Parenting Mistakes｜父親になって5年、5つの失敗から学んだこと（#632）
As his eldest son Luca turns five this weekend, host Jun looks back on five parenting mistakes he has made over the past five years. The first half of the episode covers three of them: being overprotective with his firstborn, forgetting to check pockets before doing laundry, and discovering that children absorb their parents' actions far more than their words. Every lesson is grounded in concrete episodes from raising Luca and his younger brother Mika.
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What this episode answers
What did Jun mean by being 'overprotective' with his firstborn, Luca? What specific things did he do?
Every time Luca's pacifier dropped, Jun sterilized it in a dedicated UV machine or by boiling it, and at the park he rode the slide with Luca and chased after him whenever he started to run—all driven by the fear of hurting his baby.
Why is being overprotective harmful to children, and how did Jun come to realize it?
Overprotectiveness means stepping in before children can fall and learn through trial and error; after gaining experience, Jun concluded that 'kids are far tougher than we think' and shifted to a policy of letting them fall within safe limits.
What exactly happened with the laundry mistake?
A red crayon left in a pocket melted and exploded in the dryer, spreading red stains across every item of clothing in the load; cleaning the drum and removing the stains took about two hours in total, convincing Jun that checking pockets before every wash is non-negotiable.
In what parenting situation did Jun come to feel that actions speak louder than words?
Jun tells his children not to touch phones at the dinner table, yet he himself uses his smartphone every day—a contradiction that made him realize children watch their parents' behavior closely, not just their words.
How did Jun's approach to parenting change between his firstborn Luca and his second child Mika?
With Luka, Jun sterilized everything, accompanied him constantly, and kept him under continuous supervision; with Mika, he blows on a dropped pacifier and puts it straight back, and lets him keep going on a scooter or bike as long as a fall looks safe.
Reflecting on Five Years of Fatherhood on a Fifth Birthday
This weekend, Jun's eldest son Luca turns five. As Jun sees it, the world is overflowing with parenting books, YouTube videos, and expert advice—yet none of it tells you exactly how to be the right parent for your specific child. Every parent is left to work it out through trial and error. Out of that process, Jun has pulled five mistakes that stand out, each one following the same cycle: fail, learn, fail again, learn again.
Mistake #1: Being Overprotective with the First Child
When Luca was born, one thought dominated Jun's mind: *don't hurt this baby*. In the US, new parents are discharged from the hospital just two to three days after birth. Nurses walk you through the basics before you leave, but the moment you walk through your own front door, you are largely on your own. Luca seemed extraordinarily fragile to Jun. Every time a pacifier hit the floor, it went straight into a dedicated UV sterilizer or a pot of boiling water. Bottles were run through a specialized sterilizing machine. At the park, Jun would ride the slide alongside Luca and sprint after him the instant he started to run.
Everything changed when Luca's younger brother Mika arrived a year and a half later. A dropped pacifier? Blow on it and pop it back in. Mika picking up speed on a scooter or bike? As long as a fall looked safe, Jun let it happen. The lesson Jun came away with: kids are far tougher than we think. Being overprotective robs children of the very falls and stumbles they need in order to learn. Today, Jun is consciously stepping back with Luca as well, giving both boys room to make their own decisions.
Mistake #2: Not Checking Pockets Before Doing Laundry
Once kids start exploring the world on their own, their pockets become treasure vaults—and they don't tell their parents what's inside. Jun learned this the hard way when he opened the dryer one day to find every piece of clothing—his own and the kids'—covered in large red stains. A red crayon left in a pocket had melted in the heat and exploded across the entire load. Scraping the hardened wax off the drum and getting the stains out of the clothes took roughly two hours. "It isn't a catastrophic mistake," Jun says, "but in any household with children, checking pockets before every single wash is absolutely necessary."
Mistake #3: Actions Speak Louder Than Words to Kids
Once children start understanding language, parents tend to fall back on instructions: "Do this," "Don't do that." But what Jun noticed was unsettling: children pay far more attention to what their parents *do* than to what they *say*.
His main example is the smartphone. Jun and his wife have a house rule—no tablets or kids' phones, and no touching phones at the dinner table. Yet every day, the kids watch Jun use his own smartphone. On top of that, Luca has taken to firing question after question at Alexa about Pokémon—"What does Eevee evolve into?" "Who is stronger than Eevee?"—showing just how comfortable he already is with devices. Jun was candid about the contradiction: "Kids observe their parents' behavior to a degree that is almost frightening." He openly acknowledged the limits of telling children one thing while doing another himself.
Takeaways
- Overprotecting your firstborn means preemptively taking away the falls and trial-and-error experiences that are essential to a child's learning.
- Children quietly pocket found objects without telling anyone, and a single crayon can ruin a full dryer load and all the clothes inside it—checking pockets before every wash is a must.
- No matter how many instructions you give, children watch what you do; you cannot expect them to follow rules you do not follow yourself.
This article is edited from a machine transcript of the first 30 minutes of the episode. It is not an official summary — please listen to the episode itself.