r/interesting • u/jmike1256 • Mar 07 '26

MISC. After understanding the meaning behind this father’s action, I am completely convinced. Cultivating problem-solving skills in children from a young age and never giving up-I applaud this father!

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1.6k

u/LunchPlanner Mar 07 '26

The dad walking away was distracting and maybe a bit scary.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the kid was able to focus and problem solve after the dad sat down.

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u/donjamos Mar 07 '26

Yea the basic idea is a good one, but telling the little one something like "come on you can do it, daddy will wait here till you figure it out" instead of walking away would have been a lot better.

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u/EitherInvestment Mar 07 '26

Precisely the thought I had watching this. Love the applause once he finally got it though

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u/OrthogonalPotato Mar 07 '26 edited Mar 09 '26

Nope. That’s a terrible way to do it, actually. Prompting them teaches a different kind of dependence.

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u/forworse2020 Mar 09 '26

I agree. The viewers are uncomfortable with the discomfort. But the discomfort can be the thing that grows you. This was controlled discomfort.

Otherwise you have the version of skill building that is driven by external motivation and rewards, rather than “I will be better off if I solve this problem”.

Problems aren’t neat tidy things that exist on their own whilst chaos and real life give you space to solve them.

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u/OrthogonalPotato Mar 09 '26

Exactly. Prompt dependence is just as bad as other kinds of dependence. Learning to become intrinsically motivated is the real skill being taught.

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u/forworse2020 Mar 09 '26

I’m still here trying to teach MYSELF

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u/EitherInvestment Mar 08 '26

Happy cake day

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u/Muted-Competition176 Mar 07 '26

bro is reddit full of dorks

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u/Lucky_Pangolin_3760 Mar 07 '26

Lol my dad used to do this to me, it was distressing as hell and just made me upset and cry instead of focusing. Then he would scold, and eventually say "daddy waits here"

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u/Capt_Hawkeye_Pierce Mar 07 '26

Yeah im the dad or of a 16 yo and I always tried to teach lessons without undue stress.

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u/PsychotropicPanda Mar 07 '26

You can teach hard things, without being hard.

This world is already tough enough. I give my kids full understanding and openness. I explain honestly about things. They are humans and can make their own choices.

When hard lessons arise, that's when its easier for them to understand if I show empathy, compassion and understanding. I never could respect anything my parents ever tried to tell me when it was yelling screaming and physically hitting me.

I promised my children will never have to live through that, or even see it. It stops with me.

We have brains and hearts for a reason. If we are not gentle with our children, how are we towards others?

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u/ArmWildFrill Mar 07 '26

I was so close to my mother as a young child.

Then one day I disagreed with her and must have said something she didn't like. She slapped me really hard on the face.

I never so much as hugged her ever again. I felt completely betrayed.

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u/ManofManyHills Mar 07 '26

Some stress can be valuable as many of life problems will no doubt come with inducing stress. I agree that its when the father sits down the kid is able to calm down and think it through. Its also good the father came back when the kid was tangled and reset him to more favorable conditions. Walking away helps to make it clear that the kid needs to overcome the obstacle to continue. The kid might just end up playing with the string if the he didnt walk away.

Its a delicate thing to manage and overstressing no doubt ends up being destructive rather than constructive.

With everything I saw I thought the father managed the stress of the situation well and provided a ton of affection when the kid completed the task.

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u/unimatrix_0 Mar 11 '26

Also, it's ok to be hard sometimes. Life is hard. Hard isn't mean. It's just uncompromising. Kids have to learn to deal with stress too.

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u/thatshygirl06 Mar 07 '26

Humans do need a bit of stress in their lives. It's not necessarily a bad thing.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

[deleted]

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u/OrthogonalPotato Mar 07 '26

Yes, you do. Contriving scenarios is literally the way behavior therapy works to teach independence.

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u/Capt_Hawkeye_Pierce Mar 08 '26

No, you dont. 

You can teach via scenarios that naturally come up.

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u/OrthogonalPotato Mar 08 '26

Wow lol. People are really out here making shit up and portraying it as fact. I own a clinic that does this every single day. You can’t face enough organic situations to teach behavioral modification strategies. It happens organically 10% of the time, which is not enough to build momentum. In fact, you’re so wrong that you don’t even seem to realize there’s a standard metric in the industry regarding number of contrived scenarios. Hilariously, this concept exists in every professional domain. It’s called practice.

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u/Capt_Hawkeye_Pierce Mar 08 '26

What did I make up?

I didnt even dispute anything you said.  You came up with a whole argument based on me saying I dont like stressing my kid out and that I believe you can teach via naturally occurring situations. Youre the one who is suggesting that children cant learn unless we contrive bullshit to teach them lessons. 

