What is the worst parenting advice you have ever received?

Question

I have been given a lot of parenting advice over the years and have even tried some of the suggestions. I have since learned to just trust my own instincts. What I want to know is what is the worst or craziest advice you've ever been given, and did you try it?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

hehehe, I get so much bad advice all the time! But the ones that always take the cake come from my MIL. For instance, keep a baby in a playpen all day without picking them up and never let them learn to crawl so that they are easier to manage, only let them out when they have learnt to stand and walk and knock the playpen over! Can you believe that!!! Or how about, tying a toddler into a cot to stop them throwing the bed clothes off so that you don't need to have heating going all night. I think that she was lucky that laws were so lenient 40 odd years ago. With some of the things older women have told me to do, its a wonder any of us made it out of childhood alive! haha.

Answer 2

"Never trust your children. They're always up to no good."
I've recieved NUMEROUS pieces of advice when it comes to parenting from all kinds of people...but this quote was probably the worst comment I ever heard.
I was at my 8yr son's football game this past fall and I was talking to a women next to me. She has a older son the same age as my oldest (10yrs) and was telling me how he was extremely sneaky and constantly lying in the past etc. She can't believe a word that comes out of his mouth and doesn't have trust in her 8yr either because of what her oldest did. I told her that my 10yr was usually well behaved, didn't lie etc and on the rare occasion that he does, we handle with it with a punishment He didn't lose my trust forever and his behavior certainly doesn't influence how I treat my other kids.. She said, "Yeah, that's what I thought when it came to my son too, but I was WRONG. I won't have it happen with my youndest...Never trust your kids..."
Well if you never trust them at any point in their life or judge them based on another's before, you're going to run into some issues in the future.
Best Wishes =]

Source(s):

mom of 4, degree in child development

Answer 3

Anything told to me by my now ex MIL. When my daughter was a newborn she told me I was going to spoil my child by holding her. Mind you, she was a few hours old. She also told me to put whiskey on her pacifier to put her to sleep. My daughter was a preemie and needed to be fed every 4 hours, even if that meant waking up to do so. The nut told me not to bother waking up, and let the baby sleep. There's so many loopy and inane things she told me and no, I didn't follow her advice and lucky for my daughter and I, the nut is no longer a part of our lives.

Answer 4

"Put karo syrup in one ounce of water and feed it to your newborn to make them sleep through the night". Seriously, what the french toast!!!?!?? You don't give a newborn karo and water like that! I've been given some nutty, off the wall advice but this one took the cake.

I trust my own instincts :)

Answer 5

To put rice/cereal in my daughter's milk to get her to sleep through the night - it's BS, no I did not listen - I did my research first! Also - to let kids cry it out - mine only cried when they had a reason and I don't like to ignore that! It goes against all of my mommy instincts! I don't ignore those!

Answer 6

I was told to always be strict with my kids to keep them in line. As they got older I realized that the more you try to control your kids the more they rebel and the best thing to do is not to control them but direct them in the right direction.

Answer 7

The worst advice i ever got was a man told me instead of paying for stitches or bandaids you should super glue the wounds closed. And no im not anywhere near stupid enough to superglue a wound closed instead of taking them for stitches.

Answer 8

ALWAYS believe what your kids say. that is like wrong because they could also lie. however, i strongly believe that you should believe them most of the time when the background evidence is pretty clear that your child is innocent.

Answer 9

'Hug him tight, tell him not to do so', whenever he shows tantrum, scream or cry for no reasons.
I tried and situations get worst. I don't believe in it anymore. It's all depend of types of kids.

Answer 10

My grandparents told me to smack my kids to "put them in line". I wanted to ask how that worked for them, seeing as between them they have 16 children and 5 max come around anymore.

Answer 11

The worst parenting advice i have ever received was when my mom told me not to have kids! This was because she has 3 kids now and never has time to herself. Actually it is quite funny!LOL

Answer 12

When my toddler used to bite, people said bite him back. I never did.

Source(s):

edit: Ok, I'm confused. All the people giving me a "thumbs down" think I should have bitten my child?

Answer 13

The worst i would say when someone told me "Beat them with a frying pan" :S

Answer 14

To let your baby cry it out, I would never do that.