To be quite pleased that my dc are a little bit scared of me.

[psiloveyou]

DS (11) was looking at a picture in the paper this morning. It was of a mum taking her young son into court to face charges after rioting.
Ds said "if I ever did anything like that mum, I would be much more scared of what you would do. You're much scarier than any policeman or court". I was actually quite pleased that he felt like that.

When I told a friend though she was horrified. She said she would be devastated if her dc were scared of her in any way. She said I was living in the dark ages if I feel like that and adults should earn the respect of children without scaring them.

Now don't get me wrong, DS and I have a brilliant relationship. I never hit (and rarely have to shout at) the dc. I do think though that a little fear is healthy and I would like my dc to feel that way about any authority figure such as teachers the police ect.

So am I living in the dark ages.

I think this is about language as much as anything. I seem to be thinkong the same as slanted beacuse I would say that hurting someone because I don't want to hurt them is the right way. But I would say that hurting them was a consequence, it is what would happen because of my actions. I wouldn't not hurt them because the consequence was i would get punished I would not hurt them because I see the consequence is hurting someone else.

I hope that makes sense

Sorry I'm trying to arrange my lot into a mass kitchen cleaning team

Slanted can i ask you if you have children?

I understand what you are saying about wanting the child to not hit another child because he doesn't want, not because of fear. But in reality even the best child has bad moments. How do you deal with that?

And if you have multiple dcs what do you do if the oldest (or the one with stronger personality) pushes or hit?

Some things sound nice in theory. In practice is different. I've never met children who are all the time nice to each other. And i've spent 20 years working with several children before the 10 years of motherhood.

I have only read the OP, so apologies if I am repeating someone else, but there is a lot of difference between being "scared" of your parents and respecting them, and I think the latter is much more healthy. By scaring into submission, you are just encouraging kids to be dishonest with you imho.

When do you think a DC should stop being scared of their parents? Emotions like that can't just be switched off when you turn 18, and I can just imagine some of the responses on here if someone posted that her DH was scared of his mother.

psiloveyou Your DS is a gem though, and I know how much respect your DC's and FDC's have for you. If you give children time and attention they will respect you and of course they wouldn't want to upset you.

I never get why people say it's wrong for children to 'fear' their parents. To some extent I 'fear' upsetting my friends and collegues/ managers too. It's more a fear of them being disappointed in my actions (if they're harmful/wrong) than an actual fear.

People should be fearful of the justice system, ie what consequence they'll get. cognito's example of the speeding fine is great.

Ephiny with you re buses!

Laquitar X-posted and I know your post wasn't addressed to me, but I suppose I am trying to say that there is a difference between issuing appropriate sanctions for behaviour and "scaring" your children. I am not sure which is the case in the OP but I would like to think that my teenagers would not join the riot because I have brought them up to respect other people rather than specifically because they would be scared of what I would say.

A baby throwing apples is learning how to respect objects and people when their mum says no and takes the bowl off them. We are teaching them this respect by our actions and consequences very early on. It is not irrelevant by far.
They are learning how to behave in a socially acceptable way - one in which they don't hurt or cause problems for others.

Yes me too brummie. The thing is whatever we discuss these days our mind goes to the riots. But i was having in my mind 2 5yrs children arguing. Even the most angelic ones do. In this case i will threat (if you push i'm taking your bike) .

joric - but that has got bugger all to do with 'fear'. No child 'fears' having a bowl of fruit taken away. They might regret it but that isn't fear.

Saying 'I won't do that because mummy will be upset with me' is very different from 'I won't do that because I am afraid of mummy'. Wishing to avoid mummy being upset is not being afraid.

My use of the word fear is :
'the be fearful, afraid of a consequence'
Not
'to be fearful/ afraid of mummy'

YANBU, a mere flick of my eyebrow and flare of nose holes sends my two running for the hills

Now i'm worried about people taking the 'you'd kill me' too seriously. Why CustardCake, why did you do this?

Got to go- I'm frightened that if I don't go now, I will be late and ( the consequence will be ) I'll annoy my friend.

Ditto custard ;)

slanted you said you feared your mum, can I ask what she did to make you fear her so much.
I think most people have understood that (despite my slightly misleading thread title) my dc do not fear me but they do fear the consequences I will impose for bad behaviour.
In an ideal world you are right people would not hurt simply because they don't want to. But children are not born understanding respect or having empathy for others so how do you teach that?. My way has been to put in place boundaries that are set in stone. If I have said there will be a consequence to a certain behaviour then my dc know I will carry out whatever I have threatened and they fear that. As well as that I like to think I set a good example by showing empathy and kindness to others.