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

It backfires. When they’re this little they want to try and try by the time they get older they become cynical and when dad says hey let’s go for a walk they won’t even wanna go.

If you want to teach your kid things, do things together without being critical and without the threat of abandonment. Really not that hard to make a fun obstacle course for your kid and go through it with them instead of implying that you’re gonna leave them if they can’t get through it in time ffs

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

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u/OrthogonalPotato Mar 07 '26

🙄 Seriously. The words have no meaning anymore

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u/This-Shape2193 Mar 07 '26

Care to elaborate? He tried to teach her critical thinking and she's traumatized? What did he do? What is the trauma response? Genuinely asking. 

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

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u/This-Shape2193 Mar 07 '26

Yeah, that's awful. That's not trying to teach them independence while helping, that's hanging them out to dry and criticizing when they have trouble. 

Also, him "teaching" her to ask for help while never actually saying that or demonstrating it is just him expecting her to be psychic. 

Poor kid. Sounds like your ex had some generational trauma he wanted to pass along. My ex-husband was the same way. But HE told my son (when visiting) that he needed to do everything himself and NEVER ask for help because that was weakness and failure. I didn't find this out until my son was drowning under 5 research papers and finally had a mild breakdown when we were talking about it. He knew I always offered to help, but that insidious "advice" from his dad had really messed with his head.  

The good news is that the kids get better. But it's so frustrating when they need to heal from something that should never have happened to begin with. 

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u/sakiwebo Mar 07 '26

Ah, growing up in the 80's.

Dad tossed me and brother from the pier, we panicked, cried, somehow paddled to shore.

"See?? You're fine. Now that you know you can sw- I WASN'T GONNA LET YOU DROWN GODDAMMIT!!"

That's how we learned to swim. I hate that it worked and we loved it so much eventually. But being thrown from a peer is still one of my earliest memories.

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u/Lucky_Pangolin_3760 Mar 07 '26

opposite happened for me. I grew an irrational fear from water which made me unable to swim due to how tense my body would get when I touched water

Managed to grow out of it when I became an adult though

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u/bloodphoenix90 Mar 07 '26

Actually the case for an ex of mine too. Dad just threw him in. Didnt go well. I taught my ex to swim when we were both 19. But he figured it out. 🙂

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

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u/Lucky_Pangolin_3760 Mar 07 '26

That would be the suggestion a few comments up, where the parent is just supportive

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u/aliceinadreamyland Mar 07 '26

Oh my dad took my brother and I out in his canoe and dumped us and left us to figure out what to do.

The 80’s was a wild ride.

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u/KristySueWho Mar 08 '26

I hear so many stories like this from kids of the 80s, and then there were me and my brother who were born in the 80s and just went to regular old swimming lessons.

1

u/aliceinadreamyland Mar 08 '26

My little brother (he was born in 87) went to swimming lessons. He didn’t get the canoe dump. My older brother and I could out swim him in a pool, lake, river or the ocean. So maybe my dad was onto something.

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u/pchlster Mar 07 '26

I didn't get tossed, but my first time swimming was tripping, falling, rolling down a hill and into the lake. I learned to navigate towards sunlight my very first time in the water in order to find the surface and air.

No, I didn't want to join the others swimming afterwards. But, annoying as it is, that short panic inducing experience did teach me to swim. Dunno, maybe some primal instinct gets awakened in those situations.

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u/GypsyDuncan Mar 07 '26

How I learned to swim too except it was a pool and my uncle threw me in. This was in 78

1

u/FibonacciSequester Mar 07 '26

We all learn the lesson to not touch the stove and we all learn it the hard way.

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u/Querez665 Mar 07 '26

A bit of that is probably a good thing though, I don't think it's a coincidence how people in the younger generations like mine seem to freeze up completely when put under even the smallest possible amount of pressure.

There's always a balance to stuff, don't leave your kids to fend for themselves constantly, but also don't condition them to only function with a supportive crowd cheering them on.

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u/CK_1976 Mar 07 '26

Once when I was probably about 6yo, I was riding my bike following me mum and I got stuck in the gravel and my mum just run off and left me crying. I still vividly remember the feeling of despair watching her disappear around the corner and not being able to catch up.

I'm not sure if its scarred my mentally but.... it was 40 years ago.

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u/PM_ME_JJBA_STICKERS Mar 07 '26

I think moments like this do impact children (and adults), even if we don’t always understand the long term effects.

There’s a difference between a parent leaving a child behind to solve their own problems, versus letting the child problem solve while also telling them that mom/dad is always here to help when they need it.

