Is it okay for family to post photos of my infant son in the NICU?

Hi there -- he's doing pretty darn well and he's beautiful! But he's in the intensive care unit. He has tubes coming in and out of him and he's surrounded by vital diagnostic machines. We knew at 15 weeks he was going to be born with an serious abdominal wall defect called, an omphalocele. We tried to prepare ourselves for an extensive hospital stay, surgeries etc., and then he arrived early at 33wks. Needless to say the emotions that have come with having a critically ill newborn are reoccurring for us both, and still very fresh. This is especially difficult for my wife, so i'm reluctant to mention it - Its been difficult for us as a couple especially since he was born. Ive been feeling anger/sadness/anxiety about his situation, so maybe i'm just reacting to my in-laws pictures of him in response those emotions. I don't know. He's been there a little over a month, and while my wife is able to visit whenever, I am not because of work. I'm self employed and work freelance on the side whenever possible. I guess what i'm wondering is if you think i'm just being jealous of the time they're spending with him -- or have they crossed some sort of line by not asking if it was okay to post pictures of him to instagram. My wife doesn't have an issue with them doing it and I think she sees it as supportive and endearing. I know they are very proud-grandmas and auties, as we are, too. And I want to believe they have the best intentions; but isn't instagram about getting likes from your followers, and then, are they actually being supportive? To me it feels like its about them. It feels disrespectful. Thanks for your feedback. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2OfPe5Z

My 1 year old always cries with me

I don't really know if this is the correct place to ask but I am really confused.I currently only get to see my daughter once a week on Mondays for an hour at my EXs place. We are working on getting our divorce finalized and so for now that is the agreement to visitations until it is final.For the last three visits my daughter seems to cry a lot and will not calm down no matter what I do. I will carry her, sing to her and try to console her and she will not stop. Eventually she either falls asleep or stops crying and goes back to normal.I have talked to my EX and she has told me that it's because i don't care enough to get to know my daughter and this is why she cries. I do ask her for tips and advice but she claims I just need to figure it out. I'm just wondering if this is normal or if my little girl just dislikes me.She is usually a happy kid but this is really making me sad.Any advice would help. If i need to post this somewhere else please let me know.Thanks via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2RmX53t

"Love every minute" of parenthood

So I've heard a few mom's describe raising their kids as something they loved every minute of. And I'm trying to understand this because if I could love spending time with screaming kids it would be lovely.Some theories: They focus on the positives, like, yes my kid threw up on me and I spent 30 minutes cleaning up, but I made them feel better.Their kids are just really well behaved and they have it easier then everyone else.Their exaggerating and focusing on the good parts.A balanced social life where it's not all about the kids.A great support network that encourages them.Their just happy people and you can't copy them.They forgot how hard it was when they were going through it.They are crazy and enjoy being screamed at and vomited on.Or something else I can't think of because I'm missing it. If you know the secret to happiness in raising kids please let me know because I often feel like I'm losing my mind. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2PyXJNY

16 year old daughter...grabs keys to Mom’s car on a Friday night.. takes off.

First time post, and looking for feedback on how to address this scenario.This past Friday, my daughter asks to borrow the car to spend the night at a friends house. I said no since her and I have not sat down in a mature setting to discuss a parent/teenager driving Agreement that I found on the web. It laid out many scenarios for discussion and had a place for both parties to initial each segment of the driving agreement.My wife and I were hosting a small gathering at our house, so I was preoccupied to notice that she was gone. I assumed her friend came to pick her up.What actually happened is she went into My wife’s purse, took the keys, drove off, then texted my wife saying she has the car and she made up her OWN driving agreement. That consisted of a 2 sentence pledge to be careful on an index card.The next morning I found out about this and was very upset. So... reaching out to parents who have teenage drivers, what are your thoughts and what would be a proper disiplinary action for this situation? Thank you in advance for your comments! via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2RmX27N

