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Comment by laurieg | Hacker News Reader

As someone considering starting a family, I have literally no idea what parenting is anymore. When I was younger I was pretty much left to my own devices, sent off to play with my brother and then packed off to school when old enough. My parents were too busy working, cooking and cleaning to do much fancy extra curricular stuff.

I do wonder now what I should be doing to prepare for parenthood. I feel that perhaps it's not the sort of thing that can be distilled down into an easy to read 200 page paperback.

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I'm working on kid #2, and my takeaway is this: "parenting science" is like "nutritional science." It's almost entirely bullshit, and little to no progress has been made in the field ever. There is no use paying attention to it, other than doing/not doing the obvious things. (Don't eat too many calories; don't emotionally destroy your kids.)

Your kids will turn out how they are going to turn out. Instinctively, you'll love them and want to keep them alive, so don't worry about that. Other than that, do what you think is right and hope for the best.

This is wholly and categorically untrue. Parenting today is much different than it was 100 years ago. The way we approach children, discipline children, and help them grow into their best selves has changed a lot. And it is based on lots of research. It is also based on all of the work that therapists do with adults after their parents have messed them up so bad with their horrible parenting. Every child will be their own adventure, personalities makes parenting every child different. But to say that there aren't guidelines and that you should just do whatever comes natural is dangerous. Because beating children comes naturally to some people. Being passive aggressive or emotionally blunt with them can come naturally. Being an absent parent and not spending any time with them can come naturally as work gets in the way. If you are unsure then seeking professional help to make sure you have the basics covered is a great way to start.

Parenting is very much an art, but like all art, there is definitely a science backing it up.

The argument is not that parenting has stayed the same. It's that there's no measurable improvement in results from all the changes. So the argument goes, the changes aren't worth much, so don't worry about it.

What about crime rates going down and teen pregnancy going down?

Lets talk about the science then. Has it been published? Has it been reproduced? That second step is the bane of many psychology studies, in that the results cannot be reproduced, assuming someone tries at all. That is a signature step in the scientific process that is often not followed. We see a study and then blindly follow it as fact.

> "parenting science" is like "nutritional science." It's almost entirely bullshit, and little to no progress has been made in the field ever.

Your analogy is a good one, but it goes a layer deeper than I think you realize.

"Parenting science" is like "nutritional science" in that, based on what you can get out of the popular sources, it is almost entirely bullshit. It's also similar in that the science has continued to make progress, but you never really hear of it because very little of what's being discovered is the kind of thing that will sell books or attract advertisers.

I disagree with that characterization, for the reasons stated here: https://www.vox.com/2016/1/14/10760622/nutrition-science-com.... In my view, if you can't develop mathematical models and test them against properly conducted experiments, then your field is not a "science." Nutrition is not a science, neither is parenting, or anything else that relies primarily on observational studies and lacks a theoretical model to connect observations together into a coherent theory.

That is not to say that observational research may not be valuable. Both nutrition and and parenting could, in theory, be developed into sciences. But until then, the fields are just collections of (often unreproducable) observations. They cannot provide general principles for say raising kids, in the same way that fluid dynamics can provide general principles for building airplanes.

It seems like we part ways at the last point in that article, or at least, what you're saying here would seem to be at odds with it.

I'm inclined to agree with it, myself. It's true that these are messy problem domains, and that does make it harder to conduct and draw firm conclusions from scientific research. That inhibits progress, but it doesn't render the whole enterprise a lost cause.

I think this comment says more about your understanding of science in general, than about what science can tell us about raising children.

There is very solid science about how children develop, and what they need from their parents, and it is useful for parents to understand it.

Here are two good places for parents-to-be to start:

https://www.healthychildren.org/English/Pages/default.aspx

https://www.naeyc.org/our-work/for-families

I can recommend books too, but they're at home so I'll have post later.

You just glossed over all the hard, core problems of the field by calling them "obvious", and confusing the great questions of the field with answers for them.

> Don't eat too many calories.

How?

> don't emotionally destroy your kids.

How?

That's like saying "Just follow the law, and you'll have a good life."