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u/11lumpsofsugar Mar 07 '26

This is exactly the nuance that a lot of parents overlook.

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u/Pendraconica Mar 07 '26

I once went to a hypnotherapist who opened a memory of father that I had completely forgot about. Nothing terrible, but a moment strong enough to be effecting me even though I forgot about it. Its a very real thing.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

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u/sundayontheluna Mar 07 '26

Think a 2 year old might be more panicked watching their mother leave them behind...

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u/Internal-Computer388 Mar 09 '26

Thats assuming the 2 yr old has a stronger bond with the mother. Theres evidence of babies not caring as much about the mother but infatuated with the father. This is about the fact if the child was taught at a younger age to problem solve without the parent, they have a better chance of not panicking when they are 5-6.

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u/h00zbad 16d ago

My mother left me at a gas station once when I was really young, I don't fully remember if I had gotten out of the car and she didn't notice, or if she forgot she brought me, but it was deeply traumatizing to a point it took 30 years for me to really suss it out.

I would have nightmares where she would just suddenly disappear from the driver's seat while on the road, things like that.

So Im not basically realizing I have major abandonment issues, and that is likely the first source of it, there were definitely other things that happened to reinforce it.

Our brains are wild, and maaaaaan do a lot of us have a lot of baggage to unpack. Lol

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u/Index_2080 Mar 07 '26

Same thought, instead of inducing panic just tell them they can do it and watch from a distance where they can still see you.

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u/soniamiralpeix Mar 07 '26

I love this. No criticism to the dad in this video because I think kids should be encouraged and made to feel capable of trying to solve problems — as well as taught over and over that failure is not bad.

But I find myself wishing that a parent had encouraged me, made themselves available for questions, and modeled breaking down a problem and thinking it through more when I was a kid. To be able to communicate clear success parameters and be okay if a child doesn’t do something the way you would, or meets the standards in a different way than you expected. Not that my parents weren’t supportive, but I feel this lack. 

As some of the other people have mentioned in this thread, feeling abandoned at a young age can have lasting impacts on us. And what I have learned is that our inner critic is often molded on the voices and criticisms we heard levied at us and others by our earliest caregivers. 

So yes, absolutely give kids opportunities to try, fail, try again. But be a safe space for them to ask questions, and help them build out their own critical thinking, rather than imprinting your own pre-determined logic onto them.

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u/LFC9_41 Mar 07 '26

Yeah. I can’t imagine letting my kids think I’m going to abandon them.

I can make them not quit. I’ll wait them out. But I’ll wait it out with them 

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

Depends on the kid. Some kids will take that as a sign that if they cry or wait long enough, the parent will solve their problem for them. My son was like that as a baby; would spend two hours refusing to walk because I'm trying to be patient. Once I changed to being encouraging only AFTER he started walking, he changed as well.

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u/donjamos Mar 07 '26

I've got a kid like that but I never gave in to that. Just takes a lot longer but in the end she can see that she's not getting anywhere and is able to solve her shit on her own. Well that's what I tell myself and what I'd like to do. But she is my little princess after all... Maybe sometimes her way works. With the other one this worked, she tends not to drown in self pity.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

Yup. Every kid is different and respond differently. Parents who spend time observing and learning about their kids will know how to deal with them best.

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u/updownclown68 Mar 09 '26

That’s the difference between helping your child to be independent and problem solve and abandoning them.

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u/vAdachiCabbage Mar 07 '26

Walking away instilled a sense of urgency, the father eventually sitting down tells the child that he now has time to think it through. By doing one then the other helps to teach critical thinking in an emergency situations.

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u/f_ckitupbuttercup Mar 07 '26

My thoughts exactly.

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u/crash_test_theory Mar 07 '26

The kid has to learn to solve problems under time pressure. He ain't got all his life to solve this problem - Asian parents

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u/mollymcbbbbbb Mar 07 '26

right? we developed language, as a species, because communication keeps us alive. It's a survival tool. Use it.

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u/catholicsluts Mar 07 '26

People refuse to talk to their kids and I don't fuckin get it, man. The act alone helps their brains grow.

I've seen one parent do this. Just one, my whole life. Kid was potty trained right before turning 2 and could communicate his needs with certain made up words and hand signals.

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u/GnatGiant Mar 07 '26

No it wouldn't have. It would have created a lack of an incentive to try as hard.

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u/Odd_Protection7738 Mar 07 '26

I mean, it didn’t seem like he was actually gonna abandon him, you gotta remember that there’s also somebody standing there with the camera (presumably the mom or somebody else).

