sagLifehack
Flying SquidSure, I fantasize about doing this sort of shit with my kid sometimes too.
But you don’t do it.
Passerby6497What, are you saying that gaslighting your young child to do stuff they hate is harmful?
I can’t speak for other kids, but being honest with mine seems to work pretty well. “Why do I have to put away the dishes?” “Because if you don’t, we won’t be able to wash the dirty ones and then we’ll get roaches. Do you want roaches? No. So put away the dishes.”
Yeah, that’s the tack I’m taking with mine. No sense in lying because it’s not good for your relationship, and I can’t be bothered to keep track of a bunch of lies.
I didn’t even like doing Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, but my wife insisted. I’m glad that era is over.
Feel you. I got accused by my brother in law of being some kind of psychopath for not wanting Santa in the house.
In their house, my sister is already using the threat of Christmas big brother against any minor hijinks that their kid gets up to.
I have a three year old, so unfortunately, I have another 4 years of this nonsense ahead of me.
Jojo, Lady of the WestIn their house, my sister is already using the threat of Christmas big brother against any minor hijinks that their kid gets up to.
Oof, that seems a bit much to me. Does she tell stories about the bogeymen or Baba Yaga, too? I’d rather my child be concerned with the actual consequences for their actions rather than the imagined ones
There’s some research that says Santa, the Easter bunny, etc. are good for teaching kids skepticism. Plus it’s fun. I’ll often move their stuffed animals so it looks like they were doing something when the kids are asleep so they can get a little bit of magic
But, threatening with Santa is actually bad parenting because #1 it’s a bit traumatic of a threat but #2 they’ll figure out damn fast that you’re bluffing. Never threaten a punishment you aren’t prepared to dish out (and never dish out a punishment you wouldn’t feel comfortable explaining to the kid as an adult)
Yeah, it’s not the very idea of Santa I’m railing against here, it’s using him as a bogeyman to control behaviour.
Yes, I agree, a terrible parenting strategy. Also fuck elf on the shelf, since the whole book is about how the elf is Santa’s spy and you can’t question or touch it. I’m pretty sure this is what gave her the awful idea.
Do you have to be I’m every single thread picking fights with people over the dumbest shit?
You think I’m picking a fight with @Passerby6497? By saying that I agree with what they’re doing?
But you would still be able to wash the dirty ones. This is just a lighter lie (which imo is totally fine).
Where would I put the dirty dishes so I could wash them if the sink is already full?
How about somewhere else for the moment?? LOL
You must have a large kitchen.
Not at all, but I’m also not stumped by having the sink full so much that I’m literally not capable of washing the dishes lmao. A kid might believe that since kids are fucking idiots but not an adult, surely
Then you must have a large sink or you must wash dishes every single time you eat rather than once a day. We don’t have time for that.
I love how this has got you absolutely stumped. You can pick stuff from the sink and put it out of the way. You can pile it on the goddamn floor if you need to. Whether your kid puts the dishes away or not is actually what allows you to wash the dishes. You could also move them. But you say the kid needs to do that so you can wash the dishes (even though you could wash them without it). It just makes it more convenient. See what I mean?
It’s “got me absolutely stumped” because we have a small kitchen and a small sink. There’s no room. We could put them on the floor, but we have dogs. Conceivably we could do something like put all the dishes on a shelf in the living room and come and get them one by one to clean them. Maybe you think that would teach my daughter something, but other than ‘my parents are doing something silly when we could just use the dishwasher,’ I don’t know what it would be.
Could it be that you don’t know my situation because you’ve never been to my home?
I have a small kitchen and a small sink. I somehow still understand the concept of piling them on some other surface for a moment so I can wash other dishes in the sink. I’m genuinely amazed by how a supposedly functioning adult seems to genuinely think their actual ability to wash the dishes hinges on whether their kid puts them away or not. Imagine if the kid didn’t do that, would you really, actually, just not be able to in any way wash the dishes? I just can’t believe that.
You’re telling your kid to put the dishes away because it makes things easier and convenient. It’s not an actual requirement for your ability to wash dishes, but I wouldn’t bother explaining that to a kid either. I’d just say put the dishes away so we can wash them. It’s not the whole truth but it’s a kid so I wouldn’t care either. This is unless you genuinely think your ability to wash the dishes hinges on your kid putting them away. In which case, wow.
Where, specifically, would this other surface be since you know my kitchen so well?
I can’t believe an adult just can’t wrap their head around this, bless your heart.
Maybe this will help: You tell your kid to put the dishes away, claiming so you can wash the dishes. But it’s not true in that you could wash the dishes without them having been put away. It just wouldn’t be as convenient. You could pile the dishes somewhere else, hell outside on the ground (lol) to make room in the sink and whatever while you clean other dishes. But it’d be inconvenient and stupid. You could wash the dishes on the kitchen table, but that’d also be inconvenient and stupid. You could do a lot of things but they wouldn’t be as convenient (and could be really stupid). So it’s not really that the dishes need to be put away so you can wash your dishes, it’s just it is much more convenient to do so. So what you are saying to the kid isn’t true in that sense.
