New survey reveals staggering toll of raising young children
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Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Introducing the new style of parenting
Say your child doesn't grab a jacket despite you telling them it's going to rain. If you allow them to proceed despite warning them of the real-world consequences, like letting them get soaking wet, you may be practicing the trendy 'F*** Around and Find Out' parenting style. A rising number of parents are rejecting the Gen-Z-dominant model of 'gentle parenting' in favor of a newer, tougher approach commonly referred to as FAFO. The viral approach emphasizes consequences over permissive softness, unlike the style that influenced much of Gen Z's upbringing. FAFO parenting operates on a simple premise: parents issue warnings and let kids face the natural or even contrived results if they disregard rules. As the Wall Street Journal exemplifies, 'Won't bring your raincoat? Walk home in the downpour. Didn't feel like having lasagna for dinner? Survive until breakfast. Left your toy on the floor again? Go find it in the trash under the lasagna you didn't eat.' The Independent interviewed two psychologists, Dr. Terri Mortensen and Dr. Ross Greene, with differing opinions on FAFO parenting and how it could affect kids' long-term mental health. Mortensen, a parent coach in Davie, Florida, who runs a program for parents of anxious teens and those with OCD, says FAFO shares some traits with the well-known authoritative parenting style, but she doesn't believe the two are the same. 'I think FAFO is like a fun, fancy name that has come around and is a little spicier to fit some of the spicier parents that are out there,' she told The Independent, also making a viral TikTok on the approach, which she thinks today's society needs more of. 'I specialize in kids and teens, and I find that there's a lot of overly permissive, very anxious parenting that's happening. When we protect kids from everything, they struggle with confidence and resilience and being able to function later on because they haven't gone through things and been successful. Therefore, they don't have the confidence in themselves to be able to handle things and are always waiting for the safety net.' The adjunct professor at the Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice thinks FAFO parenting could be implemented as early as toddlerhood. As long as the natural consequences of this approach don't hurt the child or anyone else, she says this strategy can help even young kids learn independence. 'We don't want to let kids run free without any kind of guardrails or supervision. But even toddlers can figure out if they're running too fast, and they crash and fall, then the next time, they'll learn to slow it down a little bit more. Or if they're running down a hill and they're, again, running too fast, they can learn to slow down,' she said. Meanwhile, Greene, a child psychologist and author based in Portland, Maine, who developed the evidence-based Collaborative & Proactive Solutions model for addressing child behavior, tells The Independent that he's 'not a consequences guy' and believes adult-imposed consequences aren't appropriate at any age. The former Harvard Medical School faculty member criticized the tendency to pile on punishments, like spankings or time-outs, when natural consequences fail, arguing that many children don't respond to either. He said that consequences alone rarely address the root causes of behavior, but adults often rely on them due to a lack of alternative strategies. Struggles like getting out of bed, doing chores, or stopping video games are signs of unsolved problems, not issues that can be fixed with punishment, he said. Instead of focusing on consequences, adults should work with kids to solve these underlying problems. 'Natural consequences are inevitable, so whatever the effect is going to be, the effect is going to be,' Greene, who now runs the non-profit Lives in the Balance, said. 'I don't help adults make more consequences. I help adults solve problems with kids.' 'Good parenting is noticing when your kid is having difficulty meeting an expectation and collaborating with them on figuring out what's getting in their way and solving the problem together.' Greene continued, 'People who are heavy-duty, consequence-oriented would call that passive. There's nothing passive about it. It doesn't quite meet the criteria for gentle parenting, either. Gentle is not active enough for me. Kids have problems, and if all we're doing is consequences for their behavior, we're missing the boat.' Mortensen agrees that parents often use ineffective consequences, like grounding a teen for bad grades or taking away their phone during an emotional outburst, simply because they don't know a better way to respond. 'Consequences that make sense and fit the crime, so to speak, can be helpful, but I feel like a lot of parents do not use them in the right way,' she said. 'Let's say they're sending naked pictures. You should take the phone. That makes sense, but being disrespectful doesn't make sense to take the phone.' Mortensen said she isn't sure she would 'punish' a teen for being disrespectful to their parents, and agreed with Greene in this instance about having a collaborative conversation. 'It would have to be a conversation after everybody has calmed down, because trying to do that in the moment when everybody's pissed off is not going to work,' she said. 'Being able to stop and have a conversation when you're calm and say, 'Listen, you can't talk to me like this. When you're older, you're going to have people that you disagree with. We need to be able to communicate in a different way, where we both can feel heard, and if we need to take a break, let's take a break, and then we can come back to the conversation,' would be good.' Mortensen continued, 'Good parenting is all about balance: have a good relationship and also be able to give the child or teen space to be able to learn and be critical thinkers, take responsibility, and have the consequences.' Solve the daily Crossword