So fed up with my six-year-old’s elementary school

My youngest child is six and in first grade. Since she began school, I have been receiving reports over and over from her teachers that she is not completing work on time and she is not staying on task.My girls’ father and I went through a terrible high conflict divorce when my girls were very young, one and three. we now have a positive relationship coparenting and share 50/50 custody on a two days three days every other weekend schedule.I’ve been concerned that this caused potential trauma on their developing brains; my eldest girl (8) also has the same reports of inattention and focus. I have both girls in weekly therapy.The reason this has become such a vexing issue with my youngest is because a few months ago after constant notes home about incomplete work and inattention, I got fed up and I had a meeting with the teachers, the principal, and the guidance counselor. I signed a release form for the GC to talk with their therapist. The school discussed how the constant changes in custody during the week was causing confusion for the girls, and blamed it all on this. Of course it’s my fault and that of my ex. They kept emphasizing how the girls required so much extra support to succeed.Fast forward a few months, and the problem still exists. Now work that my six year old isn’t completing in class is being sent home. Every day, the assignments keep rolling in to be done on top of her regular homework. They spent the last Thursday and Friday with their father who admitted he didn’t catch her up on all the work.By today, when I opened her very heavy homework folder, she had nine assignments to make up, on top of her regular three. Nine different pieces of work. Instructions were given for her to finish the work tonight.Excuse me but I don’t think so.I wrote the teacher an email and said that it was unreasonable and developmentally inappropriate to expect a six year old child to do what would have likely been close to an hour and a half worth of work in an evening after having been in a classroom all day. I explained that I wanted a child study done, and I wanted progress toward an IEP. Clearly, she is not functioning at the level of the other children and clearly, she needs some kind of extra support. I am at this point furious that I am the one having to advocate so hard for my child when I’m not the teacher in the classroom who is seeing this as the pattern and the problem that it is every single day and is just letting this undone work pile up and sent home to become my problem. This is absurd. I myself am student teaching and I now have a working understanding of how this all works. I don’t understand how they are conveniently sweeping this aside and letting my daughter just slip through the cracks apparently. Why bother with differentiating or investigating further Into what’s going on with my child to cause her to struggle so badly when you can just let her flounder and send the work home?I am so sick and tired of having to fight tooth and nail against the people who should be initiating and seeing for themselves what is happening here. To say this school is not progressive is to say the least.Grrrrr..... via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2PyXIto

Freshman has refused to dress for gym. We haven't punished in over 10 years but I'm seriously at my wits end.

My middle son is a high school freshman. In our state kids need 4 years of gym. Because kids were wearing inappropriate or dirty clothing for gym the school started gym uniforms. All of the articles of clothing have the school logo on it and gym clothes can't be worn outside the gym. The kids have to keep the clothes in their locker Monday through Friday and being the clothes home on Friday. If the clothes aren't in their locker during the week they lose points. If their clothes are left in the locker over the weekend then they lose points. Anyone caught wearing gym clothes under their clothes will lose points because athletic shorts and sweatpants are against the dress code.That's just to set the scene. Now on to my actual problem. My 14 year old freshman has decided that he will not change for gym. He was picked on the first day he tried to change. From what we hear it was nothing too crazy but made him insecure enough to not want to change anymore. He hasn't changed since the first week of school and will be failing gym for the year.He's completely fine with failing gym for his remaining high school career. I'm worried about how this will affect him when it comes to college application time. He will likely lose his spot in the National Honor Society as well.This kid has been unpushinable since preschool. He doesn't care about being punished and we went with natural and logical consequences instead but I don't know if I should continue with that. Don't we have to step in when they are about to really mess up? He doesn't have a phone and doesn't watch TV. He needs his computer for school. He doesn't ever go anywhere. I'm not even sure what we would take away from him in a punishment. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2RnoW3p

Teenager has a question about parenting

Hello all, i am a freshman in high school and i have some strict parents i need advice on. Since middle school, they have expected no less than a 90 on any summative grades and in high school, the expectation is now a 93 and higher. I understand they want me to get a 93 and higher for the 4.0 GPA (and if it is an honors class, it boosts to a 4.3), but every time i dont get a 93 or higher, i lose every piece of technology i own until the grade goes up plus 1 week to make sure all grades stay the same. It also doesnt help my whole school is 80% indians (not trying to be racist, I have indian friends). My parents expect me to be as smart as them for some reason. if i did not get a 90+ on every class i got at the end of the year, they would enroll me in my same math class (in my case, Geometry in my rising 8th grade year) over the summer without any technology and i would be monitored by them to make sure i wasnt doing anything besides my math. Phone, laptop, TV, Google Home, etc. The new year, my school system started to give all grades Chromebooks to work at home on work teachers post on google classroom. They are taking my school owned chromebook for my school work and dont care what my teachers say. What should i tell my teachers when they tell us to take out our Chromebooks to play kahoot and i cant? "sorry i cant work to improve my grade with in class activities because my device was taken". My teachers dont even put grades in consistently, so im stuck for months without a new grade until the last few days of the quarter, and by that time, i cant even see what i got wrong and fix it for the next assessment on the unit. Anyways, when i try to talk with them about it, they say i am giving them excuses. I was IQ tested when i was 6 and got a 142. They are acting like i should get all 100s with that. on the other side of things, I am in 2 academic classes (other 2 classes being honors classes without clowns in them) with one individual who has a habit of calling me names. my natural reaction is to say shut up, teacher doesn't hear either of us talking until one day, all he hears is me saying shut up. He calls my parents stating that i am a disturbance and being rude to my classmates. My parents talk to me for a long period of time about enrolling me in military school. i know many many kids who have gotten suspended for very bad things they did and there punishment was nothing like considering military school. Im afraid military school is not right for me, i am a very indoor kind of person, i do things like program apps, websites, make things with raspberry pis, etc. I also am in a very high level math and science for my age and i dont know what math they teach at military schools, but it wont be as good as what im learning at the highest income county in the United States. I am open to any suggestions to what i should do as i have been living in a state of stress for a long 4 years and i am not sure how to confront my parents given the circumstances given to you. Thank you all for your support and i look forward to your guys responses. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2AzDgjS