them a note.
I have my boys write notes too. I mean they are half-assed and not done nicely but they still put pencil to paper. They blithely get so much in life (which is fair, they're kids) I want them to practice showing appreciation, if not to me, someone else. it makes me think back to COVID times when that would totally count as "homework."
What is your rule on if they say thank you in person?
I'm finding the hills I will die on are changing as my kid gets older. Or at least the hills I THOUGHT I would die on are changing. My kid has ADHD/GAD and dyscalculia. That combination means there are things that I would LOVE to die on but no one will care or collect my corpse for a proper burial after. Their brain just isn't developed enough yet to implement the tricks/tools necessary for any of my nagging to do anything other than add massive piles of anxiety onto an already anxious kid.
So! For right now it's no screens after 7:30 p.m. on school nights, 8:30-9 p.m. in the summer. Plus, we don't allow any screens to remain in their bedroom after those points; everything goes in our room. Clear dishes/scrap put in the sink or dishwasher. Some sort of movement every day. Saying hello/goodbye/thank you to adults, and addressing them in the eye, especially when visiting their homes. Bedtimes, always. No cellphone till eighth grade and even then we have a list of things they'll have to prove to us they can handle before we say OK.
My ADHD kid has such a thing for screens sometimes it spooks me out. I'm low key worried about how he'll fare when he's older and I can't (literally) lock the screens away. But there are so many other things to deal with in the meantime....
I see this with my ADHD teen too, which is why one of my hills is that TikTok isn't allowed on his phone or devices. I also have ADHD and I had TikTok for about two days before I realized I was losing hours to it at a time. It is perfectly designed to ruin an ADHDers sense of time. Now that he is older, we do talk about how things like YouTube and TikTok are designed to be attention sucks and why he needs to be even more aware about that than his non-ADHD friends. He gets it but he still struggles to not be on a device unless he is doing soccer or we are forcing him to do something else. It's hard and I do worry about how he'll handle that when he is older.
Our house rule is that there are only screens on the weekends. My kid is 5. It felt easier to say no during the week than deal with the meltdown when a tv episode was over and it was time yo turn off. But this summer I (super controlling parent) am trying to give him some rope bc I cant expect him to learn how to regulate if he never has the chance to. Sort of how Im 38 and still binge around cookies bc they were forbidden food growing up. We shall see...
HOLD FIRM to that weekend rule. I wish we had.
It's REAL. And our kid right now uses it to create animated stories and it's REALLY cool and creative and engaging. I don't want to NOT encourage that expression; on especially tough days, they head for the animation tool to work out their feelings. But it is STILL a screen and we've had to deal with THREE vision prescription changes in three years. We don't allow social media so that's somewhat of a saving grace, too. That's why early on we instituted hard cut offs and rules around use so at least they know and are used to it.
I love this question and Im curious - how do yall handle these hills when your spouse does not exhibit the behaviors that is your hill. This has been hard for us bc it feels like Im nagging him and them
That would drive me crazy both in terms of him being a bad roommate and also not being a supportive partner--how am I going to get them to XYZ when you seem to show it's not important at all??
This happened with my first husband. I had to tell my daughter that he's an adult and makes his own choices, and when she's an adult she can make choices. Until then, I am the boss of you.
My (teenaged! able-bodied! bright and capable!) stepkids have to fold and put away their clean clothes in order for me to wash their dirty clothes, or they can wash their clothes themselves. I finally got my husband to back me up. I think we’re going on week 3 of this standoff...?
I’m kind of the opposite. My kids wash their own clothes (since about age 8). I do wash their sheets and towels when they appear in the laundry room every other week. And then after that, I don’t care what happens once the clean laundry in their rooms except for no hoarding laundry baskets.
Laundry is one of those things I want desperately for them to do on their own but the tradeoff is supervising it and nagging them about getting it done in a timely way instead of letting each step take forever and backing up the whole system. Right now my older one is at least putting his clean clothes away for money (he should not get money for this since I don't, but at least it's happening.)
If our kids did their own laundry I wouldn’t GAF either way
Basic table manners -properly setting the table, napkin in your lap, elbows off the table, ask politely for things to be passed to you, asking to be excused/clearing your plate/push in your chair. No phones at the table.
We did not tolerate whining. They had to use their "big kid voice" and speak to us respectfully if they wanted our attention.
A witchy elder taught me the trick of saying "I'm sorry, I don't understand whining. Please repeat that in your regular voice."
When we tell my kid to use a “loud voice” so we can hear him, he just yells “LOUD VOICE.”
