Welcome to speed Round Sunday on the Parenting Roundabout podcast, where we share a
mini episode from our past for your weekend listening pleasure. We'll be back tomorrow
with a brand new episode. We wanted to talk to today on our speed
Round about bad parenting advice. So, you know, maybe it's because you
got it. Maybe you got advice from someone who was a generation or two
removed from their child wearing days and it wasn't very good. Or have you
ever have you ever given bad parenting advice? Isn't that what we do here
every week? Professional? Yeah, we're not going to admit to that.
But anyway, maybe you can share something that you've heard recently or some bad
advice you did receive, either back in the day or recently. I don't
know, Terry, have you gotten at any point that you want to share.
When I first adopted my kids, we got absolutely no advice or support
from our adoption agency at all. We adopted two kids from Eastern Europe.
Nobody knew anything at that point. All the research on adopting kids from Eastern
Europe was done with my generation of kids. So now I find things online
that have super super good advice that nobody knew to give. Then it's like
I came upon an article the other day, and you know, I've shared
it with my daughter, and it's like, if I had known this stuff,
everything would have been different. So pretty much, ever, all of
the advice I was given was bad. You know, I still look back
and resent all the advice that was basically, your kids have disabilities. They're
never going to amount to anything. The sooner you accept that, the better.
If you don't accept that you were unrealistic. Mom is in denial,
you know. And it's like, well, to some extent, yeah,
that's true. But on the other who ever tell any other parent, hey,
expect the worst for your kid. Start right now, then you won't
be disappointed. And yet lots of kids don't turn out too great for no
good reason, but you don't start with that. And lots of kids who
are who are you're told that they're not going to turn out great, don't
turn out but even if they but even if they don't, at least you
start with hope. Yeah, you don't. Nobody else gets told you know
what, kids not going to mount to anything. Don't don't get your hopes
of everybody's told, hey, you know, hope for the best, and
let's see what happens kids with At least my generation of parents of kids with
special needs were told, you know, the sooner you completely accept that your
life is ruined, thanks your things. So now you know all the all
the general you know, talk of the disability community has parenting of children's disability
community has changed a lot and has become a lot more upbeat. I feel.
Whether it's more realistic or not, I don't know, but it's a
lot more pleasant to Yeah, I don't know, but I'm sure. I'm
sure there are still therapists in schools today and teachers in schools today going that
mom, yeah, just want accept how limited her child is. Yea.
So maybe that was good advice and I should have taken it. I don't
know. There were days and then there were days, but I hated that
advice and I still do. Well. I hated first of all, just
being asked if my child was sleeping through the night, because like, if
they are, then we have nothing to talk about. If they're not,
I also don't want to talk about. And then as soon as someone will
find out, yeah, no, they're not sleeping through the night, Well,
are you breastfeeding. Yes, oh, well you should give them formula
or you should give them cereal and then they'll sleep. If you were giving
them formula, they would have told you to do breastfeeding. Yeah, like,
are you kidding me? No, Like, this is not why my
kid is not sleeping, And even if it was, then I'm going to
suck it up for a while. And you know, I don't know it
just it was just. I also hated hearing like it'll get better soon because
it's not helpful. That is so not helpful, Like, yeah, maybe
it will, but I can't see past, you know, a day.
I don't. I'm not looking as to what's going to happen in a month
from now or three months or a year. Like that is way too hard.
Yeah. Yeah. In general, things when your kids are little things
that have long term or looking long term or annoying, it's like, can
I just get there to day? Please? Yeah? Yeah, well I
can quite definitively say that the worst advice I ever received was from my mother
who suggested I move my sleeping baby. Oh no, oh, yeah,
he couldn't possibly have his naps in his car seat. He had to be
taken out of the car seat and put into his crib. And I was
so sleep deprived and so tired and just a mess that I, you know,
blindly took third and that just set the wheels in motion for the next
two years. Have you are you just her silently? I just talked about
it on this podcast Nobody tell Nichols Mom, worst advice ever. Yeah,
that's like one never. I was like vulnerable and tired and okay, mom,
it was like, I don't know, one in the morning or something
crazy because he hadn't been sleeping, and I took him for a drive in
the car seat and he fell asleep, and I brought him in the house
and and I think I was crying by that point too, And I remember
calling her up and oh, you know, finally he's asleep, and I'm
so tired and I can't beat this. And then well, you've got to
take him out of that car seat. You can't leave him in there.
Now that he's finally asleep, you have to take him out, put him
in his bed. Yeah. The rest is history. So as you can
tell, there's a certain scheme with my responses in this podcast. You know
what I should have said earlier. The worst piece of advice I got was
when my son, my son toilet trained fairly late, and when he was
I don't know, maybe for his occupational therapist told me that I was infantilizing
him by not forcing him to do it, and that I should use suppositories.
And she was disgusted with me that I would not do this, that
I would not force him, and I said, you know, he's really
not ready. He doesn't feel when he has to go. There's no way
this is going to work. And I held my ground despite all the eye
rolls and the you know, charges of infantilizing him. And when he was
ready, he trained in a day. You know, it was like that
he was dry all night. Everything was great. Just it's like, if
you wait, this is my good advice for people, wait till they're ready,
you will save yourself a lot of trouble. But I have wanted so
many times. I still know that occupational therapist, and I talk to her
every now and then. I keep wanting to say I was writing you wrong.
For the record, well, we certainly have a lot to say about
these topics. You can tell we've brushed it all enough and we're not resenting
it at all. We're very well found. We buried it, buried it