15+ Tips That Can Inspire You on Your Parenting Journey

When a child is born, all parents tend to obsess about how to raise their kid so that they don’t grow into a selfish person. The characters from this compilation shared their parenting tips which will, thankfully, help you to avoid these risks.

• When I was a kid, I refused to get up in the morning. My mom said we were going to trick my dad into thinking I was still asleep. So she made me put on clothes and then hide under the covers and pretend to be asleep. Then my dad would come in to wake me up and I would “fool” him because I was already dressed and ready. This worked on me for years, and I never questioned it. In hindsight, it’s pretty obvious that my parents just wanted me to get dressed without a fuss. © mfiggfi / Reddit
• I have 2 sons — 12 and 14 years old. When they started to ask me to buy them stuff 6 years ago, I offered them the following option — get paid for cleaning the house. But there was one condition — do it properly or don’t get paid. The result was amazing — my boys can do anything in the house, they bought a PlayStation for themselves and each of them has a laptop. Now they clean the house because they want it to be clean, and they don’t ask for money. © Marina Karpus

• I used to work with a guy who had 2 kids and he would make them work to earn money for things they wanted. For example, if his 12-year-old son wanted an Xbox for his birthday the guy would make a deal with him. He would give the kid half the money for the Xbox then they would devise a bunch of “jobs” the kid could do, working at minimum wage, to earn the rest. So the kid would paint the storage shed and clean out the attic, stuff like that. The kid learned a sense of accomplishment and cared more for his stuff because he had to work for it and the dad got to teach his kid about earning his way in the world. © kane55 / reddit

“A Christmas gift for Dad: 30 years ago he gave me his knife, now I’m giving him one too.”

• My daughter was telling me about an event at her school. A girl in her class drew an apple, and when she was done, said out loud: “This drawing is garbage, utterly terrible!” My daughter was confused: “But, mom, her apple looked so cool! It wasn’t terrible at all!” This story was another opportunity for me as a mom to remind my daughter of something we’ve spoken about since she was a toddler. It is something really simple but deeply beautiful and true, something we forget to remind ourselves of and almost never teach our children. Whenever my children do something good, or make a little progress or have a victory, I remind them to congratulate themselves. I jokingly say: “Don’t forget to give yourself a high-five!” When my children fail at something, make a mistake, or are disappointed about something they didn’t do well, I encourage them to be kind and loving to themselves, and to continue on their way, accepting occasional defeat as a normal part of life. © Iva Izabela Miholic / Quora
• Every time I have problems in my life, my dad tells me, “There’s no need to worry. Because the problems will go away, but the damage to your nervous system will already be done.” Now, I take things very easily, and my friends are jealous of this. I’m really thankful to my father. © “Palata № 6” / VK

“Yesterday, my daughter suggested that we collect trash in the nearest forest. Today, we collected 2 full bags of trash in less than an hour. Next time, we’ll get bigger bags.”

• I went to my sister’s place and had to look after my 6-year-old nephew. He’s pretty spoiled and he kept asking me to bring him something or do something. I was tired after 20 minutes. And then I decided to teach him a little. We cleaned the place, collected the toys, and I set a schedule — we did the same thing every day. The kid was transformed. Several years later, I found out that every time he misbehaved, they reminded him of me, and then he would behave again. Now, he’s a grown-up man, has 2 kids, and he’s doing great. © AleksBoev / Pikabu
• My friend’s 11-year-old son comes running up to us, visibly upset with simmering anger, verging on tears. He blurts out, “Mom, (**insert name of sibling**) is being really mean to me, and will not share. She won’t let me get on the computer!!” My friend calmly turns to her son, looks him in the eye, and evenly states, “Well, you know the 3 choices: 1. Do you want to choose to solve this on your own? 2. Do you want to choose to have me come over and intervene? or 3. Do you want to choose to walk away?” And with that, her son walks off not totally happy, but resolved with his decision on how to handle this stressful situation. With those 3 clear and parent-directed choices, my friend has told her son he has some power over this situation, she has empowered him to figure out what he wants to do, and she has given him tools to fix or avoid further antagonizing the situation with his sister. © Carla Attenborough / Quora
• This isn’t amazing, but it was cute. I was at work (waitress) a couple weeks ago and one of my tables had a cute little 3-year-old girl. She had a little pack of stickers, and I said, “Oh, cool stickers!” She smiled and took one off to hand to me. I told her that it was okay, she could keep it, but she just held it out to me. Her mom leaned over and said, “She’s learning about sharing, so if you take it, that would help us.” So I took it and said thank you and both little girl and mom seemed very pleased. Active teaching. © LaMalintzin / Reddit

