5 Ways Parents Would Raise Their Kids Differently

I was recently hanging out with a friend who has an 11-year-old boy. At one point, she looked at my 4-year-old, who was cranky from being tired, and confessed that if she could go back in time, she would do things differently with her kid.

“What do you mean?” I asked while lovingly holding my boy tight as he started to whine his way into getting my iPhone so he could watch YouTube.

She says, "Well, I raised my child just like you, with so much love and never wanting him to be uncomfortable. Now my child has anxiety and is a bit of a mama’s boy who doesn’t challenge himself enough. If I could do it over, I wouldn’t give into him so fast and always try to fix it when he was fussy."

Gulp. I felt a little judged, but I know her words were coming from love. I could learn from her experience. Still, I wasn’t sure that I could stop helping my boy feel better when he was down. Eventually, I did hand over my phone for 20 minutes or so, so we could all relax.

At the same time, I knew her son was an amazing kid— kind, sensitive, sweet, mature. And my son adored him, so I wasn’t too concerned. But I knew I would give myself some time to think about her advice and see if I could tweak my parenting ways.

The conversation also made me think about all the other things that parents might do differently if they had the chance to turn back the clock. After checking in with myself and some other moms, here are the biggest things we would change:

1. Television Limits

When our boy was almost 1 year old, our pediatrician gave us a tip we ignored. She told us to take our television set out of our home. We should have listened, because now our boy wakes up crying for the tube and this carries on throughout the day. We have used TV as a babysitter, but it comes with a price. He has a hard time accepting when we turn it off and becomes a cranky mess. We are now starting an intervention and keeping him off any gadget until at least 5 p.m., limiting it to an hour a day — and maybe one day we’ll only allow it on weekends!

2. Sugar Intake

My son isn’t the worst sugar offender, but he does crave oatmeal cookies all day — especially for breakfast. (I guess it's a version of oatmeal?) If I could go back, I would hold off on introducing him to cookies that have real sugar. Doctors suggest that kids should have no more than 15 grams of sugar a day, and we are way over that amount. It’s true that not giving your kids any sugar can backfire and turn them into sugar addicts later in life, but I might have taken that chance. Now our next intervention will begin, and we won't be handing over those cookies so easily when he wakes up.

3. Sleep Habits

I love nighttime cuddles before bed, but our boy won’t fall asleep unless we are in his bed with him. When he wakes up in the morning, he instantly expects us to be near him, too, and cries at the top of his lungs for me, which isn't the best form of an alarm. This all started when we moved from the crib to the bed, and I wanted to comfort him to sleep. If I could relive that stage, I would kiss him goodnight and allow him to soothe himself to sleep.

4. Phone Usage

In the fifth grade, mom Daphne got her daughter a smartphone — and, boy, does she wish she could have waited. Her daughter is constantly looking at images of “perfect” bodies and faces on Instagram, and it makes her self-conscious. “In our day, we just had Seventeen magazine to look at, but with social media, kids are constantly comparing themselves 24/7 and posting glam photos of themselves, too,” she says. She also would have handed over the phone on the condition that she could check it any time and see what her daughter is doing on it. “Setting that precedent would have made a difference, and now she won’t listen to me,” Daphne says.

5. Handling Emotions

Mom Joanna says that if she could do it over, she would not feel guilty about letting her kids feel all their emotions. She says, "I do think we rush to fix things — this isn't a comment on providing love and comfort to 4-year-olds at all — and kids don't have a chance to work through their emotional challenges. Now that my kids are in college, the massive conversation going on around the nation is how difficult it is for the college-age group to regulate their emotions and sit with difficult ones. They are really, really struggling with anxiety. Our kids need guidance as they grow up with experiencing their feelings all the way through and then coming out the other side knowing they can."

There are always lessons we can learn from each other. No matter what happens, holding your kids close through their tough cranky moments is something none of us will regret.

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