Parenting advice circulates like currency now. Someone posts a strategy on Instagram; it gets shared ten thousand times, and suddenly everyone's implementing the same technique with their toddler. The problem is that most of this wisdom sounds perfectly reasonable until you actually try implementing it. When put to the test, the cracks quickly begin to show, and you’re left wondering why the approach that worked for everyone else is making your household more chaotic, not less.
Always Validate Their Feelings
Parents have been trained to narrate children's emotions like sports commentators, believing that naming feelings helps kids process them. Sometimes it does. Other times, it just prolongs the tantrum.
Kids don't always want their feelings validated. Sometimes they want boundaries, distraction, or just for the moment to pass without an adult turning it into an emotional learning opportunity. The constant validation can actually amplify emotions rather than soothe them, teaching children that every feeling deserves an audience and extended discussion.
Never Say "Because I Said So"
Modern parents bend over backward explaining the reasoning behind every rule. The explanations for why they shouldn’t hit their siblings or why they need coats in winter stretch on, detailed and patient, treating children like tiny philosophers who'll respond to pure logic.
The issue is young children aren't operating primarily from their reasoning centers. They're impulsive, emotional, still building executive function. The lengthy explanations often just provide more material to argue against. They learn that every parental decision is up for debate, that rules are suggestions pending sufficient counter-argument.
Sometimes "because I said so" is the honest answer. You're the parent, and you're allowed to make decisions based on judgment and experience. Kids can handle that.
Offer Limited Choices for Everything
The parenting books all recommend giving them control within boundaries. Giving them small choices like whether to put on their shoes first or their jacket reduces power struggles, according to the experts.
This sounds reasonable until your four-year-old is spending ten minutes deciding between identical snack options while everyone waits in line at the grocery store. Or they're melting down because neither choice is the secret third option they wanted. Some research suggests that too many choices increase anxiety rather than reducing it, even for adults. For kids with still-developing decision-making abilities, the constant stream of options can be overwhelming rather than empowering.
Framing non-negotiables as choices just sets everyone up for conflict when the child inevitably picks the option that isn't really available.
Praise Effort Over Results
Carol Dweck's growth mindset research got simplified into a parenting mantra: praise the process, not the outcome. The goal was building resilience and intrinsic motivation rather than making kids dependent on external approval. Instead of praising their child’s art for being beautiful, parents shifted to praising the effort they put into it.
As a result, children started getting praised for everything, including the basic tasks expected of their age. Praising effort became as meaningless and inflated as the results it replaced.
Sometimes results actually matter. Trying hard doesn't always lead to success, and that's a lesson worth knowing. The kid who studied for the spelling test and still failed needs more than "great effort!" They might need a different study strategy or acknowledgment that some things are genuinely difficult.
Let Them Figure It Out Themselves
The hands-off approach to conflict resolution sounds great in theory, but taken too far, this becomes neglect dressed up as independence training. Young children don't have fully developed conflict resolution skills. Leaving them to figure it out often means the louder, more aggressive child wins while the quieter one learns that adults won't intervene when things get unfair.
The same applies to a hands-off approach with homework. There's a difference between doing it for them and offering guidance when they're genuinely stuck. Watching a child spiral into frustration because you're committed to not helping isn't building character. Sometimes people just need assistance, and learning to ask for it is also a valuable skill.