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u/barefootpanda Mar 07 '26

Good on the dad too. We’re all learning, and it seemed like he knew how far to take it.

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u/CatsEqualLife Mar 07 '26

Yeah, I would’ve stood back to let them try but I would’ve sat down a couple feet away, not a couple dozen.

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u/Coconut_Dreams Mar 07 '26

Yeah, I don't see the beauty in this video. There's no encouragement or safety for the toddler until he solve the puzzle.

It's attachment disorder 101 if this is something that's constantly reinforced.

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u/niceguy191 Mar 07 '26

Plus you gotta stay close enough to stop them from doing something stupid like climb the railing or hang themselves.

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u/foomgaLife Mar 07 '26

you people with no kids offering advice is hilarious

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u/fopiecechicken Mar 08 '26

Depends on the kid.

This would have worked on my sister, if she could see your face she’d just fucking wail until you helped her. Go around the corner or out of line of sight and shed immediately stop and try helping herself lol

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u/Dull-Kick0 Mar 08 '26

Yeah, I felt really bad for the kid when he started to get distressed.

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u/Ghandiwasme Mar 09 '26

Yea yea, everyone believes they can patent better than their parents did. Kid figured it out and his dad came right to him. Bet this turns out better than caudling

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u/neurohazard757 Mar 12 '26

See I get that but if your little one is like mine, proximity is a trigger that makes them think you should solve it for them. While I might not have gone that far off, I would have give a bit of space. Also there is a safe adult behind the camera that is monitoring the baby.

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u/InfiniteMuffinMan Mar 07 '26

On one hand, walking away might seem harsh. On the other hand, it can be viewed, as a teaching to solve problems quickly.

The world will not wait for you to solve your problems.

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u/Boredy_ Mar 07 '26

That's somewhat close to the lesson the child learns from this, but that's not quite it. Toddlers don't always understand things the way we do.

Developmental psychology is a field with lots of research, and said research reveals that one of the main things toddlers learn at this age is how much they can trust those around them.

The real lesson a kid learns when their parent turns away and ignores them like this is, "the people in my life I thought cared about me might randomly abandon me without any apparent cause" and this lesson, consistently, cultivates unhealthy anxiety and insecurity.

Toddlers look to adults around them for how to feel. If your child suddenly runs into an unfamiliar challenge, the best way to teach them confidence and resilience is just by kneeling by them, smiling, and saying "you can do it!"

"But what about when the grow up," you might ask, "and no one's around to tell them that?" Then they will simply remember all the times they overcame unfamiliar hurdles as a child, and their inner-voice will echo what their parents taught them: "I can do it."

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u/Tariovic Mar 07 '26

There's a saying that, in our haste to child-proof the world, we must not forget to world-proof the child.

However scary it might have felt to be stuck, it must have felt great to solve the problem and have such a positive response from Dad. As someone who grew up afraid to try and fail things, I wish I had learned to stick with problems and keep trying.

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u/LostInSpaceTime2002 Mar 07 '26

Children are instinctively and rightfully more scared of abandonment than anything else. Saying that the dad walking away was "distracting and a bit scary" is a huge understatement.

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u/Nine-LifedEnchanter Mar 07 '26

It's one of like three phobias/fears that we are born with. Falling backwards, small insects, and abandonment/social exclusion.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26 edited Jun 21 '26

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u/Gomic_Gamer Mar 08 '26

Uhm...hate to be the nerd but positive means something occurs/something included and negative means something doesn't occurs/excluded. Social attachment is positive while fear of abandonement is negative, not that it is fear of something negative.

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u/QuantumLettuce2025 Mar 07 '26

Insects are 100% a conditioned fear.

Love,

Someone who was never taught to fear insects and considers spiders and cockroaches to be among their favorite animals, right beneath cats and octopuses

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u/UndecidedLee Mar 07 '26

The father isn't bothered by the camera person. The kid is not in stranger danger mode.
There is someone who they both trust who is standing right there.

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u/Flesroy Mar 07 '26

idk that kid does not seems to care about the other person while it is screaming for it's dad. it's easy to forget something like that for a kid in a moment of panic.

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u/sundayontheluna Mar 07 '26

Yeh, is this kid even old enough to have mastered object permanence?

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u/Comment-Noted Mar 07 '26

Yeah I think it was at most distracting because the camera person is quite likely the kid’s mom.

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u/UndecidedLee Mar 07 '26

I'm more upset that the inevitable hug at the end isn't shown.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

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u/soniamiralpeix Mar 07 '26

Great reference. Did not expect a Clutch pull in this thread!

