@picandor i think that obviously, you shouldn't let your kid have candy and ice cream for breakfast, but it is still important to tell them *why*. and in general, telling kids why things are the way they are in a way that you feel like they can understand is going to provide them with extremely useful tools going forward in life.

tacking on to that, it's also important to be there to catch your kids when they fall and give them help and guidance instead of punishing them. the things that could have gone differently for me and, by extension, others if i wasn't just grounded for a week the fourth time i'd fucked up in the same way.

i won't trauma dump too hard though lol. i think long story short is just that i've seen enough bad parenting and been victim to it and thought it through so much in my head that i feel like there's no way i could make those mistakes, and if i did i would feel so fucking bad about it i'd try to make it up to my kid in any way i could as soon as i could. idk if i'll ever have the opportunity to have kids, i hope i do, but in the meantime i've been doing my best to just try and be nice and understanding to the ones i know.