Don't miss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nurture_Assumption

Be present. That's about the sum total of it I think. If you are there, you will pick up on what is and isn't working, and you can work to make it better.

Really kids just want someone to love them and teach them how to be a person.

>Really kids just want someone to love them and teach them how to be a person.

This is basically my philosophy. My wife and I have an acknowledged goal of releasing a fully functional human into the wild in about 8 more years. That means teaching him how to be a self-sufficient person. There's a lot to it, but for me it distills down to giving them the confidence to fail, encourage their interests, and setting/adjusting boundaries.

I think that the books and article argue how present you should be. Which is where the above question comes from.

Kids need to fall, need to be able to solve things without parents nearby to be able to grow and make responsible decisions.

I guess to me "Teach them how to be a person" includes letting them make their own mistakes and giving them the space to develop the ability to make responsible decisions.

Two sentences, in, good start sketching the boundaries of the problem space. In 10,000 more sentences you'll start getting into the meaty complexity of these questions.

> As someone considering starting a family, I have literally no idea what parenting is anymore.

I started a family almost 15 years ago, and I'm still wondering myself. On the one hand, I can see firsthand how competitive the world is - much more competitive than it was when I was growing up - and I figure the least I can do is prepare my kids for the tidal wave of adulthood that's going to crash into them in another ten years or so. I'm encouraging them to participate in (and supporting them in, even though it's starting to break the bank) as much extracurricular stuff as possible, so their college applications look good, but on the other hand, I worry about stressing them out so hard that they don't feel like they ever had time to enjoy being children. As a parent, I feel like I'm walking a fine line between preparing them for the world and protecting them from it.

Something that worked for me: survey the parents that you know, and find the ones that seem like they are doing a good job and enjoying themselves. Then get a download of their system, write it down, ask questions, and form a plan. Don't take advice from parents that seem worn down or miserable.

Advice from someone who is a year and a half in: find a volunteer opportunity with the under 3 set, at least weekly, with your partner. The opportunity should include diaper changes and serious interaction with the parents, watching them interact as a triad/dyad with the neonate.

Unless you have had regular interaction with the 0-3 set and how people raise them, you won't know what you're getting into, and you won't have the right perspective.

n.b., I think it is something that can be written down, to a large extent, but you won't find it in the "parenting guide" section, you'd find it in the clinical guide texts for professional nurses and parenting educators.

This "volunteer opportunity" was called "living in a family/clan/society" for thousands of years until the weird sterilized suburbanized modern world.

If you think you were raised well, then by all means reproduce it. If not, fix what's broken. Don't overcompensate for perceived weaknesses in your upbringing, be honest.

For example, were you fat as a teenager? OK, make sure your kids have good eating habits. Notice this is not: put them in crossfit, feed them only vegetables.

You start by choosing the right partner. Seriously. No matter how many smart books about parenting you read, you will not have time and energy to follow them, if you are too busy divorcing at the moment your kids need you.

A single parent is not enough. No matter how much you love your kids... being alone with them all the time will drive you crazy. You need another adult person to share the burden, to provide feedback, to make a joke at the right moment and remind you that there is life after parenting.

Time spent with your children is more important than the toys you buy them. (Though some toys are better than others. That would be a long debate, but the short version is "Lego good, Barbie bad" i.e. the toy should be there to teach your child some skills, not just to be admired for how expensive it was.)

Be there to provide encouragement when your child succeeds at something, and comfort when it fails. Try to encourage your child to try new things, but don't push. Sometimes a child fails at something, and then a few days or months later succeeds; that is natural. Sometimes children evolve in "jumps"; for a few months you don't see any progress at some specific area, and then a huge change happens overnight.

Your children will try to manipulate you; probably before they learn to talk. That is also natural. Resist the manipulation, but don't get angry.

Always reward progress with praise, even very small progress. Be specific with the praise, i.e. describe exactly the progress you celebrate. For overcoming difficult problems, offer rewards.

In teaching, I am a fan of Montessori education: set up an environment where learning happens naturally, and then learning will happen. For example, your child is more likely to learn drawing, if they have pencils and paper always available; more likely to get mechanical skills if they have mechanical toys; and more likely to be good at computers when they have access to a computer. (Computers, that is a separate long topic. But again: don't use them as a device for playing shooting games or chatting online, rather use editors or encyclopedias etc.)