This was my hill (and still is). I have had a No Whining sign next to my computer for 40 years (yep, I'm a computer crone), and enforced it with kids, visitors, and anyone else in my space. I'll listen to any rant. I'll be an ear and a shoulder for anyone. But start whining, and I shut down. I've been known to order teens out of our apartment because they were whining.
Now my daughter has a button saying No Whining on the corkboard in her office space. You can see it when she does anything with her webcam.
No commenting on peoples bodies!! Kid and husband. lol. No making sex talk "weird" or "gross." My son is 12 and has questions and my husband and I are both from sex negative backgrounds so we both have to take deep breaths and speak with intention to sex positivity.
Those are good ones!
This comments section is teaching me that I am a disgusting goblin and need to get my life together before my baby is old enough to adopt my goblin habits
no!!! you are perfect. Just watch out for that goblin baby.
Screaming for fun, minor stuff, as a game, etc. Unless there’s active danger or blood or genuine panic attack no kid or mine needs to be screaming. Toddlers get somewhat of a pass but elementary aged? Absolutely not. We are not screaming for fun.
I grew up on a lake and this was a hard rule in my family growing up. My parents said if there's always screaming while playing/swimming, it meant they would be unable to tell if someone was screaming because they genuinely needed help.
No unsupervised YouTube except specific channels.
No Mr. Beast.
We don't have a TV in our bedroom, so it wouldn't have occurred to my kids to ask for one. So my 'thing' was that phones had to charge in the kitchen at night, well into high school. I think my daughter may have been a junior, my son a freshman, when we started letting them have their phones all night. First weekends, then school breaks, then summer, then 'set your own alarms' with me as back up. Same for school IPads, even though most apps were banned from the devices.
Fully agree! I still think it's weird to have a TV in your bedroom and sleep scientists agree
I have a weird set-up where I spend half the week in another city. My husband and son came to visit and my son was in awe that my housemate had a TV in her bedroom... he didn't even realise that was a thing.
Ha ha!
Oh I love this thread. 1. Sunscreen 2. No shoes in the house 3. Thank you notes when a gift is received.
I skimmed so maybe I missed it...but I"m shocked that no one said CHEWING WITH YOUR MOUTH CLOSED. I started very young with gentle reminders to "Please chew with lips closed" and my kids are pretty good at it. I WILL NOT listen to your food EVER. (Misophonia? Never heard of it......)
No inside locks. If one of my kids locks their bedroom door, I will take it off the hinges. Fortunately this has only ever been in the threat stage, I have never actually taken a door off (yet.) I inherited that rule from my mother.
my dad totally took my door off once! It was the handiest he's ever been.
My kids have a lock on their room but you can unlock it from the outside with a quarter so they know I will unlock it if need be.
My husband has taken doors off two different rooms 3 times - for slamming them. This is our hill.
Mine is ingratitude. I lose my ever-loving mind if I feel like either/both of my kids are being ungrateful. Related: god help you if you are rude to one of your grandparents (all of whom are loving, generous, accepting, and mostly sane). Zero tolerance for that BS.
OMG, my son complained about a casual park hang birthday party "But there won't be any party bags!" and I threatened to cancel his own birthday party. I just went from "It's fun, blah blah blah..." to "I did not raise you to be ungrateful, I will cancel your party!"
Total trigger for me.
Steal this if you want--after I paid about $500,000 for a full-class inflatable park party a girlie asked me if there were goodie bags. I told her her memories of the day was her goodie bag.
Omg... I refused to buy bags last year and just hanged people a Lego minifig and some bubbles in the way out, which was awkward. My mom has taken charge this year and got some cool cloth dragon bags (Viking themed party...)
If I were a true Evil Witch I would have done zero goodie bags but I was feeling sentimental this time around. But I couldn't find cute little giftie bags every other mom in the world seems to have a hookup for. So everyone got a ziploc bag on the way out with a few pieces of candy in it.
We still have never had a friend party. My kids are 6 and 9. I'm hoping to keep this going for as long as possible.
Godspeed!
This made me laugh (but also: amen, sister. I have been there).
It’s funny because I’ve noticed that I have these things when taking care of other kids and it’s just random what I’m enforcing versus other parents. For instance, I am envious of kids who put away dishes and I try to enforce but it only lasts a few days. But mine are wearing shoes on the right feet, wearing socks (usually matching) and having properly brushed hair.
ha and on the other hand my kids almost always wear mismatched socks and neither owns a brush or comb. That's how I carve out the time to yell at them about the dishes.
My kid has PERFECT hair, straight, thick, flops back into place no matter what. He never has to comb it and does not appreciate how lucky he is. Sigh.
