In this two-part episode we interview bloggers Sarah Brenner Jones and Annie Bentley Waddoups. Together they run a wonderfully delightful blog on mid-stage parenting entitled “Nest & Launch.” In this interview Sarah and Annie share their approaches to thoughtful parenting during this unique stage of life — from the teen to the early adult years.
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Anyone else think these women are way too strict with technology? Making their kids read out there texts, not allowing devices in their own bedrooms, putting parental controls on everything, and even spying on their browser history… it all seems just a tad extreme. I chuckled a little bit when Annie said “I don’t want to give them too much structure and rules.” If your kid is so terrified they have to hide in the closet to watch Spongebob (or whatever) on their Ipad than I think you need to loosen the reins.
Fair enough, Brian. I think it’s something that every parent navigates and decides according to their own circumstances and the personalities of the kids involved. I think when you combine both sets of our efforts (Sarah’s and mine), it probably does sound like overkill. At our house, we actually don’t have parental controls on everything and our kids have their own passwords on their devices and I’ve never checked user history but we do keep device use out in the open to encourage good content choice as well as to encourage reading, creative projects, and other activities beyond the screen. Some parents put time limits on use, some look at browser history or put passwords on devices, some parents don’t let kids own their own computers or iphones. The structure relaxes in our house as they get older and gain experience and trust in navigating the internet landscape. We’d rather give them the devices and help them develop healthy tech habits than withhold their use entirely. All in all it’s worked pretty well for us but I completely agree that it may not be the case for every home.
The great thing about the closet incident (and no, it wasn’t anything as innocuous as Spongebob) is that it actually started a great conversation about better ways of advocating for rule relaxation than hiding and lying. Our poor oldest child…subject to such green, trial-and-error parenting.
I enjoyed the podcast. I’m wondering if you could post links to the younger children blogs that were mentioned at the beginning of the podcast https://www.designmom.com/ and others? Also, what younger or older children/parenting blogs would they recommend by non-Mormons? I would like to find some good ones written by/for non-LDS. Any suggestions?
Enjoyed this one and hope more like it are planned for the future. I’d love to hear from Melissa Dallton-Bradford and elevenoclockmom.com on similar questions. They both live abroad in this season of life and I’m curious what is different and what is the same for them.