I’m contrary enough that if someone made it a “rule” I had to exercise, I’d tell them I was going to the gym and then I’d go sit at a coffee shop.
My wife and I both want to lose weight and exercise more. We both know what you have to do to achieve that. But we both get annoyed at the other spouse’s nagging, because we mention different aspects of what you have to do. So we’re annoyingly nagging each other about the exact same thing, but in slightly different terms. And we’re both absolutely right about what we’re saying.
"Only problem, though, it’s a bunch of hyperbole. That’s not what I said. "
Given the comment about bringing kids donuts and beer, I don’t think you have much of a leg to stand on. That was hyperbole!
What is wrong with nagging? Sometime it achieves life changing very positive goals. It took me 2 years to nag my H. about something that completely changed our lives. He is still very thankful. You got to nag and nag and nag sometime and there is no other way. Now I am nagging about something that will take us about 4 years to accomplish. We are doing it and slowly moving towards our goal,…thanks to my nagging. I am sure that we will be very happy when the goal is achieved.
My H has nagged my FIL for YEARS about losing weight and exercising. Guess what - he just had a triple bypass this past weekend. I’ve told my H repeatedly that all of his nagging was for naught. People are going to do what they want to do.
My H is also a super compulsive exerciser. He loves when I take bike rides with him, and I enjoy it as well. But he knows darn well that if he asks me, and I say no, he will get NOWHERE if he nags me to do it - and if anything it will just turn me sour on riding bikes with him. He’s MUCH better off if he accepts my “no, thanks” cheerfully - and that will make me more likely to say yes the next time.
I guess, be it older parents or young adult kids, the “nagging” / reminders / scheduling things for them should be very carefully applied. For example, my dad mentioned having some eye trouble, and we (his adult kids) asked what his eye doctor suggested. And his eye doctor basically suggested nothing for a diagnosed treatable eye condition. So we took it upon ourselves to get him to a better eye doctor, and over the course of two years, he now has much better vision, we all including him worry much less about his driving because of his better vision, and he also is more free to tell us if he has any issue with his eyes or otherwise.
I still tell my “soon to be gone senior” when his doctor and dentist appointments are - he tells me if they are inconvenient. It has been an expectation since they were little to get a yearly physical and six month dental checkups. I expect that when he graduates college and moves out, I might remind him find a doctor and a dentist by asking around work or researching on the internet.
To be honest, my parents always have said “I guess we didn’t do that bad” since all of us kids are doing very well. Yet they let us do what we wanted; we’d sit around each summer after work and on weekends and drink 2 liter bottles of soda and 1 lb. bags of potato chips. We did little if any housework (I still don’t like doing housework LOL). We expected dinner to magically appear around 6 or 7 pm. Even when I dropped the bomb that I was living with someone, when they didn’t know I was dating him even, my mother didn’t seem to care much, no warnings, no “you should get married”. Contrary to my in-laws who started with “when are you going to get married?” and then when we did get married “when are you going to have kids?”.
I think the main gist is that if the OP thinks her DD is acting very different than during the school year, perhaps there are ways without nagging to see if anything is happening that is making her “down”. Otherwise, letting her veg before the major step of entering college seems not to be so bad an idea, as long as she is getting to work and showing interest in other things.
(my DD failed a depression screening, especially the part about “do you find you are losing interest in things you love to do?”. She said “Yes”. But of course, one of the things she loves is reading, and she was talking to the pediatrician while she was holding her place in a 300 page book, that she had been reading every day including in the car. I think some detective work can be used instead of grilling children about their mental state…)
I think the wisest parents know that at some point their child will make a decision or life choice they will dislike. And they will accept it, even though they don’t like it or even agree with it.
“I’m contrary enough that if someone made it a “rule” I had to exercise, I’d tell them I was going to the gym and then I’d go sit at a coffee shop.”
Geez, you are like a dog with a bone. Never gonna give it up. Would it make you feel better if I elaborated that I really meant it as more of a guideline? No signs, no laws, no enforcement action, just a suggestion. If my kids were asked what rules they had to follow at home, they’d probably just say no drugs, no smoking, if anything. And they don’t give me a hard time about anything when they visit. They realize that I worry that they aren’t eating right, exercising enough, not taking vitamins, and that I have a short time period to try to healthen them up when they come home. They don’t mind. Unfortunately there have been health consequences already for not eating well enough, which has been eye opening for them, and reinforced why it matters.