• I saw a young family: a mother, a father, a 9-year-old boy, and a younger girl. The boy runs and quickly throws a bag into a trash can. The bag flies over the can, lands on the ground, and all the trash gets spread around. The mother got into the car calmly, and the children follow her. About 20 seconds later, the car door opens, the boy gets out, goes up to the bag, and throws it into the can. He looks back at his mother. She says something to him, and he starts to collect all the trash. He throws it all away and goes back to the car. The end. © Zhuchelovo / Pikabu
• I was outside, and I heard a mother talking to her daughter:
  — Let’s buy a book.
  — But I want chocolate!
  — What’s the point of chocolate? You eat it and it’s gone, but a book can last for much longer.
  The kid agreed. © garrysmodbest / Pikabu

“The wooden axe I made for my son.”

• Some teenagers outside were being very loud and they were using bad words. I was annoyed, so I wanted to yell at them through the window. But then I stopped. I was raised by professional teachers. I got dressed, went outside, and told them, “Guys, would you please not use those bad words? We’d like to use them too, but we’re polite, so we don’t.” They apologized and stopped. © Kaurova / Pikabu
  
• I don’t even remember why, but I had an argument with my mom and I was very upset with tears on my eyes. I told her I was leaving home. I was crying and packing my stuff into my dad’s leather bag. When I was at the door, I suddenly realized that I had nowhere to go and it was almost dinner time. At that moment, my mom was passing by and I asked her, “Mom, do you think I have to leave you now or can I still stay for a little while?” She said I could stay home. So, I was happy and went to unpack my bag. © Leeo43 / Pikabu
  
• My brother left his daughter at our place and she is a little bit spoiled, constantly asking someone to bring her water or go get her a toy. When she asked me for something again, I said, “Do you have arms and legs? Use them to get what you need.” She took a moment to think, and then went to get some water for herself. She never asked me for anything at all. She did everything by herself. My brother later asked me if he could bring her to me more often — I had a positive influence on her. © unknown author / Pikabu

“I made this ‘cape’ for my mom so she could stay warm after her shoulder surgery.”

• My kids set up their alarm clocks for 6:30-7:00 AM. On the weekend, they would always forget to switch them off. They would sleep heavily anyway, but the sound would wake up both my wife and me. I asked them not to forget to turn off their alarm clocks once, twice — no result. Then I got totally fed up with it, and I decided for myself — if your alarm clock is ringing, it means you have some stuff to do, so wake up, get up, and do it. That’s why we would do the standard weekend program — cleaning the rooms, homework. First, they would try to go back to sleep, but I was persistent: if your alarm was on — you had to get up. If you want to sleep on your day off, make sure to turn off your alarm clock. Now it’s quiet and silent on weekend mornings in our home. © mixas.n / Pikabu
• My son was in the 4th grade. I would work shifts and he wouldn’t let me sleep after my night shifts. He would always ask for something — money, keys, a ball. I tried to explain it to him and asked him not to wake me up — he promised not to do it again but always forgot. Then I decided to use the last-resort method — I took him with me to the night shift. I placed him in the operation room, assigned a lot of tasks to him, took him up and down the stairs, and even asked him to paint something. We had food and tea breaks, but I didn’t let him sleep. Finally, the shift was over, and he nodded off on the bus. When we got home, he refused to eat and went straight to bed. Eventually, he slept all day and even all night. It was a lesson. He’s never woken me up for small things since then. He even started to walk quietly when I was asleep — before, he used to stomp loudly. © etoyanatan / Pikabu