Parenting

I have a 14 year old Maine Coon that is terminally ill and has a few weeks at best. Our son recently turned 4 years old and loves animals. We taught him to be kind to all animals, even bugs. He is not particularly attached to the cat, but he likes it well enough (the cat is not a cuddler).

In a few weeks we'll have to go to the vet and have the cat put down. We're wondering how we should approach this with our son. Do we take him with us? Do we let him be present when the cat is put to sleep? Or make him stay in the waiting area? Or do we go when he's in school? What's appropriate for a 4 year old?

On the one hand I think that death is a part of life. And I don't mind that he sees us crying over the cat. But I also don't want to traumatize him or make it bigger than it is.

Any tips?

She can move silently about the house at night and sneak up on anyone.

She's extremely agile and can climb things that her older siblings have difficulty with.

She's a complete klepto

She's completely fearless

And today she's turned her attention to lock picking.

There I am taking a dump when I hear a rummaging sound from the lock of the bathroom door. Moments later I look up at her grinning and brandishing the pair of plastic sunglasses she used to gain entry to the bathroom.

Should I encourage this progression to a life of crime? She clearly has a talent for it. Or is there a more legal application of these talents?

Hi everyone

Proud girldad of a beautiful 1 year old here. Life is good and I now love being a father.

We are just having one problem. She attacks her Grandma and leaves nasty scratches on her face. We aren't sure how to proceed.

What we do currently is if she attacks, we firmly say "no, we don't treat grandma like that" and then encourage gentle touch. It's not working.

We are firmly against physical discipline, we tried time out once but she went mental, possibly she's too young for time out.

Can you tell we're first time parents? Haha

Any advice would be appreciated

She was trying to say elevator

My 4 year old son is quite shy -- he is often afraid of kids at the playground and only engages in parallel play occasionally.

Can anyone recommend any picture books or Mr Rogers / Sesame Street episodes on interacting with other kids? I think that he needs examples of the skills required to talk with other kids, as well as examples of shy kids having fun with other kids.

As a side question, I don't understand how lemmy works. How do I see the c/parenting groups on all of the other lemmy servers?

I'm constantly amazed that scouts isn't more popular with families. I'm a huge supporter of the whole worldwide program (particularly Scouting America and the Girl Scouts in the US).

Yes, let's all acknowledge that there were past abuses that the Boy Scouts ignored and covered up. But, primarily due to the lawsuits associated with those abuses, Scouting America has instituted a lot of really strong child protection policies that arguably make it the safest youth program anywhere.

It's a really great, comparatively cheap, program that offers amazing opportunities to kids and families.

If you find yourself having trouble making friends as an adult, I really recommend looking into it.

Brief summary of context. I socially transitioned before he was conceived. His birth mother left me before he was born. I spent 18 months fighting to even meet him. Eventually had things going smoothly with overnight time. Then the birth mother cut contact again. I've only just got to see him in a supervised context.

Near the end of the last session I referred to myself as mummy Eve, as I've done thousands of times in the past without issue. This time he yells that he hates it when I say that. He goes on to say I'm just pretending, I'm not a mummy I'm a he, and he knows I'm a he because I'm wearing a top.

I'm certain he's getting this from his birth mum. I'm devastated, it pushed me closer to giving up than I have been for a while. I don't know if there's anything I can do about it in the two hours a week I have with him. (At least for now)

My wife let me sleep in today since work last week kicked my ass and i've been staying up late and getting up early to keep up with everything.

I woke up to a bunch of yelling and my soaking wet 4 year old jumping into bed crying. Turns out my wife was bathing the boys (4,1) and the little one was done, so she decided to let our toddler stay in by himself for a little bit. She said she told him to pull the shower plug and he said he would. We recently moved and don't have a bathtub at the new house so he likes to fill up the shower until right before it flows over which i hate but my wife lets him do. It get the floors soaked and the trim all around the shower is rotting and growing mold. I've asked them both so many times to stop, and explained to my son that I'm working on getting a tub put in but it'll take time.

Well it turns out he did not pull the shower plug, and 10 minutes later my wife went in there to get him and he was trying to dry the flooded bathroom floor with toilet paper. He immediately knew he fucked up so he ran to me because I'm his safe space no matter what, always. I've never yelled at him in an aggressive tone, I've never hit or spanked him, when he's in trouble i talk him through it in a calm tone, even if i had to put on my stern voice.

