To think some people, especially in the past, don't see children as people with any autonomy?

I'm not saying that the past was a wholesome time where everyone respected their elders. I was simply giving my own example of why I think differences are not necessarily generational. I knew plenty of kids who got smacked or shouted at.

The issues you refer to on an 80s council estate still exist today.

Child development theory is always changing. What may have been seen as acceptable previously is not today. What is acceptable today probably won't be in 20/30 years time.

My mum grew up in the times when it was popular to give kids a clip round the ear. (1950s)

She remembers her childhood as absolutely awful and swore blind if she had kids she would make their childhood as far from hers as possible.

There's a middle way.

Allowing independence and having someone to be able to talk to with issues, being respected etc. doesn’t that equal autonomy? That’s exactly what I’ve been saying. I’m not saying today's parents are better. You don’t need to molly coddle anyone, that does no one any favours, but neither do you need the ‘I know best!’ approach.

You said you had capital punishment as kids, and now kids today don’t respect parents. There was always little brats around, very poorly parented kids, there’s so many messed up adults now as a result of it, and there are will be again because too many are lazy and permissive now. Neither is better than the other. I’m talking about a middle ground. Equally, good parents have also always existed.

There is absolutely a balance, and individual baby needs.

My MIL wanted us to stay at a house party with them at the weekend because "it's a bank holiday, the rules don't apply".

Except my son doesn't know it's a bank holiday, he just knows when a bunch of strangers are getting up in his face trying to hold him when he wants to play in the garden. He ended up clinging on to me, and he certainly didn't want to hang out there longer just because it was a bank holiday.

If there are rules, I don't make them. He does, and he doesn't always have the tolerance an adult might want of him for their own convenience.

There are a lot of people on this site who don’t have kids, don’t understand kids, don’t particularly like kids, or mothers, but they do like to give their ill-informed, crappy “advice” to parents. I think they skew what seems to be the prevalent view and I don’t think you should pay them much attention.

I think with many things children should have autonomy but not with everything and not at the expense of boundaries and discipline which children do need in order for brain development (and should be adapted appropriately for any brain diversity) and become well rounded adults.

I didn't say that resilience was built by a clip round the ear, I said children were kept in check.

Resilience is built by allowing independence and problem solving not hours of navel gazing. Children aren't patients who need to sit down and discuss their feelings. They need firm boundaries.

If you read my posts,I've already said clearly that you shouldn't physically chastise children. However there should be consequences for poor behaviour, not unremitting diagnosis and gentle chats. The often dreadful behaviour of children is proof enough that many parents are getting it wrong.

Child development isn't a new thing either - children haven't changed, just the instructions, they never end. Lots of professed experts on the subject though, there always have been.

Of course.
I'm 45, from another country.
My generation had it very tough.
Father long time dead, NC with mother (81).
No regrets.

The pendulum continues to swing, back and forth, each generation criticising the one before and the one after.

We've no idea how the permissive parenting is going to work out nor do we know what damage was wrought by the clip-round-the-ear generation, it's difficult to pinpoint and people are not a homogenous group but individuals.

Do your best as a parent and leave others to do the same.

I'm 70. That's how it was when I grew up

I didn't think it was like that now. (and I refused to make my children eat foods they didn't like)

Yes and no.

Yes, children are individuals with autonomy and that should be respected to an extent.

However if left to their own devices, most children won't make good decisions about what to eat, what to wear, whether they go to school etc.

They won't learn decent manners or social rules.

They won't learn that their parents are humans with their own needs.

They won't learn that money has to be earned and there isn't an infinite supply of food, so sometimes you have to eat what you have, or that you can't have all the toys you want.

And so on...

Resilience isn’t built by a clip round the ear, resilience is built by having a proper support network and having your thoughts and feelings listened to, respected, and discussed. That doesn’t mean if a child wanted something you couldn’t afford or whatever you couldn’t say no, or if they misbehave you don’t punish, but you don’t clip them around the ear or whack them with a slipper either 🤣. I’d say people were definitely too harsh generations ago, just from anecdotes from people who are now in their 60s going on about how they were punished as kids and claiming it did them no harm. Trust me, it absolutely did! Most people aren’t very self aware 😃.

