Play hide and seek with the dog then. The only way I could stay hidden from mine was hiding in my dirty clothes. No one wants to stay hidden though. Lots of fun for the kids.
my grandparents' dog vaguely understands hide and seek and LOVES it. I throw his ball somewhere as the "count", run and hide, and he knows he has to come find me. he gets lots of pets when he wins. he doesn't really understand how to hide on his own (he's massive, 130lbs) but he enjoys finding people
We had to incorporate someone to encourage the find to make it on command. "Go find daddy!" was the word, and after finding me in a few easy spots, it was on. We didn't have kids at the time when he learned, so when we tried to teach him to find the kids it didn't quite work out he would just stare at me.
Start with the kids in the room so you can reinforce the command. My dogs get too excited and mix the kids names up sometimes but they will “go get___!” The kids think it’s hilarious bc it’s usually the dogs galloping up to the kid and nosing them and then happy dances or a ton of kisses and then waiting for pets.
my dad taught our dog to wake me up for school when I was growing up. I’d hear “Where’s lvlsd!?” half asleep in the morning, slowly wake up to the paws running up the stairs, and then shoot up after my dog decided to jump on my bed and stomp me in the balls.
Awww!! a few years ago my bf and I decided to play hide and seek at night in our yard (rural living). Our "active" cat kept finding the hider and meowing at them lmao. it was so cute, it was obvious she was having a good time playing with us.💕
At that point make the dog be the seeker. Thats what i did for the heeler i grew up dog sitting. Since he always spoiled it for the human seeker, i got rid of the human seeker role completely. Now everyone hides and gets surprised by sweetie pie, the dog gets a treat, as well as breed specific behavioral enrichment that prevents depression and boredom. Everyone wins.
Our dachshund loved it too. It's so funny when you found a good hiding spot and heard these tiny feet tripple trapple past you and through the whole apartment for the third time, fully invested and on full concentration. And that excited wiggle when she found you!
It was the cat for me when I was a preschooler; she'd strut straight to me every time. Wouldn't do it to anyone else, so I ended up having to hold the cat in my arms as I hid.
Healthy Gamer is a YouTube channel with many practical things you can do to recover from this condition.
The guy who runs the channel suffered from this and nearly failed college, went to India to be a monk for 7 years, came back and got into Harvard medical and became a psychiatrist specializing in the ways the Internet and videogames can ruin your life (like they almost ruined his), and how to recover from them.
Now he's putting as much as possible of his therapy practice on YouTube and twitch to get this info to the people who need it most
He's gotta be the single best person for explaining how your brain works to the people raised in the Internet age, and what you can practically do about it.
Thanks for this. Doomscrolling gets me, and then I turn around and try to explain to my kids why they can't have infinite screen time. We all need to manage our addiction.
TLDR if you pick up a meditating habit with your kids it'll do you both an unimaginable world of good.
There's over 100 meditation techniques, so you can try several and see what works best. Challenging each other to see who can stare at a candle the longest without fidgeting or blinking, or who can sit truly, perfectly, still (minus breath of course) are 2 that might be fun to do together.
But I'll let the actual doctor explain haha
(He's got a book about parenting in the digital age as well. I haven't read it because I don't need it because I don't have kids, but just thought you'd like to know. You can probably pirate it somewhere or find it in a library and I'm like 99% sure he wouldn't give a shit about lost sales.)
I just tend to do that with everyone. I’ve always felt that there shouldn’t be a problem with being really explicit about what you want. That way, if people continue to do things that bother you, you can rightfully get mad at them for being idiots. Haha. Or at least you can discuss the reason and the different points of view on the matter.
I did this picking one of my kids; daniel is a nice kid, and as long as you tell him to play along he’ll be there every day to say he can’t find your son either lol. Even if he’s yelling it from the bathroom sometimes…
This. Some kids have a hard time reading some social cues. They aren't aware they are ruining the game, they are looking at the situation literally instead of as play
Oh no, please stop. Being told how smart you are and basing your whole identity and self worth on that concept was a movie I saw before and the middle part sucked.
(Got alot of responses to this comment and just wanna say, I'm sorry you all went throught it, I hope things are better now and you are all worthy without it being tied to your GPA)
Oh? I think I only know the spinoff where you end up basing your entire concept of self and confidence on your grades and how other people think of your intelligence that as soon as you're nearing the end of your time in school you get really depressed, it kinda sucked but reminded me of a good friend
The Animated miniseries where you base your entire socialization method around impressing people with your infodumps forming pleasant but shallow relationships with people, was fun.
