As Amy Bohnert, a psychologist who researches child development at Loyola University, said, there are a lot of different ways to raise kids, and there's no magic formula that works for every one of them. There are, however, general guidelines that can help moms and dads to cover the basics. And people can find them on Big Life Journal's social media.
This organization is more than parenting tips. Its founder Alexandra Eidens told Bored Panda that, "Big Life Journal is a growth-mindset company for children and teens. Through our journals, Big Life Kids podcast, and parenting education, we've empowered millions of families and classrooms around the world to help their children develop the mindset they need to achieve anything they want in life."
Eidens and her team achieve that by equipping parents with "science-backed tools for helping their children build bulletproof confidence, emotional intelligence, and the bright-eyed determination to follow their dreams."
Bringing up a child is a funny thing— we all think we're good at it but often experience great uncertainty along the way. Continue scrolling and check out the things Big Life Journal talks about with their online followers, who knows, maybe they're just what you need to make your journey less bumpy.
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My dad has never understood this. I don't talk to him about my problems
The team at Big Life Journal made the decision to start sharing parenting tips on social media not because they were chasing empty clicks and likes. "Over time we realized how much parents want to learn and get better in parenting," Eidens said.
"We also realized that no tools for children can help if children do not receive the right messages at home. The words we use with children have a great impact on their developing minds. There are subtle differences in language that make a dramatic effect on whether our children believe in their unlimited potential or get consumed by self-doubt and fears."
"Our aim is to support parents in a mindful way while understanding that we all do our best with the resources we have at the moment. In our social media content, we provide strategies and specific tactics to build consistent progress toward raising a confident, self-loving child. We help parents understand the science behind these tools and explain ways to integrate these parenting strategies into their daily lives."
The people who follow Big Life Journal have told them time and time again that during stressful parenting situations they are able to step back, look in their "toolbox", and see what they have available to implement.
"Our parenting tips revolve around mindset, self-esteem, confidence, resilience, emotional intelligence, and self-love," Eidens explained.
In some situations, these may apply, but you also don't want your child to grow up afraid of physical contact, unable to engage or share with others, a fussy eater or selfish and entitled. There will be situations in life where others trust them with their feelings, and teaching them they have no responsibility for the feelings of others is simply bad parenting.
All of the hard work that goes into curating their social media accounts didn't go to waste. On the contrary. "We've been blown away by the wave of responses from hundreds of thousands of parents and educators," Alexandra Eidens added.
It's what reassured Big Life Journal that they're on the right track."We understand that this is a great indicator that parents want and need solid research-based strategies in bite form. We've built a dedicated team of researchers and editors who are working day and night to craft these parenting tips and provide the best support we can."
i can't completely get with the "everything after but" part. it's saying that you don't care why they did it, you don't want any context. it's important to understand why something happened.
I think it's more like I did this because... This is the reaction I had and I own it, this is the reasons why I chose to act this way but nobody made me act this way it was a choice. Knowing the reason can help you support a child to consider alternatives such as asking the other person to please move so they can get past or approach someone for help. It's important to ensure children learn that the actions of others do not excuse their actions, it can however align differently with values. I chose to stand up to bully because I believe it was the right thing to do and I chose to use physical force in self defence. This way they can't be like oh they hit me so I beat him till they were bruised and bloody 🙄
Load More Replies...Dang, I know I still make excuses- wonder how different my life would have been as a kid had I learned this...
There's actually a lot of wisdom for grown adults in this post!
Load More Replies...Not agreeing with this. A child needs to know it's ok to make mistakes, cause that's how we learn. A person is not always responsible or can be held accountable for thing, sometimes stuff happens without a reason and one needs to explain why it happened. This smells like toxic positivity which is unrealistic and potentially harmful
Be careful with things like differing abilities. A child with ADHD can't magically take control of their own lives. A kid with dyslexia can't just force themselves to look at a page more.
"I can take control of my life" ... well, technically yes, but you also need the opertunities to be able to do so. People who are poor aren't lazy or haven't got their s**t together. They might be stuck in that situation and not be able to get out of it.
Part 1: In the U.S. personal accountability is already completely forgotten, across the spectrum. Neither left nor right will own theirs. Each simply takes the easy path and blames the other side for whatever failure or heartache may be at hand. The Left wants to pay for everything for everybody but fails because it is a truly untenable task...who do they blame? That's right, the Right. The Right want's no Federal imposition into state affairs but it happens anyway...who do they blame? That's right, the Left. Honestly look at and acknowledge how many times each side has cut themselves off at the knees or completely gone against what it is that they say they truly believe. The Left always compares the U.S. to "Europe" without acknowledging that Europe is made up of a number of Countries that are, approximately, 8 times smaller in population than the U.S.. The Right proclaims personal responsibility and rights except in certain cases (women's free choice is always at the top).
