The Hazelayas @robocookies - Tumblr Blog

My knowledge about child development versus the social pressure to not interfere with other people’s parenting fight daily

sandersstudies

Parent: *unintentionally escalates a child’s resistance so they fail to regulate the child, and hence become more embarrassed and upset and continue to escalate*

Me: and I will just. Um. Be normal about this. :)

sandersstudies

Oh and ESPECIALLY if you’re not a parent yourself. No matter how much time you’ve spent working with children or the amount of research you’ve done, if it’s not YOUR kid you couldn’t understand anything

sandersstudies

It’s not even “just” bad and abusive parents. It’s people who were raised that way and don’t know another way. Or they’ve been doing it so long they think it’s too late to change. Or they want to do better but have barriers to education and implementation. Or they’re trying traditional methods with a neurodivergent child. Or like a hundred other reasons.

sandersstudies

Okay so I’ve been thinking about this since yesterday and trying to be as fair as possible to these parents, because these are people in my extended village, and I’ve started thinking of some positive interactions/interventions I’ve had that aren’t “tell the parent they aren’t parenting correctly” (which we all know is unfair).

1. Care for the parent. If the parent is upset, they are likely going to upset the child, even if they don’t mean to. Give mom or dad a hug or some time to calm down before they have to jump into parenting again.

2. Related to part 1, offer to solve the problem without you ever disciplining the child. (It’s straight-up not my place to discipline children in front of their parents without explicit consent — only a few members of my village have told me that it’s acceptable for me to observe and correct their children.) This could be as simple as “hey it seems like the girls have a lot of energy right now, want me to watch them outside so they can run around while you finish what you’re doing?”

3. Talk to them in a calm moment if you see a pattern and see if they need long-term support. “Hey, I’ve noticed it’s really been a struggle for you to transition Della out of dance class and into the car. Is there anything I can do to help you and her with that transition? Does she need some extra time to pack her things or say goodbye to her friends?”

4. Relate to the child. Some people have forgotten what it’s like to be a kid, or they have a kid who is radically different from themselves. I was a kid who was often “naughty” myself and I remember my reasons (good AND bad) for behaving that way. Many parents genuinely don’t see the logic in children’s behavior and sometimes an outside adult who can say “hahaha I do that” is actually a weight off their minds.

5. Relate to the parent. And also, sometimes they just need you to be a wall for them to complain at. If they are really frustrated, it’s better they get it out of their system in a reasonable conversation with you than to snap at their kids later. Parenting IS hard — I haven’t done it myself but I’ve watched others do it long enough to glean.

if-not-now-tell-me-when

As an early childhood educator, all of this!!!! All of it. We are all unlearning so much toxic shit from our own childhoods, and from society at large. The majority of parents care so much, and they want to do the best for their children. They just are often lacking the tools, both parenting tools and tools to process their own childhood traumas.

Framing the conversation in terms of collaborative problem-solving helps them to feel heard, and (hopefully) lowers their sense of being judged. I often start these conversations with "I notice" or "I wonder" statements. "I notice morning drop-off has been very hard for Timmy." And then give them space to share their thoughts and feelings without my butting in or interrupting. And, as a bonus, having these conversations framed as collaborative problem-solving moments models for the parent how to have these same conversations with their child!

sandersstudies

I love this addition! It takes a village, and I might not be your kids' parent but I'm part of their/your village (relative, teacher, director, etc.) and there are problems we can solve together! <3

syn4k

ok note to self i gotta leave the house regularly so that i dont feel like im slowly transforming into an evil fucking shadow clone of myself

syn4k

So as it turns out your sense of self doesnt exist in a vacuum. You gotta actually use it and bounce it off of other people like echolocation to see where you are as a person and shit. So if you dont regularly interact with other people the echoes just get weaker and weaker and before you know it your personality is a blurry fucked up fog clone of its former self. which it sucks because this makes it really hard to interact with people again but yknow

dreamingnemleria

dragon-in-a-fez

cryptotheism

The Greco Egyptian Magical Fragments are so fun

cryptotheism

If I was drinking with the girls and someone threw a dog-bitten rock near me, I would ask the caster what's up. Why we throwing dog rocks?

dortie

molabuddy

[setting: large discord server]

you: abort that thang

someone you've never spoken to in your life: um, that's actually really offensive bc i was an abortion so you should delete this

you: wtf how

[you check the member list and they are nowhere to be found]

molabuddy

Moral of The Story: What?

molabuddy

A24 hit me the fuck up

lemonsweet

explodingthunder

(peer reviewed tags by @chortlebot)

hotcrossedfangs

shounenchild

my favorite part of this whole thing tbh

big-brain-brian

thecrumbez

Happy Pride Month to those two women dancing together in the foreground of the boat scene in Godzilla (1954).