I think many families do things quite differently, and what works for one doesn’t always work for another. I can’t imagine criticizing someone for taking a different approach, unless it’s something abusive.
I agree with @Hunt:
It’s nagging if the recipient of the caring encouragement and advice identifies it as nagging. At that point, folks can continue to nag and see if it has the intended effect - it might. I know my kids think I’m nagging at times, when I think I’m being caring and encouraging. And for SURE I think my mom is nagging when she thinks she’s just encouraging me.
FWIW, I was 19 and just finished my sophomore year in college when I was living with someone - still a teenager technically LOL.
My mom wouldn’t even accept that we had an exterminator in our house LOL. And that’s something I worry about - the converse of nagging - spending too much time on our own stuff (both parents working dilemma) and not helping our kids out enough.
My mom worked 12 hour days, and had medical issues she told me about when I was a teen. I blame myself for not nagging her into telling me more of what was going on and getting her to go to better doctors. Even though I was only a teen.
In one of Dave Barry’s books he describes what happens when a guys wife starts talking to him.
He says guys only hear the first 4 or 5 words and then all they hear is 'blah blah blah blah". His advice is for women to get their point across in those first few words because nothing else is heard after that.
That’s kind of the way I feel about nagging. You hear the first few words and then totally zone out.
“You hear the first few words and then totally zone out”
That’s why you need to make it short and sweet!
My parents can be unbelieveable about the nagging, they go on and on. Not just a reminder, but a lengthy lecture. And then my Dad in particular has forgotten he’s told us this story before. Some of their information is good, and useful, and I appreciate a reminder. But several minutes on a subject already covered endlessly, is too much. When they get on a certain subject, I express my understanding, and quickly switch the topic.
However, the shoe is on the other foot now. They have no leg to stand on with some of their silliness here, and me and my sister have told them we are going to nag daily until they do what they need to. For example, my mother has not had a physical for seven years, and she has some problems. She complains about them, says she needs a physical, and then doesn’t schedule it, or cancels it. My dad was in such severe foot pain that he stayed in bed for over five months, until we finally convinced him to go to a podiatrist, who diagnosed a rare problem, and fixed it. If you stay in bed for long in your eighties, you will die, you can’t do that. There are things that we won’t ignore, and eventually we make headway. I wish we’d been more aggressive about the foot. But if they just listened to their common sense, proactive daughters in the first place, it would be so easy. They are intelligent, healthy people, so I think it must be the fog of getting older that is getting in their way. If my kids even mention something about us that worries them, we immediately take care of it.
Weight lifting/strength training isn’t aerobic, but it is certainly exercise.
I think it depends on the job whether or not one could consider it exercise.
All that said, it’s beneficial to mix some aerobic exercise into your day; it’s good for your heart and lungs, and imo your emotional health as well.
Back when I was younger and the fittest I’ve ever been, I was working as a RN on a busy unit with a very long hallway. You could have a patient at one end, and another at the other end. These patients were coming straight from the cath lab with sheaths in their femoral arteries, so we had to check them for bleeding and hematomas every 15 minutes until they had passed a certain threshold for bleeding precautions, and even after that, we still had to check them pretty often before/after we pulled the sheath. I think one of the other nurses tracked herself, and it came to about 10 or 11 miles per day, if not more. We were working 12 hour shifts, so no telling. I was always trying desperately to keep up, so I would walk really fast back and forth all day. The unit secretary really got a kick out of imitating me.
But I was really slim and healthy!
I feel a compelling urge to nag about the grammatical error in this sentence, but I’m going to suppress it.
For some reason, that just really struck my funny bone. Lol.
i should have said running back and forth, as part of your job is exercise, but it’s not often that you are able to take the time to have good form, and your movements may actually be hard on your body.
Lifting weights deliberately outside of work, may be helpful to build the muscles that you use during shift.
It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve laughed at something immature. Just this morning, my DH said…
oops, probably ought to censor myself.
“I feel a compelling urge to nag about the grammatical error in this sentence, but I’m going to suppress it.”
Would, "My sister and I, " would better for you?
Seems odd to me that someone would be so irritated by another family doing things differently, and makes me wonder why that is. Regretting things that you did or didn’t do? We all have regrets, and unfortunately at this point, there is little that can be done.
"It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve laughed at something immature. Just this morning, my DH said…
oops, probably ought to censor myself."
Ah come on, tell us! We won’t tell anyone!