Part 2: Neither side, in the U.S. wants a truly free society. Each only wants society based on nothing more than what they think society should be. I don't care who you are or which side you claim, the simple truth is that the human creature is completely unknowable from one generation to the next and what you hold to be dear and truth won't necessarily translate to those after you. Modern Humans have existed for somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 years yet here we are today, repeating the same infantile politics and mistakes of Humans that existed 2,000 plus years ago. People joke that dogs have a short, SQUIRREL!, attention span. How short is the Human attention span that we, the most intelligent of species, can't even bring ourselves to truly learn from our past?
Load More Replies...Oddly, I learned how to own my actions as a bank employee. We had to initial everything that passed by us, so it was easier to track errors. Yep, those are my initials = yep, that's my error.
One reason that could explain why everyone at Big Life Journal remains so passionate about their followers is its humble beginnings. The organization is actually a family-owned business.
"It all started when my husband and I started creating tools to help our own children develop the mindset they need to live their fullest lives. We still can't believe how fast and big our company grew since we started in 2017," Eidens said. "It is an indicator that so many parents (and educators) are realizing how important it is to focus on our children's thoughts and beliefs about themselves and the world. Mindset is truly everything."
Hell, this is what I say to my angry husband (before you get concerned about my safety, he gets angry about crap that happens at work, and just vents about it to me—-I’m kind of like his sounding board).
So, I should have lied to my parents? Fact is, I would have learned more had I been raised by wolves.
Positive reinforcement for positive behavior tends to make anyone want to keep it up. We’re like Pavlov’s dogs when it come to genuine appreciation and praise, no matter how modest we may be. I know I’m like the majority when I say I thrive and want to stay in upbeat situations, and only want to get finished and get out of, and stay as far away from as possible, any negative ones I can’t avoid.
Being too hard on children just makes them resent you and want to leave as soon as they can—-and cut you and your toxicity out of their lives permanently.
In other words, don’t be a child yourself. Be a grownup and control your emotions and impulses.
Instead of calling it “whining time”, how about calling it “time to register complaints” instead?
My parents had us do a love language quiz a few years back. I think mine was either gifts or quality time. And physical affection was a zero, mainly because the scenarios were so weird to me. "You finished your homework today! High five!"
Just tell them you’re here for them when they’re ready to talk about it. Then leave them alone and let THEM seek you out. If they don’t within a reasonable time (operative word is reasonable), then just check in, but don’t press them.
And watch your tone of voice! Make sure it matches the words you’re saying! You can even say “Great job!” and “It looks nice”, if you’re genuinely proud their efforts and the end result. Just be sure to expand on that praise with a specifics you’re also proud of, such as their creativity and/or the time and effort they put into it. Just don’t go overboard, or it starts to sound hollow.
If your child asks why, please DO try to explain. If they arent asking why and are upset, let them have their feelings as explained in other pics.
This depends on the amount and situation. Some of this can also get out of hand.
I work with a student with autism, and she hates it when people tells her to 'try harder,' or say 'you didn't even try'. "When they say you aren't trying, what they mean is you aren't succeeding. Sometimes I'm trying as hard as I can, but that just isn't good enough for them."
Kids manipulate people all the time. They're trying it out to see if it works and whether it's rewarding or not. It's totally understandable. Instead of labeling it "challenging behavior" because we're uncomfortable with the idea of small children being manipulative, maybe just help kids see that manipulating other people won't yield the results they're hoping for. But kids are smart. I have young children and they know what they're doing. It's not insidious, they're not Machiavelli or anything. They're just trying it out.
Just don’t overdo it. In fact, don’t overdo anything in this article. Adjust it to your own family’s “style”. Whatever everyone’s comfortable with when they’re at home and can finally relax.
Note: this post originally had 63 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
i agree with most of these but where's the discipline. you cant honestly let them think they don't have to share don't have to have manors and can be as rude and disrespectful as possible.
You have to share: what's your address? Im coming to share all your stuff :)
Load More Replies...One of my favourite pandas and topics so far. Little people are so fascinating! Would also recommend literature from Jesper Juul on that topic. One big thing for me was also learning to apologize to my children when I screw up, yeah we all slip and shout at them or something else, admitting that every style of parenting has flaws and that it will never reach a perfect state, but that this is okay as long as the children feel loved and supported. Another thing is feeling induced parenting. Of course they are important, but feelings can be treacherous, they can lie to us as we all know. A child should know that relying purely on their feelings is not always the best choice. Living a life based on doing what you feel like today is problematic because there are things that sometimes just need to be done despite how we feel about it, like having an honest conversation about something, doing the dishes etc.