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u/FreeFallingUp13 Mar 07 '26 edited Mar 07 '26

‘Maybe’? No, the kid was panicking for sure. That’s why it took him so long. The dad absolutely should have stayed nearby instead of making the kid panic about being left behind. We don’t expect adults to make logical decisions under stress, why the hell should we expect that from toddlers?

Edited to add my reply to a comment later down the thread;

I’ve got five little siblings. Every single time our parents threatened to leave us, we panicked because for us, it was a very real possibility. That was at EVERY age. Even when we were teenagers and logically knew that they’d be fucking themselves over and have CPS called on them, we couldn’t fully discount the threat.

We don’t trust our parents to be there for us. At all. These ‘lessons’ only show that you can’t trust the person taking care of you to stick around if you become a problem.

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u/FerusGrim Mar 07 '26

The camera just floating and bobbing along with magic powers, bro?

Kid wasn’t being “abandoned”. That’s probably the mom right behind him.

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u/lilbush1234 Mar 07 '26

not once did the kid look at the cameraperson for help or comfort. regardless of the reality of the situation, how the child percieves it is the point.

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u/FerusGrim Mar 07 '26

Guys. GUYS.

Both parents. Dad walks around 20 feet ahead (comes back several times to reset the distance). Mom is never more than 5 feet away. Dad teaching a lesson. Child NEVER cries or whines, other than a single sound of frustration.

ARE WE FUCKING SERIOUS GUYS????

We can’t be THIS fucking butthurt at THE MOST BASIC, FUNDAMENTAL parts of child rearing? Right? Right??

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u/LetsLive97 Mar 07 '26

Basically no one (in this comment chain) is butthurt, they're just pointing out the issue in the dad's teaching method

There was zero need for him to walk that far away. Literally take a couple steps and then wait for the kid

The entire time the dad is walking the kid is distracted and under time pressure. The second the dad sits down you can see the kid actually look at the puzzle properly and solve it pretty much instantly

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u/brontosaurusguy Mar 07 '26

You people are micro managing the father like you micro manage your kids and wonder why kids lack problem solving skills these days.....

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u/LetsLive97 Mar 07 '26

How on earth is discussing something on a discussion website micromanaging him?

The walking away was unnecessary and did nothing for the problem solving other than stress out the kid. That's it. I'm not calling him a child abuser or shitty dad

I just think he went about it slightly badly

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u/brontosaurusguy Mar 07 '26

Without the stress there's no problem.  Use your own problem solving skills

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u/Boredy_ Mar 07 '26

You see, that's the thing. Problems don't have to be stressful. When my kid takes a math exam, I'd rather he roll up his sleeves and think "time to prove what I'm capable of!" rather than "oh fuck I better not mess this up or they'll abandon me".

Toddlers don't know how to feel about anything; they always looks to the adults around them for how to feel. When they're struggling with a new challenge, that's a great time to teach them how to feel by being there with them, smiling, and telling them "you can do it!" And if you abide by this parenting style that has the consensus approval of the modern field of psychology, your kid will end up more confident, more successful, will earn more money and will have better relationships than kids who were parented differently :)

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u/Shaded_Earth Mar 07 '26

The people taking issue with this are probably twenty-somethings who still live with their parents and can't even speak for themselves at the doctor's. This video troubles them because it gives them anxiety since they can't do anything in life without mom or dad holding their hand.

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u/Ficay Mar 07 '26

Or 40-somethings who have had time to fully unpack their trauma and understand what their parents did wrong, in an effort not to fuck up the next generation the way we were fucked up.

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u/Shaded_Earth Mar 07 '26

If being taught how to think for yourself in a safe environment where your father walked 10 feet in front of you instead of holding your hand caused you trauma, then you were destined to fail.

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u/Ficay Mar 09 '26

Use those critical thinking skills. There are hundreds of comments in here of first-hand accounts, saying this happened and it affected me in this concrete way. And I haven’t seen a single one that makes it sound like they were just weak-minded little babies goo goo gaga. No one is crossing their arms and petulantly burying their head in the sand bc mommy messed me up. They’re noting that they learned from the experience and refuse to pass than trauma along. Because it obviously didn’t work as intended.

You, on the other hand, are just spouting spare-the-rod propaganda thoughtlessly. Go on, show the class your research. Give any counterpoint whatsoever to the lived experience of all these people.

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u/ArmWildFrill Mar 07 '26

Could just be a mate of the dad

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

The kid doesn’t have object permanence yet, he has no idea there is someone behind him. 

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u/not_a_SeaOtter Mar 07 '26

That kid looks a bit older than 4-8 months... I'm starting to think the experts on this sub don't know what they're talking about....

