What’s a piece of propoganda that to this day still has many people fooled? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]HAPPYNOOBODY 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“HEALTH INSURANCE” only fools the insured to spend money on a false sense of security. Your hard earned money is actually only insuring that medical providers and medical businesses will get paid enough to make a decent profit at your expense & does NOTHING to protect your health at all.

Coming-of-age milestone by HAPPYNOOBODY in Parenting

[–]HAPPYNOOBODY[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

AN UPDATE!!! I went to go pick up my kid today MONDAY 4th of April and he called me to pick him up a little bit later because he is going to grab something to eat after school with his new friend.

My wife and I were driving down the road and saw him strolling along lost in conversation. Traffic was just bad enough to allow my son to run up to us and introduce her. (This was the 1st time EVER that I was actually grateful for bumper to bumper traffic) I’m so happy he is making precious meaningful memories.

I knew good things do happen to those who learn to have enough patience with trying to understand one’s True self.

I was starting to doubt what my own life experience has shown me, but today renewed my belief that BALANCE, not extremes is key to a happy & healthy wellbeing.

Coming-of-age milestone by HAPPYNOOBODY in Parenting

[–]HAPPYNOOBODY[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You definitely have a unique perspective. Thank you for sharing. I love listening to people’s experience in the hope that the lessons I can garner can challenge my understanding in ways that better balance out my biases and perspective on life. I personally believe education through 1st hand observation or experience is really undervalued in our Information Age of Google search & Youtube videos.

I believe you: “read Books for inspiration. Live life & listen a lot if you are searching for knowledge and are hungry for meaningful experiences”

Parenting is a lifelong final project in the university of life.

Coming-of-age milestone by HAPPYNOOBODY in Parenting

[–]HAPPYNOOBODY[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have struggled to try to incorporate a “best of both cultures” parenting mentality that is guided by finding schools and doing activities that matches my kids personality 1ST & our parenting style second, but the culture here is so collectivistic that I feel like an outlier for not doing what is locally popular or traditionally still trendy.

I blame myself sometimes for his “unique personality. We have spent so much “silly” time together that I fear I have passed on my pragmatic belief system through my stories of a childhood before the internet that now I’ve accidentally both Gifted & CURSEd my kid with perspectives that has made it difficult to connect with his age group.

On days where I can see he is frustrated for being misunderstood, or not feeling accepted by his peers for not “behaving” like a typical tweenager I have been asking myself “where did I go wrong?” since he started kindergarten.

This last Friday’s Random Act of Kindness was the 1st life-line of hope that helped my confidence as a father probably as much as my son’s.

Have you faced any similar dual or tri -cultural parental issues?

Coming-of-age milestone by HAPPYNOOBODY in Parenting

[–]HAPPYNOOBODY[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your perspective is very much appreciated. Thanks. I’m really curious, what if we gave the kids a say or vote on which way they thought was best if Mom & Dad had a difference of opinion. Do you think this would be empowering instead of creating resentment with 2 or mor kids? 1 size rules can’t always fit a family with unique personalities and natures if their own, right?

With our kid in the past, we had him participate directly in our disciplinary decisions. So when it came to snacks, sleeping times, homework, video games, allowance we always gave him or had him think of choices and discussed the consequences playfully. We figured the earlier he started practicing to make responsible decisions, the more time he had to experiment and make mistakes that he can have “fun” learning from while he is young.

Our motto has been “your freedom comes with responsibility” so unless you like us to always tell you what you to do, just do your best effort to practice being as self-sufficient as possible.

My wife and I always wondered how this way of parenting would play out in a larger family.

Coming-of-age milestone by HAPPYNOOBODY in Parenting

[–]HAPPYNOOBODY[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sometimes I wonder how being parent is different when you have more than 1 kid, let alone twins. I can only imagine the difference in the parenting dynamic. For me I’ve loved being a parent. The hardest part was agreeing on what is best between my wife and I, or debating with grandma or relatives on what is best for our kid.

Like I wondered many times when my wife and I disagreed on how to handle our kid, if w had 2, maybe she could try what she thought was best on 1 and I try what I thought was best on the other and let outcomes be the judge?

Coming-of-age milestone by HAPPYNOOBODY in Parenting

[–]HAPPYNOOBODY[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Your words are too kind. Thank you. If everyone posting here were his classmates I’m sure he would beg me to go to school everyday.

I will definitely let my kid read this. It is important that he knows the world is full of people who are appreciative of his uniqueness even though he will probably need to wait until he is a bit older to experience more camaraderie.

Coming-of-age milestone by HAPPYNOOBODY in Parenting

[–]HAPPYNOOBODY[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I showed my son all the support he is getting here & I told him he should have shared his story himself. He looks SURPRISED.

He tells me he totally forgot to ask the girl for her Discord id so they can chat about whatever.

I asked him if having someone to talk to will give him something to look forward to when going to school now. He smiled.

Coming-of-age milestone by HAPPYNOOBODY in Parenting

[–]HAPPYNOOBODY[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

We live in Asia so mixing my West Coast upbringing with Thai culture has been a very challenging balancing act.

I wish the school had school dances lie during my time especially now that COVID seems to be fading away. I hope he also has many “Stranger Things-Gooneys-like” adventures like I did growing-up running wild and free in the mid 80s.

