No

[No @GoshJatz]

Most important.

[David Boxenhorn @davidboxenhorn]

How to raise healthy children

Love them

You should continually show your children that you love them. It doesn’t matter how over the top you are, you can’t love your children too much. But make sure that you don’t give your children something else instead of love. If you give them toys instead of love, they will become shallow and materialistic. If you give them food instead of love, they will become fat. If you give them sympathy instead of love, they will become self-pitying. Of course, you should give your children all of these things, in moderation. But not instead of love.

Know them

One of the characteristics of children is that they are very transparent, and you should be able to see through them. It will be much easier to meet your child’s needs if you know what they are. Try not to let your own needs get in the way. Your child is another person, different from you, with different needs. Try not to confuse them. This is particularly hard if you have a strong emotional reaction to something in your past. If your emotions are too strong, they can easily overwhelm your ability to understand what’s going on in your child’s mind. If you have this kind of problem, do your best to understand it intellectually, and let your intellect lead you, not your emotions.

Teach them about the world, on their level

One of the most important jobs of a parent is to teach their children about the world. It should not be approached on a theoretical level, but on a practical level. You should be giving your child useful information that will help them understand and deal with the things that they experience in their lives. For example, your child is likely to ask something like, “why do men wear pants and women wear skirts?” Now is not the time for you to talk about gender theory, or about how anyone should be able to wear whatever they want! Your child has made an astute observation about the world and asked a good question. A good answer to this question, that will lead into more sophisticated questions as you child gets older might be, “that’s the way we dress in this country, but in other countries they dress in other ways”.

Provide empathy and perspective at the same time

It is important to feel empathy for your children. When your child is feeling pain or disappointment, it is important for you to feel it too. However, while you are empathizing, it is important to provide an adult perspective on things. It is important to communicate to your child that, while they are feeling pain, they will get over it, and in the grand scheme of things it is not only unimportant, but might even be beneficial. You can even tell them explicitly that the hardship they are now experiencing will benefit them later in life. This does not have to contradict empathizing with them in the moment. Doing this will give your child strength, and not doing it will teach them to catastrophize their problems.

Establish a good mood in the family

Children will naturally absorb your mood, whatever it is. It is critically important to establish a good mood in your family, something that they want to come home to. Whatever mood you establish in your household will be a mood that follows them around for the rest of their lives. You want your children to have a good mood by default. When nothing in particular, either bad or good, is going on in your children’s lives, you want them to feel good. You can do this for them by having a good mood in your home. Conversely, if the mood in your family is bad, you children will run away as soon as they can, and the bad mood will follow them.

Make them productive members of the family

The thing that gives meaning to your life is the feeling that you are accomplishing a higher purpose, that you are part of something larger than yourself. It is true for children no less than for adults. Take advantage of opportunities to include your children in the tasks of running a family. For example, you can let your child put the forks and spoons on the table even before they are old enough to be trusted with the knives and plates. Some families go to the extent of doing this even when it increases the workload of the parents. I don’t think it is necessary to go that far. Life provides enough real opportunities for well-raised children to help out.

When they can do something for themselves, let them

Every child instinctively wants to grow up. For a child, growing up means doing things that adults and older children do for themselves. They are willing to work hard to accomplish these things, don’t frustrate their hard work! The point when they are barely able to do a new task is a golden opportunity to hand over to the child some of the work of being a parent. If you miss this moment, and keep doing something for your child that they can do for themselves, they will come to like it, and will object when you want to stop doing it. For example, young children can’t put socks on their feet. But they want to! Put them in charge of doing it as soon as they are able, and they will take up the challenge. Miss the opportunity, and you will be doing it forever.

Make them into a team

Look for opportunities to treat your children as a team. Give them joint responsibilities. When they have a decision to make, let them make it jointly. For example, you can tell them that they can watch a movie, as long as they all agree. Make yourself the bad guy, that they have to cooperate to overcome. They will likely figure out a good compromise. If they don’t, help them do it, don’t do it for them. Make it an explicit value in your family that your children should cooperate and take care of each other. Sibling rivalry can be extremely painful, and a good relationship between siblings is a gift that they will cherish for their entire lives. No other relationship is like a sibling relationship. As they say, the husband-wife relationship starts too late, and the parent-child relationship ends too early. Sibling relationships are the only ones that you have for your entire life, make sure that your children have good ones.

