Hi,

I have had some friend or people surrounding me that have babies and kids. I can see the trend of young parents nowadays are very careful with their child.

Let's take one of this friend I have for example. On her first child, she is really kiasu with everything. Any negative things she hear from a friend, she will avoid. Like example, drinking coffee is not good for the child..she like coffee but during her pregnancy did not drink a SINGLE DROP. Compared to someone else who drank liquor and smoke during pregnancy and baby came out fine. Even during breastfeeding years, she did not drink any coffee.

Another example is shaving baby's hair. Normally, a lot of parents shave their baby's hair because those inborn hair are ugly and scarce. I know chinese and indians have the tradition of shaving baby's hair. But this friend heard about other friend's baby hair not growing after shaving until like 3-4 years old. So, she so scared that she refuse to shave the baby's hair despite it look ugly. Looks like those people with hairloss problem. Well, if you research properly, the hair growth is just depends on the baby or toddler itself. It will eventually grow and shaving them or not does not cause it not to grow. But you know...kiasu mom want's THE BEST for the child.

So I am asking you parents, are you really that kiasu when it comes to your child? Such that you cannot think straight and fear this and fear that?

Why do you want to hear all those horror stories from a friend and then being so scared about them?

Personally, I think there should be a balance between protecting your child and letting them to their own devices. You cannot be there forever with your child. You must eventually let them face the outside world alone. Doing too much precautionary will only make it worst when your child need to face the real world. And fearing about every horror stories that come your way is just too much. You were given education and wisdom. Use them wisely instead of doing things like a robot programmed to only give BEST to the child.

I am not asking you to like ignore the safety precautions. Just realize that you are sometimes overdoing things. Even for some, extreme protection of the child is normal. So they are actually not realizing they are overdoing things.

Please do not ASSUME I have kids or not. That is not the issue of debate here.

I know smoking or coffee is bad for fetus growing in the womb but not doing it at ALL? I remembered now..the friend even avoided drinking COLD drinks. To that extend..common...use your common sense.

Anyone who smoke or drank caffeine during pregnancy...please comment...

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Added on October 6, 2010, 12:21 pmDon't you realize what you THINK best for the child may not be the BEST?

Your parents used old school method to teach you as a child, they are also doing the BEST for you. Are you going to use the same method on your child?

This post has been edited by abubin: Oct 6 2010, 12:21 PM

Here is a quote from a website: http://www.epigee.org/pregnancy/caffeine.html
Caffeine in coffee cause miscarriage. Think of the possibility of miscarriage after fifth month. It is very low already. Even with one cup of coffee like every week. That is much safer than crossing the road in pedestrian crossing green light. But now...you want BEST for your child. So...everytime your child cross the road..you will be worried sick. Stress like hell. However, you are FORCED to let go because you know, you cannot be with your child FOREVER and hold their hand to cross the road forever. You are giving yourself unnecessary stress and the people around you. Yelling and scolding them for not wanting the BEST for your child.

Lol...did you piss coffee? The most I have is 3 cups per day..but this is guys speaking.

Any gals or pregnant lady out there can post some experience?

Hah..I would like judge you....but I absolutely salute you for daring to beat the taboo. This is the kinda girl I am talking about. Not those stupid kiasu parents. Absolutely fabulous.

I am sure you will turn out to be a good parent. Who do things according to common sense and not hearsay. The child will have a role model who will grow up to know how to thing for himself/herself and not following the herd type.

Some of the friends I mentioned, I did not judge harshly. This is someone I know well that did not have miscarriage nor problematic pregnancy. Also a very strong mother (physically). Isn't too harsh not to drink a single drop of your favorite beverage or cold water. Okay maybe we talk about something that makes more common sense like cutting hair. The parent did not want to cut the toddler's hair because she heard a friend saying the baby's hair did not grow back and they were worried and all. However, there are even more friends who said they did shave the baby's hair and they grew back no problem and not to worry. So, this parent decided not to shave their toddler's hair. Not even trim it a little. So, the baby grew up 2-3 years with hair that looks like beggar. So now...the parent think they are doing the best for their child. Is that really the best? What I am saying is, use your common sense when dealing with your child. Don't just listen to some hearsay and follow blindly. Being able to take things with a grain of salt and think them through goes a long way being a good parent for your child.

I bet to differ.

Watching TVs, a child can learn a lot of things otherwise that need to be spoon fed by parents. IF you have that much time and patience to teach your child that then it's fine. But letting the child watch "controlled" TV programs are a very good way to make the child's brain function more efficiently. Majority of kids grew up watching TVs and how many of them are "screw up"? If that's what you think the effects of TV. I know people who are not allowed to watch TV and they are same type of people like my other friends who grew up watching TVs. They are not a better person compared to a friends who grew up in the slums. Nor are they more successful than a person who grew up with lots of freedom to do whatever he/she want.

You just don't let the kids watch programs meant for adults or more mature audience will do. No need to be so extreme. Don't let them watch cartoons like tom and jerry type also. These are actually very violent programs that I personally think teaches kids about violence. However, having said that..wait till you child go to school. They will learn all sorts of shitz. You cannot control you child every minute.

Same things to playing games. I play a lot of games. I know what are games all about. So I let my child play games meant for their level. I will explain to them when some games have violence. Won't let them play games with too much violence or adult violence. This is a very good way to stimulate their brain to think. Ways to solve puzzles and how to think out of the box. Parents who do not play games will not understand this. They will be like majority of the public who do not play games think games bad. They read about 1 or 2 cases of kids dying of overdosed of games and think games are bad.

