What Parenting Advice Has Failed You?

Plus: Does having your kid sleep away from you mess up their brain?

Something I talk a lot about here is that there’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all parenting advice. Every family is different and every child is different. I’ve highlighted before that families with neurodivergent kids are especially poorly served by many mainstream parenting approaches — a point I know I don’t emphasize enough.

Today I want to hear about the parenting strategies and tips that have, for whatever reason, fallen flat for you and your family. (If you have thoughts as to why they didn’t work that you’d like to share, that’s great, but you don’t have to.)

One piece of parenting advice that I have learned to ignore is the warning that you should never leave an upset child alone. When my daughter is a certain kind of upset, she wants to be by herself; I know because we’ve talked about it at neutral times. She retreats, then emerges when she’s ready for a hug or a conversation. (Sometimes she doesn’t want to talk at all and just makes a heart hand signal and I come give her a hug.) If I were to force myself into her space when she wanted alone time, I would be disrespecting her wishes and her autonomy.

What about you? What hasn’t worked for you or is something you think you should never try? Share in the comments. Please be civil — you always are! — and remember that every family has different needs and values.

Should We Sleep With Our Kids Until They’re 7?

And now for this week’s

Today I’m commenting on a reel from @nourishherbody that has 110K likes (!!) and contains a bunch of slides. I’m primarily going to respond to this part (this is a screenshot but you can view the whole reel here):

Here are my thoughts.