Reply to post: Re: "The kiddiwonks won't even know they're learning"

Re: "The kiddiwonks won't even know they're learning"

No different to telling kids veggies are horrible but they can have something nice if they eat them.

If you don't let that kind of nonsense get to their ears, then they just eat whatever they like.

My daughter has been addicted to peas since a young age. She hates fizzy drinks. She doesn't eat much chocolate. She'd rather have a slice of bread or a sandwich.

After initial world exposure and instinct, kids learn their disgust reactions from their parents (along with their racism, sexism, ableism, etc.). Don't expose them to that, and they just grow up "normal" (which nowadays means not like everyone else). This also works the same for many things - bursting into tears because they had a slight graze or a spot of mud on their hand. If you fuss over them, they'll cry every time and grow up as one of those people cleaning their hands every two seconds with harsh chemicals.

And - an oddball one, but experimentation with my own has borne this out - if you tell kids that they'll feel sick if they read in the car... they will feel sick if they read in the car. If you don't tell them that, they won't. That one is open to more variables (e.g. travel sickness anyway, etc.) but I believe it to be the same.

My kid is 11 now. She goes to a foreign private school. She makes friends everywhere because I've tried not to pass my social awkwardness to her. She eats whatever she likes, and chooses of her own accord to eat sensible foods in moderation and enjoys doing so (she still likes a McD's but who doesn't?). If you try to bribe her into a van with a chocolate bar, you're going to have a hell of time... not least because despite her wimpy appearance (and my "complete victim" childhood) she's a junior black belt but also she couldn't care less about chocolate.

The ONE neurosis she has, which is completely artificial and not based on anything - a fear of dogs. And I can tell you EXACTLY where that comes from. My own mother, who will pull you right out of the way if a dog goes past because SHE has a neurotic fear of dogs too. It's a complete phobia based on zero data - I know, because neither me nor my daughter have ever been bit but we both have a fear of dogs because my mother did the same to both of us whenever we were out walking and a dog came past. I got over that, though, by just fighting the instinct to see dogs as fearful. They still make me react that way, but my brain overrules it deliberately and consciously a microsecond later.

If you teach kids that learning is boring, school is hard (particularly bloody Maths, I have to say, as a mathematician), brussels sprouts are yucky, chocolate is a reward, girls are girly, boys are "just being boys" when they assault girls, that gay people are "weird" or "wrong", mother cuddles you every single time you get the smallest hint of an ouchie, etc. then guess how they grow up to treat those things. And guess what they teach their children.

My daughter literally asked for more lessons as she was bored in lockdown. She not only reads far beyond her age but she writes books and encourages her (author) grandfather on the direction of how his own (adult-reading-age) published books should go and edits them for him. She grew up in an Essex state school and now attends a Spanish private school on her own merit. She's as skinny as a rake, and as fit as a fiddle.

The buck stops at you as a parent. Don't pass your prejudices and neuroses onto your - or other - children.