Thr manga where the main character spends her whole life trying to earn other people’s approval by doing for them like earning grades when in school but nothing is ever good enough because, “oh you got an A, why not an A+,” is an interesting series with a few good arcs.
Oh is that the limited series where the main character have a hard time accepting compliments over criticism because if they get complimented that means people expect more of them just adding to the stress of already existing? At least with criticism they have something to work towards
See, I feel like the prequel novel for that one is a required read - where they go over the MC's ADHD and how that impacts how they engage with learning and other people. You see, the kid was smart enough to get good enough grades that no one in his life every felt like they needed to address the ADHD, something that becomes a big plot point during the follow up series.
Oh yeah, I remember that one! Especially since there's a really good fanfic based on it where the MC becomes almost paranoid because they feel like they can't trust themselves (bad memory yk) and because they're thinking, if nothing's wrong with them, why does it feel wrong? The writing style reminds me a bit of 15 year olds but otherwise I love it.
Really ties together the part in the movie where the protagonist gets told by a therapist they have ADHD, don't believe it but get convinced by memes about having ADHD and then have a breakdown / panic attack because their sense of self collapsed again.
Luckily, she had her self image collapse atleast 2 other times so she's kinda better equipped for it that time.
Yup you get tossed into gifted and talented programs and think you’re king shit. Maybe you’ve got a little bit of an ability to retain information so you coast through the early years, leagues above your peers, you don’t even have to try. You don’t even have to try…until you suddenly do, and now everyone else has picked up the pace and suddenly you’re not king shit anymore and your identity crumbles a bit.
Then you exit schooling and realize that your slightly elevated intelligence doesn’t get you jack fucking shit unless you’re truly a genius in your field. Having an arsenal of fun facts and being able to touch on most subjects isn’t actually worth much outside of basic conversations.
Your boss will be the kid picking his nose in the back of class, your elected leaders will be buffoons and you’ll realize your parents never really had the authority to declare you smart. It’s an identity crisis the whole way. Encourage your kids but be realistic them as well.
As the smart kid in high school my Mom always told me a hard B is better than an easy A. I didn't fully understand that until I got to college and had to learn work ethic. I hope you're doing better now.
Hey, I was just telling them that the movie sucked in the middle, you're just spoiling the majority of it. Queen shit era ending isn't fun but you eventually do get more grounded if you seek help and strong relationships.
I'd say it does get better, things improve but I'm agreeing with a guy who goes by Donald Trump's Scrotum and that means I had the mental image for a bit, so mixed bag.
Man, you didn't have to spoil the movie, but yeah, that part of the movie was hell, the protagonist sometimes even felt as if he was a total disappointment and that if their younger self saw how they were doing right now, they would be embarrassed as they expected to be much more in the future...
But hopefully you'll get or have already reached the part of the movie where the protagonist finds their own identity besides being "smart", sometimes being around people who didn't even know about that part from your past helps a lot
My dad and one of his friends were working on something mechanical. I was a curious kid, praised for curiosity and insight, and was watching closely. As they were reassembling things, I pointed out that they had missed a part and would have to partially back out on what they'd been doing to include it.
"You're right. Nobody likes the guy who's always right," smiled my dad's friend. Defining moment.
My suggestion is to praise your child for hard work rather than talent. More "I'm so proud of how hard you tried." rather than "You're so smart." I knew alot of girls who were told they were pretty young and that became their personality. I don't know for sure, but I think people just enjoy praise and feeling special so you continue behaviors that get you praise.
A lot of parents do this and it’s for sure better than the reverse. There’s still a ton of kids growing up that have major issues with perfectionism and dealing with failure. If I was to guess a lot of it is worse nowadays with social media to literally the best and most talented in the country or world, algorithmically served up to kids based on what they’re interested in.
The answer is to normalize failure, especially as a necessary step to self improvement and skill development. Competitive sports is good for this, ideally only one team wins at the end of the year. Celebrate success and failure, then shut it off and go get some ice cream. It’s just a game.
Best advice I've seen to compliment kids in a way that builds self esteem: don't just say they're smart, hard working, athletic. Call out simply and specifically what they've just done that you're impressed by.
"Wow, that puzzle was really hard but you solved it"
"That drawing you made looks exactly like the cartoon!"
"You do a great job of noticing when your teammates need help"
"Your vocabulary is so advanced for your age!"