CBS News
an hour ago
- CBS News
An Ohio couple welcomes a baby boy from a nearly 31-year-old frozen embryo
A baby boy born last week to an Ohio couple developed from an embryo that had been frozen for more than 30 years in what is believed to be the longest storage time before a birth. In what's known as embryo adoption, Lindsey and Tim Pierce used a handful of donated embryos that have been frozen since 1994 in pursuit of having a child after fighting infertility for years. Their son was born Saturday from an embryo that had been in storage for 11,148 days, which the Pierces' doctor says sets a record. It's a concept that has been around since the 1990s but is gaining traction as some fertility clinics and advocates, often Christian-centered, oppose discarding leftover embryos because of their belief that life begins at or around conception and that all embryos deserve to be treated like children who need a home. "I felt all along that these three little hopes, these little embryos, deserved to live just like my daughter did," said Linda Archerd, 62, who donated her embryos to the Pierces. Just about 2% of births in the U.S. are the result of in vitro fertilization, and an even smaller fraction involve donated embryos. However, medical experts estimate about 1.5 million frozen embryos are currently being stored throughout the country, with many of those in limbo as parents wrestle with what to do with their leftover embryos created in IVF labs. Further complicating the topic is a 2024 Alabama Supreme Court decision that said that frozen embryos have the legal status of children. State leaders have since devised a temporary solution shielding clinics from liability stemming from that ruling, though questions linger about remaining embryos. Archerd says she turned to IVF in 1994. Back then, the ability to freeze, thaw and transfer embryos was making key progress and opening the door for hopeful parents to create more embryos and increase their chances of a successful transfer. She wound up with four embryos and initially hoped to use them all. But after the birth of her daughter, Archerd and her husband divorced, disrupting her timeline for having more children. As the years turned into decades, Archerd said she was wracked with guilt about what to do with the embryos as storage fees continued to rise. Eventually, she found Snowflakes, a division of Nightlight Christian Adoptions, which offers open adoptions to donors from people like Archerd. She was also able to set preferences for what families would adopt her embryos. "I wanted to be a part of this baby's life," she said. "And I wanted to know the adopting parents." The process was tricky, requiring Archerd to contact her initial fertility doctor in Oregon and dig through paper records to get the proper documentation for the donation. The embryos then had to be shipped from Oregon to the Pierces' doctor in Tennessee. The clinic, Rejoice Fertility in Knoxville, refuses to discard frozen embryos and has become known for handling embryos stored in outdated and older containers. Of the three donated embryos the Pierces received from Archerd, one didn't make the thaw. Two were transferred to Lindsey Pierce's womb, but just one successfully implanted. According to Dr. John David Gordon, the transfer of the nearly 31-year-old embryo marks the longest-frozen embryo to result in a live birth. He would know: Gordon says his clinic assisted in the previous record, when Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway were born from embryos frozen for 30 years, or 10,905 days. "I think that these stories catch the imagination," Gordon said. "But I think they also provide a little bit of a cautionary tale to say: Why are these embryos sitting in storage? You know, why do we have this problem?" In a statement, Lindsey and Tim Pierce said the clinic's support was just what they needed. "We didn't go into this thinking about records — we just wanted to have a baby," Lindsey Pierce said. For Archerd, the donation process has been an emotional roller coaster. Relief that her embryos finally found a home, sadness it couldn't be with her and a little anxiety about what the future holds next, with possibly meeting the Pierces and the baby in person. "I'm hoping that they're going to send pictures," she said, noting that the parents have already sent several after the birth. "I'd love to meet them some day. That would be a dream come true to meet — meet them and the baby." ___ This story has corrected the first name of Lindsey Pierce in the second paragraph.
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
‘The climate has always been changing': EPA chief defends push to roll back climate regulations
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin joins CNN's Kasie Hunt to discuss the Trump administration's push to reverse a landmark scientific finding that planet-warming pollution harms human health.