Games or TVs or other form of entertainment, they are all fine as long as your kid is not obsessed over it.

Here is again, a typical example on how parenting is about. At least for me. No just overdoing things. You think and you apply with a dose of intelligence into them. Not just categorizing things into "Bad" and then totally shut it out of your child. Cause I do believe that curiosity killed the cat and kids by nature is very curious about everything. You think you are being responsible parent for not letting you child do something you think that is BAD? Something like TV, have good and bad. By shutting them out completely you think you are doing your child good? I think it is just being lazy parenting. It's easier to just say NO to something than teaching them about it and giving them moderate access.

I also believe that kids who are exposed to more of these "bad influences" tend to be more creative than those who live the life of no TV, no games, monday piano lesson, tuesday dancing lesson, wednesday math lesson....

This is from my personal experience.

First, you cannot believe everything you read on the internet. Again, I repeat, all parents should think about things they read or hear. Consider about the facts and apply them with common sense.

Second, I did not say let them watch everything. I did mention about not letting them watch violent cartoons. Instead of generalizing...TV = bad = ban. That is too extreme. I never allow my kids to watch violent cartoons...those warner bros and simpsons and so on.

Third, the facts about ADHD is not entirely correct. I should know because I have done a lot of research on ADHD. My son is diagnosed with ADHD and Asperger's syndrome by professional psychiatrist. He did not watch that much TVs. Plus, experts do not know exactly how ADHD developed. It is also said that ADHD is born with the baby. Not like a disease that you can get "infected" if you did something wrong. Eg, exposing them to TVs. ADHD does not get triggered. It is there all the time. Some people said certain food can trigger hyperactivity. That is ADD. And so far only food are known to trigger hyperactivity. TV? Absurd. There is not such things as ADHD only appearing at certain age. Like I said, you either get it or not. The reason they mention about such age is because ADD/ADHD can only be diagnosed correctly at the age of 5 and above. Sometimes toddlers below 5 may seems like having ADHD but actually it is not.

I want to say this again. Use common sense when bringing up your child. This is what separate us apart from animals.

Adding the time he watches TV per day, I estimate it to be less than 2 hours per day. Cause he prefer to play with his toys. Maybe watch it when there are some nice commercials.

Most of the times when I am watching my shows like axn series or discovery channel, he won't even watch. Unlike my other kid who watches more TV than him and she is NORMAL.

Therefore, my conclusion is austism or adhd has nothing to do with TVs. The tv might have some effects on them but nothing significant.

And TV being bad influence..definitely up to the parents to control what sort of TV programs to allow their normal or special child to watch. Like everything else, there are good and bad in everything. You don't just ignore it's good and ban it totally. Like I said, being a responsible parent is teaching your child about getting good out of the pool of goods and bads.

You were saying how you grow up taking care of child who watches TV and play games. Are those done without supervision? Of course that will be bad. Some parents just don't care. They buy a console and just throw in a pile of games at their child hoping that the kid will leave them alone. So when the kid turned out bad, they blame it on the games. The kid learned something bad from TV..blame it on the TV. Then TV=bad, Games=bad.

One of my child already schooling. The things she learn from school is ten times worst than TVs. Cause there are all these kids who learned all the bad stuffs from TV spreading all the bad influences on your child. This is indirectly from too much unadulterated TV. Can you control that? Can you control who your child can talk to in school?

1) who said my daughter have autism? My son is the one with autism. And I know girls rarely have autism. Doesn't mean there aren't any. And I had my kid diagnosed by a professional psychiatrist. As in paid money (not cheap) to have it done.

2) toddlers below 6 or above 6. Does it matter? Autism does not go away or can be cured. It is just because autism is easier to diagnose when a child is 5 and above. Because they can check on things the normal child should be able to do at 5 and above. Then compare it with an autistic child.

Day care center and TV? I did mention about unadulterated TV is bad. I didn't say "let the child watch all the TV he/she wants".

3) Your research is flawed. Autism doesn't manifest. It is just there. The child is born with it. Just that like I said, you can see it sort of manifest with a toddler above 5 because you start to notice development of the child is slower than normal. I do not know what your "first hand observation" means.

I think you know autism have a wide spectrum of symptoms. Some kids have only mild autism and they will eventually outgrown it. But the austism is still there. They just learned how to deal with it. More serious case of autism will never be outgrown like forrest gump.

3) yes playing and reading books are good too. So is good TV programs. Wait..books are bad..comics are violent. Pr0n books are bad. So, should I ban books?

4) TV does not encourage active thinking and learning huh? Well, they should stop making programs like math mansion or dora the exploer. Ah..I must have wasted all my years watching discovery channels and discovery science. All those stuffs I learn about the world, the people and human evolution are all useless. Passive waste of time.

I guess my toddler did not learn ABC or vocabulary from TV. Did not learn how to sing from purple dinosaur barney. I guess learn to sing from books or radio is better. More exciting. ooooohh...

What's the difference between letting your toddler watch a TV program teaching about ABC and giving him/her a book about ABC? I guess they won't pickup anything from TV ABC cause picture flashes too fast?

Well whatever works for you. You don't want your kids to watch any TVs, it is your style. I am totally fine. But condemning something that clearly have it's value as totally useless is just being ignorant. Just like people who does not play games and they blame games are bad. They just played something like solitaire and then think that they know what are games. Maybe you want to say games does not promote active thinking and learning...

This post has been edited by abubin: Oct 16 2010, 12:48 AM