I’m sorry your romantic foibles were overshadowed by a big ass atomic lizard thing.

erratic-dragon-fruit

out of the tags with you

mangled-by-disuse

in happier pride news i actually found this deeply heartwarming

that's solidarity baybeeee

lgbtlaughs

Further context: Durham city council (Reform UK) cut funding and support for Pride. The Durham Miner's Association and other trade unions raised enough money for Durham Pride 2026 to go ahead - a direct call back to when Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) raised money for mining communities when Margaret Thatcher seized union funding during the miner strikes of 1984-85.

At the 1985 Labour party meet, the motion to support LGBT rights as a party was passed due to a block vote from mining unions.

Stephen Guy, the chair of the Durham Miners’ Association, said that when it became apparent Durham Pride was under threat, he took it upon himself to “encourage the trade union movement to step up and do the right thing, and stand shoulder to shoulder with the LGBT+ community […] They not only raised funds for us, but came to our communities, uplifted our spirits when they were down, and showed their solidarity.”

lesbian-sweeney-todd

What you must understand is:

1. Men are systematically privileged over women.

2. Men love to take advantage of that privilege while simultaneously denying that it exists.

3. This dynamic does not change when the men and women in question are trans.

lesbian-sweeney-todd

Men get very upset when confronted with this!

👍

shark seg

shark seg

Shout out to trans women who aren’t computer scientists or musicians or avant-garde artists or whatever.

Shout-out to tgirls who work at Taco Bell. Thank u queen, society would collapse without you

snkrfnd

Over twenty years ago my big brother got me a job at a Taco Bell in the St. Louis suburbs-West County. He warned me that it was the “gay Taco Bell”, but since I was coming from the “gay Howard Johnson’s” I wasn’t shocked. It turns out it was the black trans women Taco Bell complete with black trans women in management. And they’d worked out an arrangement with the local teen Narcotics Anonymous group so that twice a week we would shut down the drive thru and the dining room and exclusively serve 60+ teens in various stages of recovery. And many of the women I worked with were in various stages of being out or transitioning and they were from all generations from teens to over 50. One woman I worked with had a regular corporate job presenting as a man 9-5 Mon-Fri and then came to Taco Bell and worked 6pm -2am Friday and Saturday night so she could be herself surrounded by other black transwomen in those stolen weekends. And we had customers come from all over the metro area because they knew they could be themselves in the dining room. I only worked there from 1999-2001 but for young me, this was a vital, formative experience. Some of the girls came from north city all the way out to the “gay Taco Bell” on Manchester in west county because they heard it was safe to work there. Like- I know times have changed but they haven’t changed much in 20 years. I’m still convinced that for lgbt youth, finding a job at your city’s version of the “gay Taco Bell” is key to survival.

natalieironside

Thank u for sharing this with us

janmisali

pick whatever option the person you follow who reblogged this post appears to NOT want you to pick. if you're seeing the original post and not a reblog, pick at random. if it's unclear which option the person whose reblog you're seeing wants you to pick, pester them until they give you a straight answer then do whatever they don't say. reblog at your own risk.

first option

second option

Remaining time: 4 days 18 hours

#pick the first

jingerpi

imagine you're a child, you learn your queer and your parents are extremely bigoted. you have some friends on Roblox who are very kind, they're in their early 20s and they sympathize as they went through the same things as a kid. they offer to use your correct name and pronouns, maybe some even offer to buy you a binder or help you find hrt or support groups local to you

roblox rolls out their age group system, and you can no longer talk to any adults on the platform. you can only talk to people in person, i.e. your parents, who are horrid. now you're back at square one, being helplessly abused. to make it worse, you're homeschooled, as I was. you can't reach out to anyone at school for support either.

or maybe you're not homeschooled, and you ask your pronouns to be used at school. it goes well for a while, and you feel some relief.

then your state passes a bill that requires forced outing. your teachers report to your parents that you've been trying out a different name and pronouns.

they pull you from school, send you to boarding school or conversion therapy, and force you to attend private schools in the future that match their values.

you are entirely under their control. you could've made connections with other adults, ones willing to help you out. to treat you like a human, give you access to life saving care. and it's stripped away, you're alone, and everything feels hopeless.

this is the reality for many children. this is almost exactly what I went through as a child. it is not a mere hypothetical, it happens regularly. please stop falling for this moral grandstanding, it's about control- it's always been about control.