Does that finally explain it?
So what you’re saying is, I should tell my daughter, “if you don’t put the dishes away, I will be forced to take them all outside and bring them in one by one and wash them.” Because that’s a sane thing to tell a child, rather than explain to them the concept of keeping things clean to keep the roaches away.
Got it.
Is that what you tell your kids?
I didn’t say at all what you should say, I was just noting that what you’re saying isn’t exactly the truth. It wasn’t a value judgement or even advice.
“if you don’t put the dishes away, I will be forced to take them all outside and bring them in one by one and wash them.”
If you want help workshopping this you could say that it’s just more convenient to put them away. That’d be true without being very convoluted, if being 100% honest was the goal. Whether it should be or not, imo not.
Most children, I would wager, are not so stupid that when you say something like I said, they will think, “well he must mean that there is literally no other possible option and therefore he is being 100% honest with me.” I know my daughter isn’t. She understands nuance and she understands that means that in our house, we clean dishes with the dishwasher.
Again, what do you tell your kids? I’m starting to suspect you don’t have any, which is what prompted this conversation.
If they understand that then it seems like you could say that it’s just more convenient and it’d be the same, but also 100% truthful. Assuming that’s the goal.
Again, what do you tell your kids?
That it’s more convenient
Yes, again, my child is smart enough to understand nuance. She doesn’t have to have everything put to her 100% literally. I’m not sure why your children do.
Also, I hope you’re not the one who is responsible for telling your children the difference between things like “honest” and “100% literally true” or they are fucked.
Yes, again, my child is smart enough to understand nuance. She doesn’t have to have everything put to her 100% literally. I’m not sure why your children do.
Sounds like your daughter might have you beat there since I didn’t say she doesn’t, I didn’t say she does, I didn’t say they do.
Also, I hope you’re not the one who is responsible for telling your children the difference between things like “honest” and “100% literally true” or they are fucked.
That’s very sweet of you.
You said I wasn’t being honest with her by not telling her the 100% literal truth. So yeah, you’re saying she doesn’t understand nuance.
Steal WoolU forgot small brain.
Oooh snap
Moving them onto another surface also means an additional surface to clean. Floors don’t need anything more than regular vacuuming or a quick mop most of the time. If you get grease there, that’s so much more work to clean up.
Wow u really are an idiot
New fone who dis
It takes a lot longer to wash if you go that route. If you don’t have enough time for that, then you can’t do it without foregoing your other responsibilities. That qualifies as “can’t”. It’s a lie as much as telling elementary school kids that the sky is blue is a lie. We simplify things because kids don’t have the ability to follow all the complex interactions between everything going on in their lives.
I’m not sure if the term “gaslighting” fits here. This just seems like run of the mill lying and manipulating.
Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. They may end up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity.
Gaslighting would seem like it’d be more that if they knew weekends were a thing befohand then you’d lie that they imagined it all (and that they might even be crazy for having thought that).
Lmao I like to use buzzwords too even when they don’t fit the situation.
Omg! You are such a gaslighting narcissist! Your strawman whataboutism is triggering my OCD, PTSD, and LMNOP!
Did I miss any classics?
its called a white lie. You tell kids them all the time
Sure… If you want to seriously undermine any trust you’ve built up with your kid when they’re older.
Tell kids the truth when they’re older, but you cant reason with a young kid about everything.
That doesn’t mean you have to lie. Just tell them they have to go to school, and that’s that. Don’t make up a story to manipulate them.
…and then they’ll never trust you fully again. Ever.
This is the most shortsighted shit I’ve seen in a long time.
Young kids are extremely receptive to self-fullfilling prophecies, and very flexible. If they hate school, it’s better to find out why and try to see if you can get them to like school. You can kinda trick them by trying to associate school with fun, talk about how much you enjoyed school as a kid, and try to get them to talk about things they did that they liked at school. Or the flip side is maybe you’ll learn that there’s something serious you need to help handle as a parent
SquirrelThat’s not a white lie. It’s just a lie.
U fecking dumbass
sparkleThreatening your toddler with taking away their weekends is a “white lie”? Why not actually working on helping them manage their own feelings/emotions without punishment looming over them?
All this kind of stuff does is teach them that they shouldn’t do “bad” stuff when they’re likely to lose something from doing so… which usually becomes “I can do ‘bad’ stuff as long as I’m unlikely to face punishment for it”.
Telling these lies to your kids and other forms of manipulation also usually makes them more distrustful of you and less likely to be open to you when they start to become more socially/emotionally intelligent.
Lying and the punishment-reward system (or threatening punishment) are both counterproductive/destructive when it comes to human parenting, even though it works well on less individualistic animals like rats and dogs. It’s usually lazy or poor parenting, and unfortunately most parents use it as their primary method of dealing with behaviour they don’t want.
Santa isn’t real and neither is the Easter bunny, and yet you survived this ultimate deception.