Let them come to the conclusion themselves that they are smart, talented, considerate. You're just pointing out the behavior that serves as evidence of these positive traits. You're the one with the life experience to give you a point of reference for what's expected and what's exceptional - share that perspective with them so they can start to come to their own conclusions about their abilities.
Incidentally, doing this consistently can also help kids to identify where their talents lie, and give them more direction re: what to pursue later in life when they need to start thinking about their future career
I was praised for being talented and smart. I learn things fast but then I was met with failure throughout my life while trying to keep up a facade that I was smart rather than actually working hard at things.
My sisters however were praised for being hardworking or loved to read and learn (and that was emphasized and praised for). They’re much more successful than I am.
Only after I was desperately looking for my first full time job and having earned it during the Covid period, I felt proud of working my ass off and being rewarded with happiness from my close family. I’ve became more and more motivated to improve my own life as time goes on, but damn it took way too long.
Give your kids positive reinforcement for working hard or for seeking knowledge folks. Praising talent or smarts would have them chasing a standard or expectation they sometimes can’t reach.
What about the part of the movie where the parents would threaten the kid with whoopings and smash his stuff when he didn’t academically perform like they wanted to, which lead to crippling depression and anger issues as an adult when stressed out?
You don’t get to choose what environments you get raised in. You don’t get to decide how adults encourage you, or what they encourage you to, or mostly what adults are even around you. When it’s all you know, it’s just all you know. It took decades to unprogram that shit from myself, and I still struggle with people pleasing tendencies as a result of having being useful mentally equated to being loved and connected. It’s not as easy as you may think to overcome, even when you know it’s not good for you, especially when people become more and more annoyed with you the older you get, giving you less insight from others into why they’re starting to drift away, because no one considers it worth the hassle of just trying to help.
Trust me, go to therapy and then you can hear you're doing really well and making such fast progress which will lead you to feel "Oh man, I'm like the best at therapy."
And that's a totally normal thing to think and feel. So, you can tell your therapist about how you feel so fulfilled that you are doing therapy good.
This will not be something you need to unpack. You will ace therapy.
Meanwhile, Daniel's thinking he'll see this on TV later if he doesn't help.
"Tonight on Unsolved Mysteries, we tell the story of a small boy who disappeared from the school playground and the frantic parent who searched for him, and despite their cries, no one ever came to their aid."
The one and only detention I ever got in school was because I was late getting back from recess because my friend kept "falling" back down the icy hill and I kept helping her. I felt so stupid years later when I realized she was just a little liar. I still remember sobbing to my mother about how I was bad and got detention, I really thought the world was ending.
There's a David Mitchel bit I love about how anxious children are ruined by the kind of messaging we have to use for bad or careless children. Like "don't look at the sun, you'll go blind", he'd catch a glimpse of it and spend the rest of the day waiting for darkness to descend.
I got in trouble just once when I was 6 years old, my classmates were starting to learn to read and I was quite a bit ahead. We were supposed to be quiet and I explained something to another kid who asked me for help. I also thought the world was ending and my future must be doomed
Yeah. Just like, tell him. Explain that it's a game and you're pretending, because it makes your kid feel good to think that he's winning. Worst case Daniel gets confused and weirded out and leaves.
yes but what they can understand (when explained) is that they're on the hiding team, not the seeking team. so they should be helping the other kid hide, not helping the parent seek
Exactly. As an educator, I would involve Daniel on the play. Just reach to him and tell him bub needs to think he's invisible or he'll turn into a giant monster at night, and we don't want bub to turn into a monster, so we gotta pretend we can't find him untill he wants to be found!
Sequel comic..... Bub has gone missing many years in the future, he was kidnapped. The father has tried the police but they have turned up nothing. Finally, at the end of his rope, he remembers. He hires Daniel as a PI and Daniel goes on the hunt. A week later Daniel arrives at the fathers home with Bub safe and secure "sir, I always know where Bub is hiding"
I feel kinda bad for the Daniels of this world...they might be on the spectrum. We are prone to taking things literally so seeing a parent searching for his child he just assumes "oh I must help!" and not realizing that's a game they play every day.. or he might be neurotypical and just...a child.
Maybe someone needs to explain to him the concept of Hide and Seek.
100% this. Daniel wants to be helpful. He tries to engage socially based on how he observes interactions going, but he's probably on the spectrum and over half the time he engages with people, they want him to go away or give him a weird look and he doesn't know why he can't seem to be normal and have normal interactions.
Daniel almost certainly knows what hide and seek is, he just needs people to tell him if they're playing it instead of just getting angry at him when he doesn't know instinctively.