Once I was watching a dad brush his daughter's lonnnnggg tangled blonde hair at the YMCA (very cute actually) and I realized I had short-hair-boy privilege. I have saved a lot of time not-combing, not-arguing over the combiing, and the only gross long hairs on the floor are mine.
I have never let my girl-children have anything other than a bob. Now they're asking to grow their hair long (at 6 and 9yo). I am all for supporting their body choices -- while also helping them take responsibility for their own physical selves, insofar as that's realistically possible -- so I tell them if they want long hair, they have to take care of it, INCLUDING BRUSHING. My older kiddo has some sensory issues and will literally scream and cry for 30 minutes after the most careful, painstakingly gentle brush, so she's immediately like, hell no. My younger one is still at that age where she's down for whatever her sister is doing, so she agrees. And we all go on with our happy, short, easy-to-manage hair.
(Our daycare provider once actually *thanked* me for their short hair. 😂)
Anytime your daycare provider compliments you you're riding high for days.
Ain’t that the truth.
Same. My kid thinks brushes are fun toys/scalp massagers. I have NEVER brushed his hair with intent.
My kid is always dishevelled, his uniform is muddy before he gets to school, he doesn't comb his hair, but he has impeccable manners, so I feel like the teachers don't judge me too much? Right?
I think teachers would def have a grubby polite kid than a tidy sociopath!
My kid has very curly hair so her hair is only brushed in the bath - which means like only a few times a week. Haha
Yes, not leaving the house without brushing hair is also my hill to die on. You're going to look well taken care of if it's the last thing I do!
My 43 year old husband wears flip flops to shovel the snow. I cannot win this battle.
Flip flops is fine! It's regular shoes without socks that I'm opposed to.
Bwa ha ha ha. The husband is wondering why I'm laughing so hard.
condolences to you Kate. I'm laughing though.
I saw the subject line and thought... oh, mine's all around eating and table manners, *most importantly* cleaning up after himself and bringing his plates to the kitchen. We shall die on this hill together! He does it at EVERY house, even when it's a birthday party and they're paper plates and the parents insist he doesn't have to. I am relentless about it!
I feel reallllllly good about myself when someone tells me my kid cleaned up after himself at someone else's house. There are some days I have real concerns about them and then other times I'm like maybe I'm not doing too bad.
No phones at the dinner table. Currently this is a rule for my husband and me, but we are setting an example for the inevitable future for our child. Also, you have to try the food. The phones have occasionally slipped (hrmph... dear husband), but we have never slipped on the try the food rule. It has almost always lead to eating it, sometimes with grumbling, but I recognize that we are lucky in this regard.
My (mostly successful) hills where enforcement started early and caught on: clearing dishes from the table, no individual screens during the week (we will still watch sports or occasional group show)
My hills I am constantly dying on: turning their gross socks (especially baseball socks ugh) right side out and separating the undies from the pants before putting in the hamper, wiping the pee off the seat, not using your shirt/pants as a napkin... aka all the gross stuff that they just don’t seem to understand/care about, and probably won’t for years 😒
Lol I am 34 years old and this is the first time I’m learning that turning your socks right side out before washing is a standard practice, OOPS
for me it doesn't have to be one side but making it NOT be balled up would be ideal b/c then you get these damp semi-clean socks out of the dryer that are somehow grosser than before they went in.
If sports socks are not turned right side out, the dirt and grass can stay trapped inside and don’t come off effectively.
I just recoiled at the term "sports socks" and got a vivid image of my kids' dumb long orange baseball socks.
Bedtime lights out and no solo screens after dinner—pbs kids family night is a cuddle ritual on fridays that actually helps speed bedtime and on mondays she can watch a streamed jazz concert with her dad if she wants but those are on tv!!
She is great at sleeping and total crap at going to/falling asleep which means a lot of work goes into smoothing that process and literally this week, two weeks before her 7th birthday, we moved her bedtime to 7:55 instead of 7:10.
Please and thank you please and thank you please and thank you please and thank you please and thank you
Screaming. Being intolerant of or rude about someone else's hurt feelings or difficulty (this is hard to police but when I see these friend interactions I try to intervene.) And here's the one that seems like it makes me weird: In addition to not literal swearing, there's certain manners of speaking that I think are a problem. Does nobody remember that "sucks" refers to women sucking men's peniuses? Let's not have children saying "sucks." And "freakin'" as an adjective is just a stand-in for "fucking." Let's not have children saying a word that means "fucking" when they don't know what that means. I'd rather not hear "crap" from a kid. I believe in swearing for when something is really wrong or really hurts, not just for whenever you want to sound cool. Nice language is powerful. Swearing all the time makes people seem weak, messy, and unaware.