Model the behaviors that will succeed with their peers

An adult is very different from a child. The behaviors of an adult are different from the behaviors of a child. Nevertheless, when playing with a child, a parent should model the behaviors that will make their child popular among their peers. Foremost is a playful temperament. Do and say the kinds of things that make your child laugh, and your child will learn to do those things for the benefit of other children. Play rough with them. When your children get to school they will experience rough play, and will sometimes even get hurt. It is important that your children don’t misinterpret rough play as hostile. If they never get hurt while having fun, they will have trouble handling it when, inevitably, it comes. Worse, if they only experience physical pain when they are being punished, any pain will be felt as punishment. Don’t do this!

Consequences not punishments

To the extent possible, let children experience the consequences of their actions, rather than punishing them. For example, if they are old enough to make their own school lunch (in which case they should be making it) but don’t get up early enough to do so, let them go to school without it. You don’t have to be the one that punishes them. They should feel that they are making their lunch so that they won’t be hungry, not to please you. Of course, if they have a problem getting up on time, you can help them solve the problem. This puts you on the side of the solution, not the problem. Similarly, if your child is not getting good grades you should make it clear that getting good grades is a goal that they should have, for their own good, and try to help them solve the problem. Don’t punish them for bad grades. If they correctly feel that you are the leader of their team, and you want them to get good grades, the bad grades will be punishment enough. Make “first X then Y” part of your vocabulary. For example, if your children want to go out and play, but they haven’t picked up their toys, don’t say “you can’t go out and play until you pick up the toys” - that makes picking up the toys a punishment. Instead say “first pick up the toys, then you can go out and play” - it makes not being able to go out and play a consequence of not picking up your toys.

Never reward misbehavior, never punish good behavior

Children have seemingly infinite patience for misbehavior, so you have to establish early on that you can withstand it. You have to be stronger than your children. If they ever think that they can get what they want by misbehaving, you have lost a battle that you might never recover from. The opposite is also true. You should make sure that you don’t punish good behavior. Think about what you are really doing. It is not always obvious to parents what feels like reward and punishment to a child. For example, praising good behavior might seem like a punishment if you do it in a way that communicates that good behavior is unusual. It helps to be completely transparent about your policy. You can tell them explicitly that they can’t get what they want by whining, or that you give positive feedback to positive behavior, and negative feedback to negative behavior. They will appreciate it.

Never punish them for things that are beyond their control

Don’t ever forget that children are children. There are many things that they can’t do, and it is wrong to punish them for not doing those things. For example, you would never expect a baby to be toilet trained, and should not punish or even express dismay when you have to change their diaper. When something is at the borderline of their control, for example when they reach the age when they are being toilet trained, you can express dismay, but your attitude should be that you are there to help them, not to punish them. Only punish your children when they do something wrong that definitely is within their control, and even then don’t punish them if they have already felt the negative consequences of their actions.

Tell them the exact words to use

It happens quite often that a child will not tell you something important because they don’t know how. Maybe they’re embarrassed. Maybe they don’t know the right words to describe what happened. Maybe they don’t even understand what happened. When you find out, and ask them “why didn’t you tell me” they don’t know what to say. When this happens, you should tell them explicitly what to say. Exactly. Say, “if this happens again, just say...” and give them the exact words that they should use. They might not remember the exact words, but that’s not the point. The point is to show them that it’s possible, and they will remember your exact words, approximately, much better than they’ll remember any general suggestions that you give them.

Give them as much responsibility as they can handle

Eventually, your children will grow up and have to handle all the responsibilities of adults. The worst thing that you can do for your children is baby them, and protect them, until the age of 18, then throw them out and expect them to be adults. Just as you should let your children do things for themselves as soon as they are able to do them, you should give them responsibilities as soon as they are able to take them. But pay attention! Be there to guide them. If you guide them with a gentle hand, they will come to you on their own volition to seek advice. When they come to you, try very hard not to punish them for doing so by taking away their responsibility. Doing this will teach them not to come to you with their problems. If you give your children responsibility as soon as they can handle it, you will give them many years to practice responsibility under your guidance, before they have to be responsible on their own. In the worst case you can step in and take back responsibility, if absolutely necessary.

Embody your values, but also make them explicit

Say please and thank you to you children, and they will naturally say please and thank you too. You won’t have to teach them, it will come to them naturally. The same is true for speaking politely, listening politely, working hard, and every value that you have. But it is not necessarily enough to just embody your values. As your children progress though the stages of maturity they will naturally question your values, especially if your values are not reinforced by their peers. You should give your children the answers to these questions before they are asked. Young children will accept what you say as true without question, but they won’t when they get older. Your answers should be age-appropriate, and grow in complexity as they get older. By the time your children are teenagers, you should give them adult answers.