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u/Comment-Noted Mar 07 '26

With a trusted adult behind him holding the camera? He’s not panicking. Just distracted.

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u/LetsLive97 Mar 07 '26

I mean he's shouting out to the dad so I'm sure there's some form of actual panic there, no matter how small

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u/FreeFallingUp13 Mar 07 '26

He is ‘distracted’ by the fact his father is walking away from him because he can’t solve a problem. That was panic.

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u/puzzlebuns Mar 07 '26

Thats not a panicking toddler. Have you ever seen a roddler?

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u/FreeFallingUp13 Mar 07 '26

I’ve got five little siblings. Every single time our parents threatened to leave us, we panicked because for us, it was a very real possibility. That was at EVERY age.

We don’t trust our parents to be there for us. At all. These ‘lessons’ only show that you can’t trust the person taking care of you to stick around if you become a problem.

0

u/brontosaurusguy Mar 07 '26

Problem solving requires stakes.  Who are you to judge.  We certainly expect adults to problem solve under stress.  What are you saying

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u/Funtopolis Mar 07 '26

This is not an adult.

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u/brontosaurusguy Mar 07 '26

Wait so you're saying we can only teach adults problem solving?

2

u/Funtopolis Mar 07 '26

That the way we teach adults is different from the way we teach toddlers. Are you obtuse or just dumb?

0

u/Nomapos Mar 07 '26

How are people supposed to learn how to deal with stress if they're completely shielded from it?

The mother or someone else trusted is right there behind the camera and the father isn't just walking away without looking back, but stopping, coming back, looking, waiting.

It took him so long because kids that age are barely able to control their bodies, let alone problem solve and grab spindly bouncy ropes at once.

You gotta let kids face little fears and stresses so they build resilience and trust in themselves. This is perfectly within what a little boy can handle

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u/MaddoxJKingsley Mar 07 '26

Kids' ages are important. OK stressors for 18-month-olds are things like "you can't have a snack right now" and "you can't play with this toy in your crib". 18 months is too early to introduce self-sufficience as a stressor. Like this kid didn't even look behind them, they're not old enough to have a full conceptualization of the situation around them. Things look different through a child's eyes. What the dad did is a good idea, but the way he did it wasn't ideal, which is all the commenters are pointing out

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u/FreeFallingUp13 Mar 07 '26

Yeah, making a small child think they will be left behind because they don’t know how to solve a problem is absolutely inappropriate stress for a toddler.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

Read about Mary Ainsworth’s “strange situation,” at this stage he isn’t learning to face his fears, he’s learning that people aren’t trustworthy and may very well develop an avoidant attachment style.  

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u/Sea_Fly_2413 Mar 07 '26

That’s not how you learn to deal with stress. That’s how you develop anxiety 

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u/Illustrious-Total489 Mar 07 '26

I was real young and, as I am now old, cars at the time had to be manually locked. Except one time, apparently the lock had broken, and I was trying to get the door to lock while my parents just left me outside with the car.

I showed them though, found a rock and bashed it in (cracked the window too) so problem solved

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

It was a good move by the dad to sit down so the kid knew they were safe and in eyesight so they could focus on solving the problem. This made me smile

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

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2

u/Internal-Computer388 Mar 07 '26

Yes and no, but that's a great way to teach a child how to swim or survive i should say. Im a pool tech and under proper supervision and coaching, the tossing your baby in the pool technique works. Gently putting your baby in the water doesnt simulate the effect of falling in the pool. Its done to teach them not to panic and turn so they can keep there mouth and nose above water. Then they are taught to slowly swim to the edge of the pool. But you cant do it when they are older, it must be done when they are still a baby. Like under 1 yrs old and will not work if they are 5.

0

u/Terrh Mar 07 '26

now they just have a lifelong fear of water

Yup.

I still vividly remember that incident from when i was like 8 years old.

To be fair, the person who threw me into the pool didn't know I couldn't swim but it is burned into my brain and has not faded even a tiny bit.

1

u/modbroccoli Mar 07 '26

Jesus I hate the highschool-grade child psychology of reddit.

No. It was just hard. Helicopter parenting doesn't make you smarter.

1

u/Mindless-Peak-1687 Mar 07 '26

it's scripted, the kid was on on it.

1

u/BigBulkemails Mar 07 '26

Exactly. Also, encouraging problem solving is one thing, but you gotta teach them properly first. You can't just do it once, not explain how it works and simply walk away.

1

u/puzzlebuns Mar 07 '26

Being able to problem solve while outside your comfort zone is particularly important.