I was not a space space today. My wife called me downstairs in a hurry and the water from the bathroom was coming through the dining room ceiling out of the hole cut for the chandelier light. I know the run of wires there is knob and tube and there was either smoke or steam from the water hitting the bulbs.

From there i lost it, i couldn't even look at my son for half the day. Even when i wasn't doing anything and he asked me to play i told him no, when he kept asking i yelled back something about being in no mood and for him to stop asking. I snapped at my wife pretty bad, i told her they have no respect for the house and id been telling them to be more careful for months. I went in on her for leaving our toddler alone in the shower for so long and how she didn't take the plug herself. I said something about them ruining our house, which i do think they need to do less reckless stuff in the house and have been trying to think of a nice way to frame in a conversation, instead it came out in a fit of rage.

I ended up having a heart fit and chest pain and i yelled at them both to leave me alone. As I'm clutching my chest falling to the floor, my toddler just wanted to help me because its happened before and we talked to him about what to do, and he was doing exactly what we told him, but i told him to leave.

I feel like i really fucked up today as a father and a partner. It was a very stressful situation, and i think my frustration was justified, but i cant stand how it came out and how i handled everything today.

I feel like i spent the whole day hating my family whom i love very much.

Figured I'd toss up a quick whine thread.

Daughter skipped her nap and is peak obstinant today. Having to "trick" her into following the schedule.

"I don't want bath! I want read book!"

We'll read some books in bed after your bath sweetie.

"Noooooooo!"

Well I'm gonna get a bath, see you later.

"No! No I want baaaaath!"

Just max threenager today.

Intro:

Sam Pratt was around 13 when he first saw people talking about "looksmaxxing" on YouTube.

The philosophy behind it seemed "pretty logical," said Pratt, now 17 and attending high school in Constance Bay, Ont., a suburb of Ottawa.

"Attractive people are treated better in society," he said. The idea is "just taking care of yourself and improving your looks as much as possible to gain a social advantage."

Looksmaxxing is an online subculture based around the idea that, in order to be successful in romantic partnership and life in general, boys and men should work actively to improve their appearance.

On the more moderate side of things, "softmaxxing" looks like normal self-care efforts — getting a decent haircut, treating acne, eating better and working out.

But on the extreme, some "hardmaxxers" inject peptides and steroids, get plastic surgery or engage in "bone smashing" — hitting themselves in the face with knuckles or even hammers in the hope microfractures will heal over to create more well-defined bones.

Our three-year-old didn’t recognize his longtime teacher — and barely seemed to miss me after three weeks away.

cross-posted from: https://lemmings.world/post/41351205

Well made videos for youth discussing online and other personal safety.

How do sons like or respect their emasculated fathers—their fathers who are out of shape, stay-at-home dads, don’t lead the home, and don’t do “manly” hobbies (smoking cigars, hunting, drinking whisky/liquor, etc.)? These dads DO NOT deserve disrespect.

Is it wrong to love your children only because they’re the children of someone you love? For example, if you had kids with an ex-wife you didn’t love as much, and you feel like you wouldn’t love those children the same way because you don’t love your ex—would that be wrong?

My son (18 months old) loves to be tickled and I decided to do something that my mom did to me when I was little.

He was laying on the floor flat on his back, looking up at me standing above him, begging me to tickle him. However I didn't feel like getting down to the floor.

So instead, I gently place my foot right on his tummy and start tickling him with my foot by wiggling it on his belly. He absolutely cracked up and was laughing up the storm.

So this leaves the question, has anyone else done this exact thing or am I the only one? I'm just curious if it's common or not.

I got this dlc for my kids recently. It teaches them about online grooming and the red flags they need to watch out for when playing games online. Minecraft has other free Internet safety dlc for kids, too, but as someone who experienced online grooming as a little kid in the early days of forums and instant messaging, this really caught my attention.

Here's a video of it, too.

Do folks have recommendations for kids movies, shows, or books that focus on characters friendships?

Recently I picked up the book “the princess bride.” My kid noticed and said she recognized the title. And saw the movie. But she didn’t like it because there was too much fighting. I asked for an example of a good movie. “K-pop demon hunter” was the answer. Because Friendship.