Don’t pretend that you’re perfect

You don’t have to pretend that you’re perfect. Young children will believe that you’re perfect no matter what you tell them, but eventually they will come to realize that you’re not, no matter what you do. Instead of pretending to be perfect, let them know that you are a fallible human being that tries to do the right thing. Let them know that some things are difficult for you, but you do them anyway. Let them know that sometimes you face dilemmas and don’t know what to do. Let them know that you are sometimes caught in a situation where there are no right answers, only wrong answers, and you do your best to pick the least wrong way forward. Let them know that you often fail, but pick yourself up and keep going. This is your lot in life, and it will be their lot too. Teach them how to be fallible with dignity, and you will teach them one of the most valuable life skills.

Don’t pretend to be their equal

Children don’t want you to be their equal. They want you to be their parent. They want you to be a person that they can defer to. It makes them feel safe. Take this mantle upon yourself with love and good humor, with honesty and humility, and they will gladly defer to you. They might protest, but as a last resort you can remind them that you are the parent, and they are the child. You can say (with humor), “Do the parents tell the children what to do or do the children tell the parents what to do?” and they will agree with you (though they might humorously say the opposite). If they defy you and suffer as a consequence, you can say “that’s why you should listen to your parents!”. If said with good humor, they will feel reassured.

Choose their peer group

Perhaps the most important thing you can do for your children is choose their peers. After a certain age, your children will be more receptive to the values of their peers than they are to yours. They will unconsciously absorb the beliefs, habits, and thought patterns of their peers. If you choose good peers for your children, raising them will be relatively effortless. The most important peers are usually the ones that they go to school with, though other sources, for example religious and social groups might be of equal or greater importance, under the right conditions. A good peer group is one with low social competition and high life skills. A good peer group will be a lifelong asset for your children.

Some useful lines:

You can’t get what you want by whining.

I give positive feedback to positive behavior and negative feedback to negative behavior.

First X, then Y.

Do the parents tell the children what to do or do the children tell the parents what to do?

That’s why you should listen to your parents! (Said with a smile.)

Stay together and take care of each other. (When leaving your children alone.)

[Antonie🇪🇸 @tip0DeIncogni]

😭

[Darth Powell @VladTheInflator]

Kamala was so motivational

[The Appalachian Podcast @GetOnTap]

I love every bit of of it 🤣

[No @GoshJatz]

This looks cool.

[DiscussingFilm @DiscussingFilm]

New trailer for ‘PRIMETIME’, starring Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen.

The film follows Chris Hansen as he runs ‘How To Catch A Predator’ where he confronts adult men who think they are meeting minors to have sex.

In theaters on September 25.

[Predator Poachers @PPoachersLIVE]

We saved his daughter who he was actively abusing.

[Squat University @SquatUniversity]

POV: you start doing reverse planks every day, and now your pelvic tilt is finally going away, your stomach looks flatter and you finally feel what targeting your deep core feels like too...

[𝖩𝗎𝗌𝗍 𝖭𝗂𝖼 @JustOneNic]

😭☠️

[MJTruthUltra @MJTruthUltra]

My God… this is horrific 💔

🚨 Sister Recounts Horrifying Moment her Brother Wept as he was being prepped to have his Organs Harvested

Donna Rhorer— “TJ was crying on the operating table, his eyes were tracking me and they told me it was just reflexes— then during the heart cath, he was thrashing and crying, grabbing the doctors hands to stop him”… as they were preparing to harvest his organs after he had been FALSELY declared brain-dead.

TJ, who survived was present in the audience crying uncontrollably…

https://t.co/n3BEvxMk0E

[SCOTUS Wire @scotus_wire]

🚨 A federal judge has ruled that major portions of the National Firearms Act are unconstitutional after Congress eliminated certain taxes on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and other covered firearms.

[Disclose.tv @disclosetv]

NOW - Vice-Chair of Trumps Fraud taskforce says Government programs created almost 100 years ago were designed for the "America that we were," a "high-trust society," where people played by the rules, which is no longer the case.

[Predator Poachers @PPoachersLIVE]

Violently & aggressively attacked by a VV

[Bryce Greene @TheGreeneBJ]

Holy shit... Wired reports that back in May, the U.S. Military was testing an experimental GPS jammer and and caused a civilian plane to crash into the side of a mountain, killing everyone on board.

[Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol]

🚨WOW!!!

A little girl in Kentucky was given 3 DAYS TO LIVE, her mom was told to call the funeral home and start making arrangements.

Then a 10-year-old boy in Ohio was hit by a car... and his liver saved her life.

Now, 20 years later, she is MARRYING HIS LITTLE BROTHER. ❤️

Her name is Brooklyn Dotson. She's 24, from Letcher County, Kentucky.

