Hacker News Reader

I was a military wife. We moved a lot. Where you go is less important than your parenting policies.

My oldest has had sleep issues from birth and was a boatload of trouble in the form of curiosity killed the cat and you can't tell me no. He's a handful.

From age 2, he was taught to keep himself entertained and out if trouble so I could sleep a little while he was up nights. He was taught to tell me when he spilled stuff in the middle of the night so I could clean it up. He did not get in trouble. He only got asked what he spilled so I could clean it up properly.

I gave my kids a lot of latitude and worked with them to make sure their needs were adequately met. I did a whole lot of dealing with the woman in the mirror and trying to not hang my crap on them. I facilitated their interests and made sure they were reasonably safe.

I did things like rent Jurassic Park and watched it first, then watched it with them so I could pause it and warn them about icky surprise scenes. They very much wanted to see it they weren't that old. I made it as comfortable and not traumatic as I could and let them have their way.

I started with laying that foundation from birth. By the time they were teens, we had a good relationship. They never went through rebel teen crap. They didn't need to. There was nothing to rebel against.

Wow you were an awesome mom. I'm going through the same motions with my daughter. She's 4. Non-verbal autistic. Trying everything under the sun to get her to talk AND sleep. Feeling kind of hopeless right now but I am trying to be positive. She genuinely loves me though and wants me to hold her all the time.

I spent the first 12 years of my first child's life trying to make it possible for him to sleep decently. Off the top identity head:

ASD kids are picky. Try to keep foods on hand that are healthy and that the kid likes. Let them eat what they want from what is on hand.

Hey them a good multivitamin. Disney Princess Gummy vitamins worked well for my kids.

Make sure they get outside every single day for some physical activity. You may have to work at making sure this happens at the right time of day as well.

Kids need to be both physically tired and mentally tired to sleep. ASD kids have trouble getting the mental stimulation they need. Video tapes and video games sometimes serve them well.

Don't substitute physical exhaustion alone for physical tiredness plus mental tiredness. This can cause night terrors, where they wake up screaming after an hour.

Be accommodating of their weird preferences as much as possible. My oldest slept all kinds of weird places when he was little.

I have had a parenting blog in the past. I have fantasies I will eventually get back to that.

Best.

>if you are teen bored in a small town then getting into trouble there with less stuff around that will kill you is very appealing to a parent

I don't know what small towns you've been around, but at least where I grew up those things were:

A: Drinking and driving B: Heroin/Meth

My friends from the countryside generally got into waayyy riskier stuff than the city kids, and it often seemed to be boredom / hopelessness related.

A while back I bumped into a friend and his family in Highlands, NC while I was out on a motorcycling day trip. Why are y'all here? Oh, the wife grew up over in Sapphire. What do kids in Sapphire do? Meth and get knocked up.

So.

C: Get pregnant.

I lived in the countryside and envied the kids that could walk home from school, walk to each others houses and hang out after school etc. I think you just always want what you don't have.

Or you could have a combination of both. I'm currently in high school. I live in a small town's school district but commute into a fairly large city to school (about a 35 minute drive). This gives me both access to nature (where I live) and the opportunities/resources of a city (where my friends live). While it may not be for everyone, I wouldn't want to have it another way. What I can also tell you is that significantly more people die at the small town school than in the city (almost all are vehicle-related deaths).

I grew up in an urban area, but was always rather keen on nature/animals though. I don't really know why as my parents are not especially versed in this, although they are huge sailing fans so I spent most of my vacations between sea and wind, probably better than being in various hostels... But then again I've had friends go hiking a lot with their families and still have a very light connection with nature.

In my opinion determining factors were that my parents were very lax so I could do as I pleased, that I was a single child and had to entertain myself a lot (I don't know if it has much to do with personality, but I think having no siblings to distract me from observing surroundings helped), paid for riding lessons which turned out to be my huge passion and which was social enough to bring and keep me outside much of my adolescence. A lot of friends were in scouting groups and that probably helps too.

As for my opinion on having children up in a big vs small city, I think it's too bad to pass up on all the opportunities you can have in a big urban area for a slim and uncertain gain as you have no guarantee your child will enjoy nature on his own and not prefer being on the internet. The cultural offer, education quality, elitist programs are in cities, also the friends he might have will be much more interesting (and their parents too), the network you can have from childhood friendships is unbelievable when you grew up in the right environment, and I can say without a doubt that had I not been in a special school, in the middle of kids smarter than me, with similar to better sociocultural backgrounds, I would not have pushed myself that hard.

Grew up in the countryside, population 3K. Very happy about it, it has given me deep friendships, safety and a deep love of all things nature. Moved to a big city to attend a good University. Worked for global corporations 15+ years, got more airmiles than I imagined possible and loved every second of it. Now I've got kids and live in a mid-size city, work is 30 minutes walk, and I'm starting to think that I should move to the countryside to give the same chances I had to learn to love nature.

>Currently the two options we are contemplating between is staying in a large major urban city (population ~10M) or moving to Bariloche, Patagonia (population ~150k)

Maybe have some shades of grey in there?

I live in the suburbs of Washington DC and yesterday I took the Metro in to go to a busy crowded Happy Hour with a bunch of dressed up, "important" people. It was fun.

If it wasn't raining today, I'd have plans to go on a beautiful nature hike on rugged terrain called the Billy Goat Trail. I regularly see deer in my back yard.

For my personal situation, I wish I lived closer in and plan to move this year. However I'll still be an hour drive max to somewhere that the air is fresh and scenery beautiful and calm.

Parent of 3.5 year old here. In the US, I would consider socializing your kid in a city then taking two or three 'seasons' (read: years) out to sail around Caribbean countries. These wouldn't need to be consecutive - you could do year on/year off if required. Great language opportunities, lots of nature, good boats are very cheap in Florida, short hops in good weather in the area are perfectly suitable for less experienced sailors, and you are close enough that flying home for 6 months to stay connected to school is a non-issue.

This is totally a drive by comment - but random street view shows that graffiti seems to be a popular past time in this town:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@-41.1389439,-71.3092729,3a,75y,2...

I'd say the kids are bored.