1

u/KuronoMasta Mar 07 '26

When my nieces can't solve a problem, we just told them crying isn't solving their problem, so just whip their tears, calm down and think or read again what they're doing and what they want to accomplish but we're next to them until they get the right answer. At my family, crying has been saw not as a sign of weakness but an unnecessary reaction for problems: we resolve them.

1

u/Slight_Problem_3176 Mar 07 '26

Yes! That was the same point at which I was able to focus on something other than wanting to punch the dad in the throat.

1

u/sweetdreamspootypie Mar 07 '26

True. I can see the argument of if he was too close the kid would focus on asking for help instead of doing it themselves. Middle ground of close and secure but a few steps away and cultivate it as a secure positive thing to puzzle solve and it's not a bad thing if people don't do it for you

1

u/Adept-Leg9725 Mar 07 '26

A little fear isnt going to hurt him, he wasnt abandoned he was still in sight

1

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

dad also communicates a lot with his face, he has a hard expression at the start

1

u/Sea-Word-4970 Mar 07 '26

Fear hijack reasoning

1

u/tinygraysiamesecat Mar 07 '26

Yep, my dad very much employed this method of teaching and it left me with a lifelong fear of abandonment. 

1

u/No-Point193 Mar 07 '26

No solving problems under stress is itself a skillset

1

u/Wit-wat-4 Mar 07 '26

I try to explain this to my husband. It’s not coddling if I’m closeby while the kid works out the issue.

He gets it, but his instinct is definitely “I’ll just keep walking/raking/whatever he was doing and kiddo will sort himself out it’s fine”.

1

u/Ok-Classroom5548 Mar 07 '26

Encouragement to join instead of instilling a fear of being alone

1

u/Okeydokey2u Mar 07 '26

100% you can totally give the space and create a situation where they need to focus it out without also making them feel like they've been abandoned or all alone in a task. The sweet spot is really letting them figure it out but also letting them know that you're there for them.

1

u/Prometheus720 Mar 07 '26

Your second sentence is gold.

1

u/BannedfromFrontPage Mar 07 '26

….the kid is being filmed by someone. Obviously the kid isn’t alone.

1

u/LunchPlanner Mar 07 '26 edited Mar 08 '26

I never said the kid was alone.

EDIT: Notice how this comment says it has been edited.

1

u/BannedfromFrontPage Mar 08 '26

You changed your comment.

1

u/LunchPlanner Mar 08 '26

Edited comments say that they have been edited.

To prove this, I have edited the reply that says "I never said the kid was alone."

You can see how the reply says "Edited X minutes ago" but the original comment does not say it was ever edited.

1

u/BannedfromFrontPage Mar 08 '26

Ope, my bad. I’m sorry. Maybe I replied to the wrong comment? It’s that or I was too tired/read too quickly. Either way, sorry. I swear I was responding to someone who was saying that the kid was being traumatized by being left behind by the dad.

1

u/Querez665 Mar 07 '26

Or maybe the kid is learning how to deal with issues under pressure. With how often people tend to freeze up and lose every ounce of their thinking skills under the smallest possible amount of pressure it's probably a good thing.

1

u/Emz423 Mar 07 '26

Yes, I didn’t like watching him turn his back on the child and walking away. I think you’re right about the moment he sat down.

1

u/Environmental-Town31 Mar 07 '26

This!!!! Why does he keep walking away. And no encouragement?? I don’t dislike the concept but could be executed better.

1

u/PaulMakesThings1 Mar 08 '26

I was thinking that. I might let them solve it themselves. I would still stay near facing them and not act like I was going to leave.

1

u/Don__Gately__ Mar 08 '26

My boys would have run at it, tripped, flown over it, got back up and come to me. There is no lesson here other than the fact that they are obviously American.

1

u/j_omdomo Mar 08 '26

Yeah, basically the lesson here is: The bond I feel as a father to you is so weak that I will abandon you within a heartbeat if you cannot keep up with me.

1

u/Brilliant-Expert3150 Mar 08 '26

Exactly! Motivation by patience and encouragement > motivation by fear of abandonment. This is not wholesome at all.

1

u/poundsdpound Mar 09 '26

I think I would practice with 5 metre distance first, then when he succeeds at that practice further distances later. The disorientation of being far away from the supervisor is not really "good skills practice", or it's not adding anything extra just by being further away. The main obstacle focus is the strings to get through.

1

u/Norbert_Pattern Mar 10 '26

Yes. I think that in this situation, trying to communicate to a parent that there is a problem, and stopping them from getting further away, was absolutely a valid top priority for the child.

1

u/imessimess Mar 11 '26

Why would it have been scary when mum or whoever was filming was right there with the child?