She was diagnosed with a rare liver condition when she was just a few months old. Doctors gave her 3 days.

Her mother refused to give up on her.

In 2003, at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Brooklyn got a new liver.

She has no memory of it. She was a baby.

That liver came from a 10-year-old boy in Dayton, Ohio named Michael.

Michael was the kind of kid who would do ANYTHING for anybody. He taught his little brother how to ride a bike. He sat with him through his surgeries.

His family says he was more mature than a boy that age had any business being.

And somewhere along the way, as a CHILD, Michael told his family he wanted to be an organ donor.

Then he was hit by a car and killed.

And his parents, in the worst moment of their entire lives, honored what their little boy asked for.

His heart. His eyes. His lungs. His kidneys.

And his liver went to a baby girl in Kentucky.

Now here's where God shows up.

That little brother? The one Michael taught to ride a bike?

His name is Noah Waters. And decades later, he and Brooklyn became friends. Then best friends. Then they were FaceTiming 8 hours a day.

Brooklyn's own mom is the one who finally told Noah: I think Brooke likes you.

He drove down that same weekend.

They're getting married THIS SEPTEMBER in Monticello, Kentucky, on a hill overlooking Lake Cumberland.

Noah on his brother: "my brother was gonna save my wife's life 20 years later."

He had no idea. NONE.

And when Brooklyn talks about honoring Michael's memory the best way she knows how, Noah just says:

And you get his last name.

SHE IS GOING TO CARRY HIS NAME!!! 😭

The woman that boy saved is about to become a Waters.

Noah's cousin Beth is the one who called the news station, because she knew this story had to be told. She says God always had a plan, for them to be together and to carry the family's legacy forward through Michael.

She believes Michael had a hand in getting them together.

I believe it too.

Brooklyn says people keep telling them they should have a Hallmark movie.

Noah says they're just regular people who met in an extraordinary way.

Regular people, brother? A 10-year-old boy said YES to something most grown adults never even fill out on their license... and that YES is walking down an aisle in September wearing a wedding dress.

One little boy in Ohio. One grieving family who kept their son's word. One mother in Kentucky who wouldn't call the funeral home.

Michael's story started with a "yes."

It ends with an "I do."

What an INCREDIBLE love story ❤️❤️❤️

[MakroArt @makro_art]

Look I don't like bethesda much lately either but this is the first cool logo any company has made since 2008

[TAOFLEDERMAUS @taofledermaus]

Rods From God 12ga. Shotgun Slug - One of the most complex slugs we've tested.

[Secretary Sean Duffy @SecDuffy]

🚨LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WELCOME TO THE FUTURE OF DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT✈️

[Saagar Enjeti @esaagar]

Lyme Disease was a lab leak too BTW

[ravi nation @ravi_nati0n]

This video should have won a Peabody award

[No @GoshJatz]

Stupid

[philip lewis @Phil_Lewis_]

Schools are adding pepper-spraying drones to help combat active shooters

The plastic, non-lethal aircraft, which can smash windows and ram attackers will be at the ready at certain schools in Colorado, Florida and Georgia
https://t.co/siRLNCixmr

[jay plemons @jayplemons]

Bill Gates “saved” Africa… by DESTROYING their food supply 🚨

Forrest Galante: “I’m going to go on a f-ing rant here.

They gave millions of mosquito nets out to all these people to avoid malaria. Guess what the people who are starving to death did with their mosquito nets. They fished with them.

Mosquito net has a hole that is so small that a mosquito can’t get through. So guess what? These mosquito nets now indiscriminately catch tiny baby fish in areas like Cahora Bassa where the fish go to breed and reproduce and populate. So now all of a sudden you have thousands and thousands of people that have been handed nets that have been living one way for hundreds of thousands of years. They don’t give a shit about malaria.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation come in, hand out millions of mosquito nets, absolutely collapse the entire population of fish that feed millions of people because these people just take the nets and fish all the baby fish out so that those fish don’t grow up to make substantial protein sources. So now these wonderful philanthropists that have given out millions of nets have destroyed an ecosystem, crashed a fish population, and created widespread hunger for people that otherwise had plenty of resources. All because they were trying to help with their mosquito nets.

They’ve taken such a rich and important part of Africa, one of the most abundant freshwater fisheries in the world, and destroyed it because they’re ‘helping’ by handing out mosquito nets.

And they’re still giving out mosquito nets, by the way. And you literally watch these guys line up, take a mosquito net, and it never goes in their house. It goes straight to catching fish for them to eat.”