There was a programme on TV a while ago (I can't remember the title will try to find out). What happened was that the producers put a group of young people in a house with no adult supervision or rules to see what would happen. If I remember correctly it all went pear shaped very quickly.

This is what has largely happened recently. People, young and not so young with no rules and no respect for authority have run wild because they simply have no fear about the consequences of their actions.

Will people please stop assuming I'm advocating disrespect, no supervision and a total lack of rules and boundaries?

I am just saying that kids don't need to be scared into respect.

A few of you have assumed that because I don't believe in fear as a means of controlling children then I must be all for outright permissiveness. Not sure how you make that connection.

It seems a bit weird that for some people it's a matter of fear or anarchy.

Sorry slanted I did mean to ask, if you don't agree with fear of consequences what do you do to teach your dc to respect others?

And teaching children to fear consequences is not the same as teaching them empathy.

Empathy comes from the understanding that other people are as real as you are; not from a fear of consequences.

I don't think anyone is saying that their children should be scared of them. It is about respect. How can you learn to respect something/someone with having a 'fear' of losing something? My children respect their toys and they know that if they treat them badly they will lose them as they will be broken or taken away. They're not scared that I will beat them senseless if they break a toy, they're fearful of having it taken away or it being put in the bin.

My son (5) is not scared of me, he's scared of upsetting me. By teaching him right from wrong he knows what I expect from him. He knows that if he crosses this line I will be disappointed with him and that scares him. I have never hit him to produce this fear. I have taught him to respect me.

Respect goes hand in hand with fear - not cowaring in a corner fear, but fear of a letting someone down or having someone be disappointed.

And I agree with niceguy2. I love my parents to the ends of the earth and I will do everything in my power to keep their respect and not disappoint them because they gave me everything I could ever want or need. They've never held this over me but they have shown me and taught me to appreciate what I have.

Sorry if this x-posts with loads but it's taken me ages to write - dcs and dh keep interrupting me. No respect round here. Hmmph.

Dp and I were having this exact conversation.

Currently dealing with the neighbours little shites(8) who after stabbing my dd6 in the chest with a light sabre soooo hard it went through her clothes and punctured her skin,told her he was going to stick pins into her face to make her even uglier(she's drop dead beautiful but now has zero confidence) then proceeded to go round knocking on doors and running away.

Having told said shite I'd snap his light sabre in half and stick it where the sun don't shine along with calling the police his mother popped her head out of the window said he'd done nothing and after I'd retreated bleated in a sing song voice to said future thug "that's not very nice love".

My 3 were aghast and very confused. They were mighty upset that if it was them life wouldn't be worth living and why said thug got no punishment what so ever. Twin 1 called her "weak"(out of the mouth of babes).

My kids respect me.Yes they're fearful of what I might do if they ever behaved in such a bullying,spiteful anti social way but they understand exactly why.They know right from wrong.They know I have a right to be angry and so does society.

Re the riots I do think in some way todays parents are disenfranchised.Smacking is obviously out but shouting is frowned on and even going by many threads on here punishments full stop. Basically speaking in a quiet reasoning tone is the magic answer to everything.Bollocks to that! Kids are clever,they will manipulate when they can. I'm often confused as to how I 'should' be parenting and I'm an ex teacher with years of behaviour management behind me so I can see how some parents struggle.

In the old days kids felt fear from parents,school and society. That has completely gone now and don't kids know it.

I never said teaching empathy was the same as fear of consequences I said I teach empathy by example.

I think you are taking my thread title too literally. You have said you set boundaries so surely you also have consequences if your dc (I am assuming you have dc) cross said boundaries. So surely your dc will fear the consequences you put in place.

Perhaps it is a language issue, as someone upthread suggested.

Why do dc need to fear consequences, in order to not wish them?

And I'm not sure about fear and respect going hand in hand, as someone else said. I rarely respect people I fear. And I rarely fear people I respect.

(psiloveyou - taking things too literally is a bad habit of mine. I don't think I have done so, in this case, but I agree that I am focussing on the word "fear". Many contributors to this thread seem to be wholly endorsing the idea of fear, too, and making unsubstantiated claims about the good old days when scared children behaved because they were scared.)