Oh I'm the same way!! I wasn't allowed to say "sucks" as a kid and so neither are my kids (I find this more acceptable to them than explaining why I don't like it.) The little one especially saying "Freakin"--who do you think you are, Tony Soprano? Once he said "What the f-word!" which was both awful and funny.
Our kids think we are weirdly strict about this too. No “frigging” or “fudging” and no saying “oh my god” because... could you just sound like little kids while you are little kids? My 11 year old still thinks the c word is “crap” 😂
the thing that sucks is that we can't say "shut up" in this house but I come close to saying "shut up" more often than I wish was true. I say a lot of "Shut....[deep breath]"
On edit: "freakin'" as an adverb, I mean.
No TV on school days. 1 hour each weekend day, not all at once.
This is much harder on us than it is on him!
Mondays (the days after screentime weekends) are pretty rough for us with the whining about screens. He's already getting more screentime this summer than normal and I'm thinking we're going to have to taper off slowly rather than do a hard stop right before school starts.
Putting your filthy ass clothes (especially socks) in the hamper!!!!
I have spent entire days walking around dirty underwear on the front hall floor (why??) because I am NOT picking that up. You (not you, Kitty) are.
Haha nope, I wont pick it up either!
I will die and my husband will still not have learned to do this and I wish I could go back to my 22 yo self and make sure she understood this
My husband is guilty of this as well, which is why I am determined to condition my sons to be different!
Clearing dishes, turning off lights! Flushing the toilet (sometimes the kids bathroom has pee that sits there for so long it smells horrific), going to sleep at a reasonable hour.
I'm glad I'm married to my husband because for some reason he takse on the job of plunging the boys' toilet and he has to do it ... frequently.
I don’t respond to whining or crazy demanding shouting like I WANT MILK. Must ask nicely. I’m pretty easy going other than that but rudeness is totally unacceptable.
I don't hear anything if I don't hear "please"
I was very intense about no food in the car seat until my son was about 2 and a half. I just couldn’t shake the image of him choking and trying to do the heimlich with him in the seat. Similarly, I’m still pretty intense about him sitting on his butt when he eats! Doesn’t always have to be at the table, but he better be sitting!
No iPads at home until kindergarten (only on an airplane for now!). Fingers crossed I can keep it up.
Lexie! Hi! This was YOUR thread question. :) We don't have ANY iPads at my house and Bean will be 12 tomorrow (at least not any that work...we have two very old ones that we were able to use for travel up to a year or two ago). I think a regular old TV does the job and keeps everyone involved in what a kid is watching--for better or for worse. My kids won't get smart phones until 16 (I hope), and even now they never play games on phones or any personal devices. (Editing this so that that the almost-12-year-old does have a Nintendo Switch, just no phone...) That said, they watch A LOT of TV. Ginger got to do educational games on the iPad at school and loved it so much, but that was enough time on one for her, as far as I'm considered. Anyway, you can do it!
Edan! You are the one who really framed “tv as a communal experience” for me!!! I will stay strong!
This is definitely a thing. Someone else I spoke with once talked about how he could tell the difference in his kids' behavior after they had watched an episodic show with actual humans rather than Youtube cartoons. And I definitely consider l live sports a freebie.
ha ha it's the hearth of our times!
Bussing dishes, wearing effing socks in the winter, shutting doors for god's sake, and putting on sunscreen.
I am finding the 'shutting doors' thing funny as my three year old is deep in a shutting [slamming] the doors phase and driving me bananas. And then he switches off the lights. Every person's hill truly is different 😂
My now 7 year old did that at 3! Now she just leaves the door open all the time. In winter. Hate it!
Weather appropriate clothing. Raining? Raincoats and boots. Cold? Jackets and pants. Really cold? Hats and gloves. Park or walking long? Sneakers.
My son is 7 and daughter is 3 and I have many people warning me that in fact I will DIE on this hill because at some point the demand for shorts and no coats year round wins out.
I have had to tell my kids I just want them to wear warm clothes so other people don't judge ME--I don't care how they actually physically feel.
Do not sit on my bed in your outside clothes. Take off your shoes.
We changed clothes at home into house clothes and never wore shoes in the house. All the things you carried in from the outside had to stop at the door. I went to college and noticed people going out in all types of weather then sitting on their beds. Imagine my shock and disgust. I catch my husband and chastise him. I won’t budge. Never.
if you don't have your bed what do you have?
A bench in the foyer.
Ha! I meant, if you don't have your bed the way you like it, what is there in life??
🤣🤣
I’d like to have a flat sheet on my bed but have begrudgingly needed to compromise.
Claire this is the best post! Love the community you’ve created here. ❤️
Thank you Claire! I gotta give credit to Copperoranges wherever they may be.