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How to Raise Your Kids: From a 16 Year Old's Perspective

Parenthood is a rough stage in life. I've seen lots of it, living in a family with lots of children. Here's some stuff to do and not to do while raising your kids.

By Kyra WiersmaPublished 7 years ago 3 min read
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Basically, the reason I'm writing this today is because I'm camping with my family and there's plenty of kids here, most little tiny brats. My mom and I were having a conversation about raising kids, and here's what I took from it (and from every other parent I've seen raising tiny brats.)

1. Don't baby your child.

If the kid falls and barely hurts themselves, and they scream bloody murder, you know they're just begging for attention, don't give it to them. Now, if they're bleeding or their bone is broken, obviously freak out a little bit, but if they hit their arm on the rope of a swing and you can't even see a red mark, tell them to walk it off.

Don't hold them while they cry those fake tears and have them look at someone else and wink because they're getting attention. If you baby them all of their childhood, they're going to have to rely on other people to get them through their next phase of life.

2. Don't blow them off, either.

Say you have a tween/teen and they want to talk to you about something serious, don't look down at your phone and say, "Mhm, cool." Look them in the face and listen to them, they're actual people with actual feelings and actually want to express them, they're not just small little dummies that you can take advantage of.

If you don't ever listen to them, they're going to get in the habit of hiding all of their emotions and one day they're going to lose it all and fall into a mental pit of sadness. It's happened to me before.

3. Don't get so mad at the kid.

People screw up, over and over and over again. The kid gets in trouble at school? Don't ground them for all eternity. Listen to their side of the story and talk to them on how to better themselves. The kid is a teen and has a date mate you don't like? Don't tell them they have to break up the person, try to understand the person they're dating.

The kid goes out at night and does some drugs or something kinda dumb? Don't put them on house arrest, let them talk to you about it and talk to them about it, tell them that they have all of their teen years to figure out what and what not to do. If you continue to get mad at them for everything they do, they're going to be keeping secrets from you, and I'm guessing you'll get even more mad at them for that.

4. Learn how to say "No."

Kids can give you puppy dog eyes and go, "Daddy, pleeeeeeeaseeee" but don't give in! Kids can't always get their way and they need to know that. If you buy them every single toy or let them win every argument with every kid, they're going to think that they can have everything they ever want, which is going to crush them when they get into the real world.

5. Let them have fun!

Kids need to have a social lie in order to maintain a healthy mental state. If you trap them in the house all day because "they didn't do the dishes" or "fold your laundry," grow up, it's your house too.

They do what they can outside of their homework and hobbies, you can do your own laundry and dishes. Also, if you don't let them hang out with their friends enough, once they get into the real world they won't be able to meet new people and understand how the world of "being social " works.

Hopefully, this article helped y'all wanting to become a good parent or a better one. This is also my first article so let me know what you think! Give me tips!

-Kyra Wiersma ([email protected])

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About the Creator

Kyra Wiersma

I'm 16 from Holland Michigan! I've always loved reading articles and here I am!

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