As my RPG-playing friends say: "If your child could do something alone, but you are doing it for them, you are stealing their experience points." Teach kids new skills. Yes, at the first time they will be clumsy and likely do it wrong. That's natural. You are investing in the long-term outcome.

The children will copy what you do. That is a f-ing huge responsibility! But also an extra reward for finally getting your own life in order.

Don't ever believe that the school will fix something. The teacher cannot be a substitute parent; they have dozens of other kids in the classroom, lessons to teach, exams to administer, and most importantly a ton of paperwork to fill.

Accept that sometimes you won't do things perfectly. As long as you avoid the worst mistakes, you are still doing a great job.

...you are right, I could probably go on and write 200 more pages. :D

I'm a little late on this reply, but I'll explain my philosophy for what it's worth. It has apparently been effective with my daughter (who is now nine years old).

Don't treat your child "like a child", treat them like a small person. What I mean by this hopefully will come through in my other points.

Just like every person is a little different, so it is for children. Don't be afraid to try other techniques if something isn't working for your child. A recent example of this in my case is helping my daughter with spelling. It took us a while to determine the best way for learn in this particular case.

If I need my daughter to do something, or I tell her no, I always try to provide an explanation as to why. This isn't easy, but so far it has been fruitful.

By the same token, she can always ask why and I always try to provide an explanation. Now that she's older, if she has a question about why something happens or works, we try to investigate it together by various means.

Don't be afraid to explain complicated concepts to your child, even at a very early age. My wife thought it was pretty funny that I was trying to explain that the string on a balloon is a tether and why you might call something a tether rather than a string. Early on it's not clear how much they absorb, but it seems to have worked (at least for my daughter).

Always let them know that how their opinions/feelings are important, even if you have to explain that they have not understood something correctly. In other words, don't just dismiss what they think or feel just because they are children. I try to use these as teaching moments. Occasionally you will be the one being taught. I think this concept in particular has made my daughter an outgoing person, and one who generally thinks about things before she speaks (well, for a nine year old anyway). One good example of this was when she was five or six, we had some pretty extreme flooding in our area. There was a news story on the local news station about one of the rescuers themselves needing to be rescued during an operation. I chuckled about that and pointed it out to my wife. My daughter who was sitting next to me made this observation: "Maybe he's new". I had to agree with her, once I stopped laughing. My point is she made an astute observation that I had not considered, and one that was extremely plausible.

Back to always providing an explanation, sometimes I don't say no, in particular to activities where she could be injured. Instead, I try to get her to analyze the situation (and help if necessary) to see if she can accomplish her goal in a safer manner. For example, I have a four wheel cart to move stuff around on. She wanted to ride it like a surfboard in the driveway. By asking her what would happen if she falls, she saw the wisdom in wearing knee and elbow pads, gloves, and her bicycle helmet (which she had for riding her scooter). I don't doubt the falls on the scooter while wearing pads helped her make her decision. By the same token, one day when I came home from work, her hands and chin were scraped up. She was reluctant to tell me what happened, but I got her to tell me that she got on the cart without her pads and fell off. I told her that's why I thought she should wear the pads (and that she wasn't in trouble). Kids will be kids after all.

Try to expose you children to new things. When you do, make sure there is some interaction. For example, just this week, I got my daughter to start doing a little astronomy. I recently bought a dobsonian mount telescope because it would be easier for her to use. She wasn't too interested until I told her that she was the one who would be pointing the telescope. I showed her what to do and let her point it at whatever she wanted to look at, helping a little along the way. Now she wants to get out whenever it's clear, despite the bugs (summertime...).

Don't be worried what other parents think. Feel free to listen to their advice. Also feel free to ignore it.

I don't know if any of this helps you or not, and I certainly have forgotten to mention some things, but it's worked for us so far. I can't say for certain (obviously) that going this route has made my daughter the person she is. All I can say is these are some of the concepts my wife and I have applied and that my daughter is an intelligent, thoughtful, outgoing person who has made me a better person just by knowing her.

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