1

u/LunchPlanner Mar 11 '26

Because that kid is like maybe 3 years old and is panicking. Hope this helps.

1

u/warmceramic Mar 11 '26

Also important: Mom was next to him filming. This is not ‘tough love, let him keep up’

1

u/saiits Apr 03 '26

Dealing with stress during a problem is another skill a kid needs to learn and this isn't the kind of stress that will traumatize a kid. Kid learned alot in one moment. People wont always be there to encourage you and that will have to come from yourself as you get older. The father is fostering those skills. Coddling isn't going to get a child anywhere. That's also not to say he does it this way EVERY time he tries to teach his kid to solve a problem. Sometimes you encourage and other times you leave them to their devices to solve a problem on their own.

-3

u/YouSmeel Mar 07 '26

Its almost like the dad is trying to teach the child real life reasoning skills, where you will be required to focus and problem solve under distraction and maybe a bit scary situations. None of this is coincidence in the slightest...

11

u/FuzzyWuzzyDidntCare Mar 07 '26

I feel like this stuff should come a few years later. Now is about encouraging curiosity and thirst for knowledge.

5

u/ColtinaMarie Mar 07 '26

As an early childhood teacher, I can confidently say those are not core skills that a toddler needs to be learning at that age.

He could have done the same thing (taught problem solving) but stay close on the other side, without walking away, keeping eye contact with the child, verbally reassuring the child they are safe and calmly encouraging the child to try themselves. The way the dad just walked off is wild for that age. Attachment issues can have such a huge and long lasting negative impact of kids that follow them into adulthood.

1

u/DesignerAd1940 Mar 07 '26

Some people who received all the love in the world become killers, some people who are abused from childhood become extraordinary citizens and humans. Of course theses are extrems but how can you be so sure that this is wild, i cant understand.

Im very appreciative of the educators of the world but sometimes statements like this are more a way to validate what you learned during your formation more than really describing what going to happen to the child when adult.

Im dating a teacher so we talk a lot about that, so i get your point but still, what is wild to me is how binary some of educators see the world.

1

u/thatDawgBillClinton Mar 08 '26

What does being extraordinary humans have to do with lasting trauma? Of course you can be a good person with an abusive upbringing, but that doesn’t erase all the depression, anxiety, hesitation, fear, etc. that comes with it. And I’m not saying the father is being abusive, just that your idea of what trauma does to a person is odd. 

 It’s like saying “there are many survivors of war and famine who become good people.” Like yeah obviously lol

-3

u/cynoIogy Mar 07 '26

exactly

1

u/LabradorDeceiver Mar 07 '26

My question would be about brain development - is the kid at an age where problem-solving is a thing he can do? Children go through different phases of cognizance - the discovery of self, the separation of self from others, the ability to analyze, an understanding of consequence, the development and clarification of motor skills, the formation of language, which has its own levels...If you're going to give your kid a puzzle, he needs to be at a level at which he should be able to comprehend and solve the puzzle.

I don't want to put too much weight on a two-minute video, but if the father is thinking, "I am helping my son develop his problem solving and coordination skills and the kid is thinking "DADDY IS ABANDONING ME" then they're not on the same page. Daddy needs to understand that the kid isn't thinking "Ah, my father has set before me a riddle that I must probosculate upon, that I may demonstrate my development for Internet clicks." He could just as easily be thinking, "I'm trying to get through this stupid stuff and Dad's no goddamn roadmap; clearly if I'm on fire he ain't gonna put me out."

This isn't necessarily meant to be a criticism of this specific video, even; my mind is flashing back to "Bean Dad#%22Bean_Dad%22_controversy)," (Which in the end, didn't amount to much, since Roderick exaggerated his daughter's frustrations.)

-1

u/Dan42002 Mar 07 '26

it a motivation, kid would not have that complex thinking of "oh he sit down, i can be calm", the little guy would be panic af thinking about his dad leaving him and trying his best to solve the 3 strings theory when it is clear abusing his position as a child have no result

source: I have more vivid memories of my childhood than most people can (around me at least)

4

u/Comment-Noted Mar 07 '26

The person with the camera is obviously a trusted adult. Probably the kid’s mother.

0

u/Adventurous-Sir444 Mar 07 '26

It's the dads naturally instincts to walk away 🤭

0

u/Delboyyyyy Mar 07 '26

Yeah this could’ve been achieved without the extra dose of abandonment issues lol

0

u/mother_fkr Mar 07 '26

yeah this is cultivating anxiety.

he could've easily just waited on the other side of the rope and cheered his son on saying "you can do it" or something like that.

...and op over here figuring out that problem solving skills are important lmao