In today’s digital age, information is truly at your fingertips. While you can do a quick Google search on shoe reviews or the latest gadgets to have, you probably talk to older adults for parenting tips. Hearing suggestions from fellow parents is often a good thing. Say you’re looking for a new pediatric dentist. You’d want someone recommended by many parents in your area. The same goes for daycare centers. You probably look for facilities with glowing reviews. But listening to other parents doesn’t always work.
In particular, old-school parenting tips are still passed around these days. Some of these pieces of advice may do more harm than good. You need to be more careful in picking out tips to follow and identifying advice you need to take with a grain of salt. If you don’t know where to start, here are some pieces of outdated parenting advice that experts think you can ignore or skip.
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Using Baby Walkers
Many parents have been using baby walkers to teach their kids to walk around. The truth, however, is that baby walkers can delay your child’s motor and mental development. You may also put your baby at risk of injury as baby walkers can cause infants to fall down the stairs. A better option is to let your child learn their first steps on their own. Create a safe environment at home where they can do it freely.
Comforting a Crying Baby Will Lead to a Spoiled Kid
You may have heard this parenting advice: tough it out and don’t comfort a crying baby. That way, your kid won’t grow up spoiled. This is an irrelevant parenting tip. Kids two years of age and below don’t have the mental capacity yet to understand that crying can get their parents’ attention. When they cry, they are simply reacting naturally to the pain or unpleasantness they feel. As a parent, do what feels natural, too. Go and comfort your crying infant. Don’t worry about spoiling your kid until they become a toddler.
Telling Kids to Finish Their Plate
While it’s good to teach children about frugality and food waste problem, scolding them to finish their plate even if they already feel full sends a wrong message. Kids need to recognize when they are hungry or full, so they don’t resort to overeating. There are better ways to teach kids about healthy eating habits.
Rather than pressuring kids to “clean the plate,” let them use smaller plates for better portion sizes. It’s also a good idea to stop rewarding kids for finishing their meal with more food—particularly desserts. Kids love sweet-tasting food, so they will likely eat past their fullness to get the sweet treats after a meal.
Negotiating with your child
In theory, negotiating with children seems like a great idea as it’d teach them patience and compromise. Parent educator and author Susan North, however, disagreed. She said it could make kids unhappy. As much as you want your kid to comprehend the reasons behind your “nos,” you may not succeed. Young children don’t yet understand the concept of money, time, and other themes often used for negotiating.
Another implication of this outdated parenting tip is that your kids may look at you as their peers. It’s much better to show you’re in charge. But do that in a warm but strict way. That approach could work until your child gets to that age, where they finally learned the concept and value of negotiating.
Bed-sharing with kids
It’s warm and nice to wake up with your toddler snuggling with you in bed. But experts don’t recommend bed-sharing with your kids daily. Child psychologist Dr. Forrest Talley said bed-sharing with kids might affect the parents’ relationship as they no longer have a chance to reconnect after a busy day at work.
Bed-sharing can also cause kids to be more dependent. As they grow up, you want them to learn to be physically and emotionally independent. That can help them be better at social interactions. But if you still want your child to be nearby during bedtime, adopt co-sleeping. Let your kid sleep in your bedroom but on a different bed. That’s also a good way to transition them from bed-sharing to sleeping in their room.
There’s always pressure to be a good parent. But unquestionably, raising a happy and confident kid is easier than done. Don’t feel bad if you skip the parenting tips that many others follow. Again, not all parenting tips are right. That’s even if older parents in your family or local community followed them.