Parenting Regrets: Two of My Biggest Mistakes

I reflect on two major parenting regrets that have had significant consequences in our family: allowing excessive screen time and catering to picky eaters. These seemingly small concessions made during overwhelming parenting moments have created lasting challenges as my children have grown older.

• Started giving my son a tablet around age three despite knowing the potential harm
• Now seeing addiction-like behaviors when devices are taken away
• Children abandon social interaction when electronic devices are available 
• Digital devices create dopamine releases that affect brain development
• Strongly advise parents of young children to avoid or severely limit screen time
• Catering to picky eating has resulted in extremely limited food preferences
• Found myself making multiple meals to accommodate different preferences
• Wish I had insisted children eat what was prepared for the whole family
• The "path of least resistance" created more difficult problems later
• Successfully prioritized open communication and age-appropriate explanations
• Use adult vocabulary and don't sugarcoat difficult conversations with children
• Important to give yourself grace while learning from mistakes

If you have young children, please learn from my experience - limit screen time and stand firm on family meals.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Parenting Regrets
• 1:29 Screen Time and Its Consequences
• 4:06 Device Addiction and Setting Boundaries
• 5:38 The Picky Eater Problem
• 9:16 Communication: One Parenting Win
• 10:32 Final Thoughts and Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

This is Dill Roses Podcast. This podcast is created for women by women to elevate women's voices. I hope you are all having a great week thus far, although this is being posted on a Monday. But I hope you all had a great weekend. What I wanted to think about today for an episode is um it actually kind of sparked based on my weekend and and my visitors today. I started reflecting a little bit on things that I didn't do well enough or didn't do better when my kids were little and how the repercussions are kind of hitting me now. And by kind of I mean how the repercussions are hitting me now. When my kids were little, I can make all the excuses in the world for it, but and I can rationalize away why I did everything that I did. But I will just like kind of flat out tell you guys because at this point doesn't even matter. I used to let the kids use tablets when they were little. And it started with my son when he was probably three. Um he didn't have it all the time, but every once in a while, I remember I actually distinctly remember the first time we gave it to him. And it was like, I don't know, just one of those nights where everything was always overwhelming. Again, I don't want to relax, rationalize it, but we gave him the phone. I got the other kids to bed, and he was so quiet on the phone that, you know, kind of just let him be. And I went about my business, cleaning up this, that, and the next thing. He was zoned out. I didn't really think anything of it. And I was all I was to be perfectly clear frank with you guys, I was grateful for the opportunity to be able to do other things and get things done because he was distracted. Now, at the time, I knew that there was literature that said digital, digital devices for kids was not good. I did. I was well aware of it. But I thought, you know, once in a while, not a big deal. Even TV, not a big deal. They need something. I cannot be in their faces all the time. It's not possible for me to do that. I have to have some reprieve. So it started about when he was three. Now, it didn't really pick up until he was a little bit older, the device use. And of course, at that point, sisters started doing it too. After a certain point, I did know that it was not doing them any favors. Like, and it was actually harmful for them to be using their electronic devices. So, you know, they would have limited time, or it was only at certain times they were allowed to use it. But again, I do realize, and I'm gonna admit this up front, I know that what happened here and me letting them use it because I needed a little bit of a reprieve did them no favors. And it and it really was harmful for them. And now that they're older, the repercussions of this have been pretty significant because they're so attached to having a device that taking it away from them is almost like watching um a drug addict detox. And I know that sounds kind of severe, but I'm sure a lot of mothers are kind of nodding along at this point, like, yeah, that's how my kid is too. You'll know if your kid is basically addicted to the their device, if they get really violent and aggressive and if they are really acting out and get really like depressed and stuff when they don't have it. When you take it away initially, and there's this moment of like they're coming down from this high, that is actually what it is. They're coming down from a high. And the the dopamine and serotonin that it's being released into their brains when they're using these devices is really bad for them because now they're in a situation where they don't know how to regulate themselves. They don't know how to do it, and they've been exposed to these devices, and now we have this problem. So even now, as I sit here, you know, we had a small problem today. We had visitors over at the house, and the kids all found out about some update having happening to one of their favorite games. All of them dropped what they were doing and ran for their devices and were trying to just play with their devices. And, you know, our relatives that were visiting, our my little grandson kind of came walking over and he was like, I don't have anything to do, please. There's nothing for me to do. And we had to go and take everyone's devices and, you know, put our foot down. The reaction was fine, but again, my son is always a little extra in that area. He reacts much more aggressively. And so I can see it on him. And I spoke to my stepdaughter and her fiance today, and I said, you know, if there's one thing that I would say to anybody who has young children, I do understand. I understand the attraction for parents to use digital devices to help occupy their kid because it's overwhelming. And being a parent is overwhelming. But I'm here to say that that is one of my bigger regrets is that we did expose them to it and that it has caused a ripple in their lives and how their brains developed. And it has caused, you know, problems for us now. And it's it's an issue. We try to course correct and we do like actively make it a point to get them out of the house, get them off the devices. Like we do, we keep them active. I mean, you guys have