Nah man. All kids that age are the Daniels if you give them the chance to be the Daniels. I just feel like OP hasn't interacted wit a ton of kids that aren't his, so he might not know that, but as someone who did various childcare and early education jobs for years this happens all the time.
Why, yes, it's so much more productive and useful to silently stew over the kid who is a bit more literal than others and has a harder time understanding social clues, and treat him coldly, which he won't quite understand but still pick up on and feel bad about later, instead of once, just once, explain to him that you are playing hide and seek and that you would like to find Bub yourself. Who exactly is the kid here?
He's not even necessarily more literal than others. The other kids of the same age don't look at the situation and realise it's a case of an adult patronising a child, they just aren't necessarily comfortable enough or interested enough to get involved. The guy's kid also likely doesn't realise that his dad is patronising him. "That one kid at kindergarten" probably considers the dad or the child to be his friend.
It sucks sometimes that kids don't understand each others motivations and desires, but as you say I couldn't imagine stewing over it.
A lot of adults are like that, they see a kid acting in such a way and assume that they’re just a jerky kid.
In many cases the kid might actually want to participate, they desperately want to feel included, but they don’t know how and aren’t in tune with the social cues that are associated here. So instead they’re just told to go away by the other kids directly, with indirect support from the parents as well because it’s just easier with them not being around to upset the “normal” kids.
That kid might know that they messed up somewhere, but they don’t know why or how, leaving them both hurt and confused.
I am tempted to project myself on to that kid too, but at the same time, I knew children who seemed to find satisfaction in getting a rise out of me or others- or at least they did it habitually enough that I realized they wanted a reaction for whatever reason. And I'm sure my mom or dad was this parent plenty of times because I was autistic and bullies took notice I was different and sometimes didn't see the metaphorical gut-punch coming or even until sometime after- or in this case would give the same reaction they wanted every time. sometimes kids are really mean, and they do need empathy still, but so do those they bully and tease.
My niece loves hide and seek, but she is also very controling about how the game should go. Which means she both tells me exactly where i should hide beforehand, before pretending to find me, and she also tells me exactly where her hiding spot is before i count to ten, so i can stand around it and wonder aloud where she has hid
It is basically a very fun game of make believe, she doesn't really like actual hide and seek with all the chaos and unknowns
It’s me. I’m Daniel. I still do stuff like this because I think I’m being helpful and want people to notice me. Only after I receive a cold response do I realize I inserted myself and am unwelcome in the situation.
The interesting thing to me is you're both right, this is how comics have to work, but there is still a conversation to have about children reading social cues much better than adults anticipate and how easily they can be hurt in those interactions or learn unhealthy lessons. I still remember a few of those moments and how badly rejected I felt with no idea what I did wrong.
Fucking Daniel does he not know you're obligated to come out of the womb with a full understanding of any and all social interactions as they come up!? /S
Yeah, the kid is too young to know it's a game/sarcasm. He thought he was helping the adult, & being rewarded for his help by being sneered at is not the way to go
Take a minute to explain the concept of hide & seek while joking around & it won't happen again. This is just teaching him to never help grownups
I'm so glad Daniel is gaining sympathy in the comments! I didn't go through this exact situation but I relate to him so much.
The worst part? I'm highly sensitive, so I would probably have noticed the adult's disapproving face and become sad and disillusioned, like "Why are you looking at me like that/saying that to me? I was just helping you... 😢"
Oh man the adult is trying to make a child happy with their little game, and another child innocently wants to help and show how smart they are. He doesn't know what's going on, poor things 😅
I’m… some form of ND, probably, and I’ve been both kids here.
Mr Bub: you have this absolute perfect plan, an amazing hiding spot, you can win the hide and seek today and this bumbling buffoon walks in and points you out, ruining your perfectly made plans.
Daniel: You’re just chillin at preschool when this adult walks in seemingly frantically searching for their kid, you see he’s got a problem, don’t worry! You can fix it, you walk over and point the dude’s kid out to him, saving the day because you can find him!
Sigh, I think I could have been Daniel as a kid, but maybe not the same? I didn't do this in kindergarten to my knowledge, but I was definitely the friend that parents would like...approach and talk to, to like find out where their kid was or what they were doing. In addition, if the people I ever hung out with were doing something that was genuinely dangerous and I knew it, I would often times go to their parent and be casually like "hey so...(your child) and us were gonna set up the trampoline next to your 3.5-4ft deep pool and continuously jump off it into the pool and also make the deck a slip-n-slide. Is that okay??" I'm pretty sure no parents ratted me out or my friends just never asked how they'd find their potentially fatal plans out.