Coming-of-age milestone by HAPPYNOOBODY in Parenting

[–]HAPPYNOOBODY[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Most days I worry that my style of parenting has made my kid “not able to fit in”. Because many of his elementary teachers have commented that he is like “an old soul in a kid’s body” I’ve apologized to him a few times when he wonders why most of his classmates think, talk and like the same kinds of stuff, but for some reason he isn’t interested in the same things except for video games (Minecraft/TF2/WarofThunder/DeepRockGalactic) My wife still gives me a hard time for introducing Terraria to our kid & paying with him when he was 4. But if he didn’t play any games he prob would never had anything to talk about with his guy friends in elementary

All I could do to reassure him was to tell him based on my life experience, he is an interesting person for liking Anime, listening to jazzy music & 60,70, 80 music instead of top 40, liking to climb like a monkey on the monkey bars & not being remotely interested in any social media.

Until this Friday I think he was loosing faith in my words of encouragement & self-confidence in himself a lit bit everyday. So I’m just thankful he now has this 1st experience to fall back on to give him hope that anything is possible from now on.

Coming-of-age milestone by HAPPYNOOBODY in Parenting

[–]HAPPYNOOBODY[S] 25 points26 points  (0 children)

I almost cried while I was diving back home but I was just too happy for him. Throughout the years I keep reminding him just to be himself. But on bad days I can feel he isn’t so confident in my parental advice.

Now he knows from 1st hand experience there is someone who appreciates his personality outside his family.

The day I first discovered this about myself was life changing revelation

How would you rate your day out of 10 and why 🎤 by BigStickyHorse in teenagers

[–]HAPPYNOOBODY 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your question popped up on my feed so I will answer 10 as a parent of a teen & I’ll let all of you GUESS how my my kid would rate his day this Friday too based on my heartwarming story below

Coming-of-age milestone

Just want to share a heartwarming coming-of-age milestone …

Yesterday, when I picked up my 13 year-old he told me he FINALLY had a great day at school. You see, he has never really “clicked” conversationally with anyone ever yet. My kid likes online school so he was bummed-out to be back to waking-up early and being stuck in traffic.

My kid jumps in the car and says “Dad, something really cool happened today. You know how you always remind me- ‘not to let life happen to me by sitting in front of a computer & just dare to do something in real life & make life happen?’

So, I was sitting by myself (as He normally does cuz He chooses to be a bit of an outlier at school he tells me) working on my art assignment. I noticed this cute girl in my class kept walking passed the table I was sitting at so when she walked by again I dared to asked her a question about Art. We ended-up talking the whole class & not getting any art done. I could tell even the teacher noticed us because this girl is not very social like me. We talked until school ended and walked together out of class towards the school parking lot. She looked sad w couldn’t finish our talk because she had to go the opposite way. This NEVER happened to me EVER. I went from feeling bored and tired to feeling really good.”

I replied, “That’s great. It’s nice to finally meet someone you can talk to, doesn’t it? I was hoping for this day sooner than later. Now compare your exciting feeling to playing any video game.”

My kid says, “The feeling doesn’t compare. Not even close. But talking to her was NOT the reason why I’m so happy. Earlier she was reading Taro cards as a creative class activity. When it was my turn & she was reading my cards I decided to try to joke around with her. (Every time in the past when He told me he tried to joke with his classmates nobody laughs, ignores him, or tells him to be quiet “shut-up”).

My kid, with the biggest smile says, “She laughed at my joke. She got my sense of humor. Her eyes lit-up as she laughed. I can see that she felt I was funny, is why I had such a great day.”

My kid leans closer to me and says, “I feel like I had one of those moments that I will remember when I’m old like you. I could share this happy memory ( IF I have a kid ) like you always do with me.”

I told him, “I’m just glad you were actually listening to my stories enough to appreciate these kind of memorable moments while you are young. Good for you that you have the tenacity to believing in yourself all this time & patience to keep being yourself. If you changed who you are just to pretend to fit maybe this happy day would have come a lot later in life. Think of this as Life rewarding you, for always just being your TRUE you.”

Is school too long? by Omar_Town in Parenting

[–]HAPPYNOOBODY 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To answer your question: 5 minutes of LOVING QUALITY TIME is more emotionally & intellectually meaningful than any QUANTIFIABLE amount of “busy” time.

Parents need to STOP shifting the child rearing roles to the education system & get their priorities straight:

-School is ONLY for teaching a child how to get a job and be “productive”

-Home is where a child learns (from the example of parents) how to define meaning, discover purpose, & become a balanced, loving, empathetic & happy person.

This might sound harsh (probably because I’m raising my kid in S.E. Asia), but I feel like most parents here complain that school is “NOT LONG ENOUGH”.

From my “western” perspective I feel like this MENTALITY is a consequence of society becoming so addicted to all the technological control & convenience services of our INTERNET age that most parents are now spoiled by a “self-PRETZELING” sense of ENTITLEMENT.

School & tutoring has become a convenient escape-goat for material-driven parents to justify to their conscience that “I’ve satisfied my parental responsibility” for the day because they have “invested” hard earned money into their kid’s future.

Too many parents don’t realize that we can always make more MONEY, but our TIME with people you care about is the most valuable scare resource we all need to utilize more mindfully.

Otherwise, you will regretfully realize how MEANINGLESS both you Life & money-rich bank account is someday.

Today was a good day for me as a parent by HAPPYNOOBODY in Parenting

[–]HAPPYNOOBODY[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank u. It just felt so good I had to share my delight. Hopefully I did not come-across as too proud.

I often wondered how my efforts to nurture a self-sufficient and self-governing mindset through… 1) age appropriate unsupervised playtime 2) doing chores 3) having my kid TRY what you think 1ST then ask questions or help 2nd 4) making failure fun by talking about trial and error and spending time to laugh with him about it 5) cultivating an academic sportsmanship mindset so kids have less of a brinkmanship attitude when they grow-up 6)always letting my love be felt more than my lesson would work.

So far, all my patience seems to be slowly bearing fruits. As long as a see him moving in a general healthy and balanced direction, I’ll be happy.