heard me talk about it before. We make them walk out, we do things with them, but there's always that crawl right back to the device. And so it's been incredibly difficult. And we have seen the negative side effects of it. So we're trying to course correct, but we never really had to be here. And if it was at all possible and if it's possible for you to not have to go down this path, I highly encourage you not to. Don't buy them a device, don't buy them a tablet. If you let them use your phone, let it be very limited. Don't just hand them the phone. I mean, that's a huge problem in our house that my phone disappears at four o'clock when everyone gets home from school. I don't see it again until nine o'clock. Granted, sometimes they're calling their friends or they're doing little, which that I don't mind. But again, there's other things. So that's one parenting regret I wanted to share with you all, which I don't know if I said that was what was on my mind today, but it was things that I've thought of about being a parent that I could have just done better. So that's one of them. Now, this other one is becoming such an issue that I want to talk to all of you about it. The other thing I wish I had done better when the kids were younger is making them just eat the food that I cooked. Again, I would never call myself lazy, but I will say that there was a period of time where it was path of least resistance. Again, I can rationalize why I did everything I've done. I know why I did what I did, but I am feeling the repercussions now. So, most notably my son, who also happens to be my firstborn. So I don't know, put two and two together. Clearly, I was inexperienced. I'm figuring stuff out. But I want to help people do better than I did. When he was little, he was picky. You know, he didn't like certain things, he would give a hard time. I let it slide because, again, in the interest of my sanity, I was like, oh, fine, you just want chicken nuggets, fine. I'll just give you chicken nuggets. You know, I'll buy the nice chicken nuggets. Like I would cave quite a bit on the food because I just wanted him to eat. So I would let him just fine, you just want a piece of bread with butter? Okay, no problem. You don't want to eat the rice and beans and the food that I made. Okay, fine. What do you want? You want one of these little kids' meals? Fine, I don't care. It was such a rush, and I've complained about that to you guys before, it was such a blur and such a rush that I caved on a lot of things and related to food. And now he's older and it's a problem because now his palate is still limited. And I've let him get away with it for far too long with just wanting to eat certain foods. I'm not sure if there's also a change happening in him right now. I think that there is. Where he is in his age, I think he's in a nice milestone development right now that's affecting him. But nevertheless, he is down to like six foods that he will find acceptable. And it depends on his mood in the moment. And that's the part that really gets me because I certain, you know, I know the things that my kids eat and how they like them prepared. But the fact that it's like, well, I'm not in the mood for that today, that's my fault. That is my fault. And it, I solely, holy, holy, holy take responsibility for that horrible habit that I used to make like three different dinners. And I know I was in the habit of it anyway because of me and how my eating habits are. But now I'm in this position of, well, I cook food that I know my husband will eat and I think the girls might eat, but then I always have to make something extra because I know he's not going to eat it. And chances are one of the twins might not eat it. And so I've made it a habit of, oh, well, I'll just make this extra dish. Well, now I'm screwed because one of the nights that I'm super tired or I'm down on low on groceries and I have to just use what's in the house. I have people now here that are like, well, mom, I don't understand. You know, maybe what I want, I don't want to eat this. I'm just not gonna eat. I'll just eat crackers. This is a problem. I'm trying to deal with this now. And it is a problem because I made it a problem. I let this happen. Had I put my foot down when they were younger and just forced them to eat it and say, like, look, this is dinner. You don't eat this, you don't get anything, I wouldn't be in this position. I could not hold out on that one. I failed there. Don't fail there. Stick to your guns is really the key takeaway here. I want you to do better than me on this. So, in terms of electronic devices, if you can avoid it, avoid it at all costs. It is terrible for our children, horrible for their brains, and it is highly addictive. Food, make them try or make them eat everything that you cook because their palates are so restricted. And if you don't expand it, you're also gonna be in a bad situation where they will not eat food and it will be painful even taking them out to eat because they're not gonna want to eat anything on the menu. It's gonna be a problem. So I'll leave you with those two ones. One thing positive, not one thing positive, but one of the major things that I posit that my husband and I positively did with our children, and I've talked to you guys about that before, is the communication factor. We are highly communicative with the kids. We do not dumb anything down for them. We explain it to them. I use my regular language that I use every single day at my job and with adults, I use it with my kids. I don't sugarcoat anything, I don't distill it down. The only thing I've distilled down is when they've asked me about how do babies get into my belly. That I distill down. But for the most part, I shoot, shoot them straight. You ask me a question, I'm gonna ask you how detailed you want me to go, and I'm gonna give you the full answer. When they get in trouble, we explain to them why they're in trouble. They get punished, but we explain it to them and make them understand like you have to understand the logic here. I need you to hear me on this. Getting them to understand a different perspective and a different way of viewing things, highly critical. So there's certain things like that that I leaned in really hard for. And now I have these other things that I didn't. So, you know, I do give myself grace. I don't beat myself up too much about it. It just right now I'm in a kind of a slump with the food because it's been a big problem lately. I'm sure there'll be other big problems later on down the road. But I wanted to share these things with you today. This is what was on my mind. I felt like it was important to share with all of you. I hope you find it helpful. Thank you for being here with me today, and I will catch you on the next one. Take care.