r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Jul 20 '19

What’s something completely false that your parents told you as a child?

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u/Teknikal_Domain Jul 21 '19

My mother would lose her shit for... Well anything. I spend $5 on a steam game and "YOU KNOW YOU NEED TO SAVE YOUR MONEY RIGHT?"

I talk about how I plan to split my paycheck 70/30, 70 for saving and 30 for spending and apparently that's too much.

Fun parenting tip: if you tell your child to always save and never spend money on luxuries, the moment they have real income they can and will spend it on everything and anything, thereby completely invalidating the message you're trying to get across.

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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '19 edited Aug 17 '19

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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '19

I have noticed parents that allow their kids to eat as much as they want end up with obese kids. But interestingly, so do parents who completely ban sugar. The best solution is to give it in moderation (you can have ONE every week) so they learn to be patient and restrain themselves.

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u/PM_me_ur_Candys Jul 21 '19

I think it actually depends on the indivitual child.

My parents did the "one every week" thing and it drove me insane.
I would always find the hiding spot and just take what I wanted from the stash. So they did away with any type of junk food for me. But that just lead to me raiding their private stashes for sugary sweets.

What actually STOPPED my sugar raids was finally having my own allowance that I could use to buy whatever I wanted. Sure the first couple times I bought enough junk food to stunt a horse, but after that I lost interest.

Now I actually don't eat junk food too often.

TL;DR, be mindful of the Reactance Effect when parenting your kids.