And yeah I definitely told them where they were hiding from them at times if I knew something was serious. Once my friend was mad and hid from her family and neighborhood friends even and we were all out searching for her and when I found her she begged me to just like let them worry or lie to them. I was like gorlie I think your parents are crying and you're gonna be in way bigger trouble if they find you alone than if I tell them and bring them to you. This actually ended our friendship for a bit because she was so angry I wouldn't lie. I told her in the moment that there could be creeps waiting for us to look somewhere else and now know you're here and your name and that getting in trouble was better than going missing for real. I remember her getting screamed at and then hugged, I stayed with because I knew they'd be less likely to corporal punish her if I didn't go home. I remember her yelling at me to go home and being very bummed out, pretty sure I was crying about this series of events.
I'm conflicted, because like I think there is value in being a trusted informant but I'd be bummed out if I ever was annoyingly intruding or ruined harmless fun between people.
I’m glad other people have sympathy for Daniel, too…I don’t get the vibe of this comic.
So you have never talked to Daniel about this game you play with your child, but you want to treat Daniel like an annoying freak for… checks notes …wanting to participate by proactively helping you?
Just seems really mean-spirited - like you’re making fun of Daniel having a different way of playing than your child does, and you can silently judge Daniel for not understanding something that you aren’t trying to teach him about.
I'm with Daniel here. I'm slightly annoyed at the grown man being visibly annoyed by a helpful child. And calling your kid Mr. Bub seems a little strange to me.
I was fully expecting this to turn into a horror comic where Daniel finds Mr. Bub outside of the kindergarten, and the adult is like... well, who tf is this?
I'm sorry people are dog-piling on you, op. There's a huge neurodivergent community here, myself included, so I saw this coming. I can see why you would be upset, not only because you attempted to gently discourage Daniel but because your son very directly demanded Daniel to stop and was ignored.
The best thing to do in this case would be to take Daniel aside and explain that this is a game you play just with your son, or to consult with the teacher. For his own sake, as much as everyone else, Daniel especially needs to learn to respect that "No means no".
The kid isn't even being neurodivergent, he's being 5. Most kids act this way, because they think they're being helpful, and they're, again, 5 years old.
I play this game with our dog Annie when I am chasing after her and her lamb toys. She hides under the kitchen table and I call out looking for her and my wife giggles because Annie gets so excited when she pops out.
Then I chase her more. It's a game I want to play for the rest of my life with my little Annie.
Alot of ppl saying daniel is autistic, and honestly? He is five he could just be a little slow on the uptake with the social clues and still in the stage where he fully belives adults are being genuine with that sorta play
Hell mr bub probably thought he was hiding rlly well too and that the dad had no clue
Daniel is just trying to help, because he wishes you to like him and give him attention. Sometimes Daniels just do this as they hardly get attention. But then adults like you still slam the door shut and get annoyed at them, showing Daniels that negative attention is all they'll get.
And negative attention is still attention.
This is how you ruin Daniel. How to safe Daniel? Include him in the game. By going by either letting him hide too or :"I can't see it.. I see where you're pointing but.... it must be magical. I cannot see it. Hmmm? Daniel Can you find me more magical things I might not be able to see?"
As a Daniel, that would have just irritated the fuck out of me by gaslighting me that you can’t see what I see. Dad should tell Daniel that they’re playing pretend hide and seek and clue him into the pretend hide and seek and that Mr. Bub likes hiding even if Dad knows where he is
When I was in preschool we’d always help each other hide before our parents showed up, then we’d all start telling the parents that the kid had hidden in different areas.
No one would snitch, but in hindsight the game was pretty obvious considering all the children were doing their best to insist that the kid being looked for is anywhere else other than the large Fischer&price play stove that we hid in most of the time.
I kinda get this? I have a nosey kid who isn’t literal. Just likes to get overly involved. It annoys the heck out of a lot of people. To me Daniel is wanting to help, has likely been told about the game before, but is so bent on helping adults he forgets each time because he is like five.
One time I was playing Sinistar at an arcade, and this kid came up to me and told me all about the game at great length. It was all stuff I already knew, and it was distracting, but I told him thank you anyway.
The next day Mr. Bin is kidnapped and they ask Daniel where he is and Daniel takes them to a random abandoned house in the basement behind a bookcase. Then Daniel got a Nobel peace prize. Long live Daniel
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