Is This the Best Way to “nudge” Your Child to Swing When You’re Busy?
Before we get started here today, you should have two important pieces of information: 1. I love good parenting tricks and 2. I’ve never been a fan of endless downtime pushing kids on swings. So I have to be ready to defend any attempt to cope with this chore. And yet this video of a parent pushing (well, pulling) their child on a swing from the window of their apartment on the fourth floor puzzled me.
Company Digg posted this video – through ViralHog – with a question: “We can not say a geniusthis reception for parents or insane.” How is Digg asking us: is this hacking or nonsense? And people, that’s what we’re here for. First, see for yourself:
My initial thought was something like this: What the hell is the point ? It’s not entirely clear how this rope is being pulled back and forth, but I think I can see a black-gloved hand going in and out of the window. This can only mean that the standing and tremors are still occurring (and have not been automated in some way), only from a farther, higher place than usual.
Then I had to ask myself: what is the benefit of this method? Is there some kind of routine work that needs to be done immediately in the immediate vicinity of this window (and only the use of one hand is required)? I can’t imagine them washing the dishes or cooking dinner with the other hand. Can they watch the cable? Maybe they’ll have an adult phone conversation out of the ears of the innocent?
Perhaps the child is asleep and the child begs to swing, and the parent is like, “You know what? If you can tie the knot, we can do it. ” And now they still have to pull, but they also used a few blissfully quiet minutes in their noisy and hectic lives. This would be a creative solution that would make their life easier and also avoid tantrums, and if this is not a parenting hack definition then I am wrong.
As much as I want to laugh at it and call it stupid , I have to be fair here. If you happen to find yourself in such a situation – there is a swing a few dozen yards from your window, you have a long piece of rope, your child is old enough to go to the swing and tie a knot, and you must (or want to) stay inside – this is the best way to “push” them to the swing.
Of course, you can also teach them to swing their legs and swing on their own, but this is another trick.