More ageist rubbish. All of that could-and does-apply to some young parents as well.

I don't think it's necessarily a generational thing.

I was a child of the 60s/70s. My parents never smacked us or shouted at us but we still respected them. Mum only had to give us that certain look (even when we were adults!!). There were certainly times when I resented them, especially when I thought that I should be allowed to do something and they didn't. Looking back I can see that they were were probably right to make the decisions they did.

It is all about balance and I think there do seem to be some people who have gone from one extreme to the other. I also think that some children are not brought up to think about how their actions will affect others. More consideration and tolerance would go a long way to improving society. And I mean that in respect of adults as well as children.

I don't believe people were always too harsh. People were stricter and their lives didn't completely revolve around their children's whims.

There weren't so many children with mental health issues when I was growing up. Children were given more independence, were socialised, had more exercise and had firm boundaries.

We didn't have thousands of children of school because of anxiety and school avoidance. There was more resilience and less pampering.

There are mental health crises in every generation. I know exactly why my mother parented me as she did, it was generational, she parented me as her mother did her. She has many emotional problems as a result and so do I. Things just weren’t spoken about years ago. There needs to be far more awareness of good parenting practices than there is. I think this generation’s parents are becoming too lazy, but that’s a reflection of modern society in general, everyone’s lazier. In the past, people were too harsh. Swings and roundabouts.

That's called good parenting and unfortunately you don't see a lot of it around. What you do see are little prince and princesses given free reign where their wants are paramount.

A lot of it's neglectful eg giving them smartphones with no safeguarding, letting them game all day, feeding them whatever they want, letting them dress how they like, letting the household revolve around their demands.

There doesn't seem to be any discipline or any consideration for others. Teachers are leaving in their droves because of feral brats. There is a children's mental health and obesity crisis so something is going very wrong.

The thing is, it is a parent’s job to socialise children properly, so they can integrate properly with society. This involves things like considering the feelings of others (if they have gone to the effort to provide food, you should be appreciative, if you eat with others, you should be aware that it is disruptive as unsociable to get up and leave the table while others are eating), learning how to converse (sitting at a table together talking is a great way for people to catch up with each other and learn how to listen, speak, not interrupt, etc)…

Also, children don’t know what is best for them, and learning to trust that their parents have their best interests at heart helps them to feel secure. It’s better to say “We are going swimming today and then soft play”, rather than asking them what they’d like to do, because they don’t realise that they’ll be in the mood to do something later that they are not in the mood to do now. It’s the parent’s job to plan the lives of their children to enrich and equip them for adulthood as best as they can - predicting, forecasting, anticipating, preparing, adapting, in a way a child is simply unable to do.

I found out my MIL was talking to my twins like they were dogs when she was giving them meals. Shouting ‘No! Naughty!’ At them for dropping food off the high chair.

Called us helicopter parents and that they’d never learn to stop without being told off.

They were 10m old with no concept of being ‘naughty’. She just didn’t want to clean it up.

She no longer looks after them, can confirm they are 17m old now and no longer drop food off the high chair, no shouting needed.

is it generational or is it just people specific? To this day she doesn’t see them as people with feelings.

I agree with others about middle ground. For example I think OPs mention of routines that fit the parents makes people think that routines = bad for child, respond to child/feed on demand = good for child as if there is no cross over. It frustrates me that this trope is said or implied over and over again. 3 out of 4 of mine were routine babies from the start after a very chaotic time with child 1, and they all absolutely thrived - well rested, well fed, well cuddled, well entertained, and so seldom cried, and no I don’t believe I was just lucky, it’s anticipating a child’s needs rather than responding to them.

Apart from that yes I completely agree in being very respectful to children.