Sorry, I know it's a hard line for parents to tread and it's really easy to criticize parenting decisions other people are making, but the "everyone else is doing it so I have to" always seems as lazy to me today, as it probably did to my parents when I said it to them as a teenager.

Is it more important to prevent your son from being weaponized and turned into a little ball of hate and anger, and your daughter from spending her teen years depressed and encouraged to develop eating disorders, or to make sure they can binge the same influencers as their "friends"?

▲

whaleidk 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

We used to teach kids to be themselves and stand up for what they believe in and their own authenticity and uniqueness even in the face of bullying. That having less or other doesn’t mean your value is lesser or that you should be left out. Now we teach them… conform at all costs so you never have to risk being bullied or lonely?

▲

cgriswald 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The number of times I objected to my parents rules because my friends didn’t have those rules and the response was: “I’m not their parent.”

▲

friendzis 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is it more important to prevent your child from <...>, or to not be seen as an adversarial monster?

	▲	lurking_swe 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		presumably being a parent is different from being a your child’s friend. There is overlap, but yes, sometimes being a good parent requires “laying down the law”. With that being said, i think explaining _in detail_ why you’re laying down certain rules can go a LONG way toward building some trust and productive dialogue with your child. Maybe you’ll find out they are more mature than you give them credit, can loosen up a bit. Or maybe a reasonable compromise can be found. Or maybe they’ll be bitter for a few months, but they’ll at least understand “why”.