I only made it to somewhere between 10 & 15 but one thing that was common in this sample is that not a single one of them gave any indication, in their respective language, that each child should be engaged in a manner that best fits their INDIVIDUAL personalities. In all that I read I saw nothing but happy, happy; joy, joy mentality. Life is not all happy and joy. Life is hard and filled with compromises and more often than not these compromises aren't what an individual wants.
Look, the general premises here are sound, but they just don't allow for the reality of child rearing, which is that even the most devoted parents cannot function like robots and do and say all the right things all the time. People need to know that parenting is full of pitfalls and mistakes and regrets and nobody on this planet has ever been able to achieve the levels of total perfection, self-control and wisdom as outlined above. Parenting is hard enough, without making people beat themselves up for only being human.
I’ve had success adapting small pieces of this advice into my parenting, but taken at face value, I agree that many of these are laughably undoable for parents who, like their children, *also* deal with emotions and stress.
Load More Replies...These are very clever and interesting ideas, and they don’t just have to be for parents. Teachers, older siblings and babysitters can use these to. I’m going to write some of these down, and try to remember them if I am babysitting
Well some of us need to have another child period to fix some issues
my friends child thrives off discipline, and it seems to some how calm her down and make her happy, when she's with his mam she's purposely naughty, i understand some people don't believe kids can be purposely naughty but ye they really can be. if she knows you've hurt your foot she will happily trample on it as hard as she can because she wants to see you cry. and the parent does what they can but. she knows never to try anything like that with me, not because i'm an a**e hole but because i will happily tell her in a way a child needs to be told. you can scream at your child, hit them, but all that means is you've lost it. how can you think you can control a child if you cant even control your self.
i agree with most of these but where's the discipline. you cant honestly let them think they don't have to share don't have to have manors and can be as rude and disrespectful as possible.
You have to share: what's your address? Im coming to share all your stuff :)
Load More Replies...One of my favourite pandas and topics so far. Little people are so fascinating! Would also recommend literature from Jesper Juul on that topic. One big thing for me was also learning to apologize to my children when I screw up, yeah we all slip and shout at them or something else, admitting that every style of parenting has flaws and that it will never reach a perfect state, but that this is okay as long as the children feel loved and supported. Another thing is feeling induced parenting. Of course they are important, but feelings can be treacherous, they can lie to us as we all know. A child should know that relying purely on their feelings is not always the best choice. Living a life based on doing what you feel like today is problematic because there are things that sometimes just need to be done despite how we feel about it, like having an honest conversation about something, doing the dishes etc.
I only made it to somewhere between 10 & 15 but one thing that was common in this sample is that not a single one of them gave any indication, in their respective language, that each child should be engaged in a manner that best fits their INDIVIDUAL personalities. In all that I read I saw nothing but happy, happy; joy, joy mentality. Life is not all happy and joy. Life is hard and filled with compromises and more often than not these compromises aren't what an individual wants.
Look, the general premises here are sound, but they just don't allow for the reality of child rearing, which is that even the most devoted parents cannot function like robots and do and say all the right things all the time. People need to know that parenting is full of pitfalls and mistakes and regrets and nobody on this planet has ever been able to achieve the levels of total perfection, self-control and wisdom as outlined above. Parenting is hard enough, without making people beat themselves up for only being human.
I’ve had success adapting small pieces of this advice into my parenting, but taken at face value, I agree that many of these are laughably undoable for parents who, like their children, *also* deal with emotions and stress.
Load More Replies...These are very clever and interesting ideas, and they don’t just have to be for parents. Teachers, older siblings and babysitters can use these to. I’m going to write some of these down, and try to remember them if I am babysitting
Well some of us need to have another child period to fix some issues
my friends child thrives off discipline, and it seems to some how calm her down and make her happy, when she's with his mam she's purposely naughty, i understand some people don't believe kids can be purposely naughty but ye they really can be. if she knows you've hurt your foot she will happily trample on it as hard as she can because she wants to see you cry. and the parent does what they can but. she knows never to try anything like that with me, not because i'm an a**e hole but because i will happily tell her in a way a child needs to be told. you can scream at your child, hit them, but all that means is you've lost it. how can you think you can control a child if you cant even control your self.