The fights worth Fighting

What's this list?

Raising children is hard, and it's often a battle. This is a list of recommendations on how to raise your kids, and to decide what battles are actually worth fighting.

The Reading Fight

Make your kids read. It's a fight worth picking. Reading is tied to everything from cognitive development to the ability to focus. It stimulates their imagination and expands their understanding of the world. It helps them develop language and listening skills and prepares them to understand the written word.

The Outside Fight

Make your kids go outside. The natural world teaches us things. Valuable truths. There's sunshine, fresh air, and exercise waiting for them. Most importantly, nature is full of things in short supply in our world. Discovery. Wonder. Peace. Joy. Your kids are surrounded by artificial. They need REAL. Make them go outside to find it.

The Work Fight

Make your kids work. They need the hard work, life skills, and ownership that comes from pitching in. Plus, there are priceless life principles you can only learn with a mop in your hand. Let sweat be their teacher.

The Meal Fight

Make your kids eat as a family. It's less about what family meals accomplish, and more about what they represent. Our lives are a blur of incessant activity. Meals together are a physical pause to recover a truth so easily sacrificed at the altar of busyness. Nothing's more important than family.

The Boredom Fight

Make your kids live with boredom. Kids need unscheduled time. And, odd as it sounds, boredom is a skill. It's hard as a parent to deal with the assault of boredom complaints. But resist the urge to give them a distraction. There will always be much to do. Make them learn how to be.

The "Me First" Fight

Make your kids go last. Not every time for everything. But enough to remember that the world doesn't revolve around them. Most kids will elevate themselves above all others. Me. Me. Me. You must periodically make your kids... Go last in line. Take the smallest piece. Give up the remote. Do someone else's chores. They won't like it, but they need it.

The Awkward Conversation Fight

Make your kids have uncomfortable conversations with you. As kids get older, the things you need to talk about with them get more difficult. For both of you. Your kids will roll their eyes and resist. You will stumble and stutter. But you must see through the awkwardness. They want your perspective, lessons learned, and wisdom. You want the pattern of open communication it establishes. Wade into uncomfortable waters with them.

The Limitation Fight

Make your kids live within limits. Learning to live within limits is a valuable life skill. No one lives a life without limitations. And you wouldn't want to. They mature us. If you don't introduce and enforce them, you're hurting your kids. Screen time limits, dietary limits, activity limits, and schedule limits are all good. Teach your kids to embrace them.

Where is this coming from?

I copied the content from a twitter thread, but lost the link at some point. If someone knows the author please let me know so I can add a link and a mention.

Update 27/03/2023: I found the original post on twitter thanks to some search. The original compilation can be found in the thread by David morris