np, whenever she cries I yell extra loud.
I know you’re joking but sometimes 
My criteria applies to everyone in the house (adults, kid, dog).
I have definitely startled every one of my kids out of tantrums by doing it better. It’s been 10+ years, but I expect it to be a valid (although not infinitely repeatable) strategy when I have grandkids also.
Read what though? And how much? And when?
I never really have an idea of whether/how much to push her, even with books. You said you had a kid that went to college as a teenager. Was that like… problematic?
A couple times I’ve tried younger-oriented chapter books to my kids. It’s a bit of trial and error but I think 5 is still too young.
We basically read a few books every night at bedtime, plus usually some randomly throughout the day. They also do it themselves a bit although that’s a bit more making up a story based on the pictures.
There is no one right way to parent because parenting is not a style, it is a response. I parent my children differently based on their different needs. What works for one child doesn’t translate to another. What works one day doesn’t work the next. If you’re looking for a manual, all you will get is a prescription for screwing it up.
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I used to have a boss who would say “After having one child you’re a parenting expert. After having a second you realize that you don’t know what you’re doing.”
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I’d just go to the big library downtown and go through all of the books picking out the ones that I wanted to read.
If your kid doesn’t talk yet, just get picture/shape books. “It’s a circle!”
There was a public-service-type commercial not too long ago where a guy was in a grocery store and saying the items of everything that he took off the shelf & put into his cart. People were giving him weird looks & all. The “punch line” was when they panned out and showed how he was talking to his kid the whole time. Something something about your kid develops words by hearing them so talk to your kids.
How much? A book or two before nap time. A book or four before bedtime. There’s no set prescription on dosage or timing.
Above all, don’t talk in baby-talk-voice.
Problematic in what way?
It wasn’t a problem for me. She was self-driven. I never had to push her. As a matter of fact, I was usually trying to pull her back out of fear that she’d get overwhelmed. She didn’t.
I’d definitely say in moving from 2 to 3 it very much became a zone defense, rather than man to man.
Particularly because my youngest has really tested the limits of our child proofing, had to upgrade defenses to v2.
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I should say, my kid is 4 now. Avoiding too much personal information on the AO, but I guess it’s hard to talk about anything without that.
I don’t really know. My kid is really verbal right now. I think she might end up “gifted”, either by accident or because I read her fancy books to her, or teach her science, or put in her a “good” school, or play chess with her, or keep her from watching princess tv shows 8 hours a day. Who knows.
I realize there’s no good answer, but I was curious what kinds of things you did to nurture her development, and whether there were problems (eg. loneliness, lack of challenges in school) and how you negotiated them?
This makes sense, but why can’t my manual have lots of conditional statements???
Aren’t we all just a manual with lots of conditional statements?
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If you’re smart, you can co-opt the older children to police the younger ones…
…my oldest definitely tries to police the younger ones (she’s almost an adult now), and sometimes I need to tell her which items we do and don’t want policed.
Of course, our youngest is 14, but he needs a lot of supervision (he’s autistic, and no, not the “high-functioning” kind)
yes that definitely helps… my 5 year old (the easiest) does a pretty good job with the 1 year old… my 3 year old tries to do similarly but is a bit too rough… that said it’s a bit all hands on deck because he (the 1 year old) seems to be always looking for a hole in the defenses
Seriously?
I was telling my kids to suck it up, in a non-baby voice, when they fell down. for example.
You don’t necessarily use the same tone, but you model the kind of voice you want to hear back. Because that’s exactly what I get from my son, for sure.
Uh, I meant, hard to say anything to you guys without sharing personal information.
Not hard to say anything to her without a baby voice.
Though maybe I should use a baby voice for you guys. Goochey goochey goo! 
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In other modern parenting dilemmas, I’m also somewhat nervous that it just doesn’t matter what I teach her because her world will controlled by super-intelligent robots.
Maybe practice the Turing test at a young age?
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I’ll give her calfskin wallets for every birthday.
Oh doh. Sorry, I misread.