To believe kids are equal to adults

[DragonMummy1418]

They deserve the same treatment.
Their feelings are just as important as adults.

My parents told me that our home was a dictatorship not a democracy growing up and made me feel that my thoughts and opinions were not important or valid.
If it's something they can have a say in safely then I let my dc help make choices.

I went food shopping with my mother (who I am LC with) and 3.5 yr old DS today and she was appalled that I was letting my DS have a say in what we bought.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not letting him fill the trolly with ice cream and sweets but when it comes to a choice of which meat or which vegetables etc then I'm happy to let him pick what he likes and I know he will eat.

My mother was horrified when I said that I value DS's feelings and thoughts on the same level as my DH or hers (probably more than hers, lol).

I genuinely prefer the company of my child to a lot of adults I know.

Also, DRAGON

Your child’s confidence and self worth will come as much from you offering them boundaries as anything else. I’ve watched children alternatively parented to the point where they’re given choice upon choice upon choice and have their feelings ‘validated’ when they freak out. Those children are not more confident or aware. They are unable to process emotions calmly and are constantly pushing boundaries.

It’s a real issues and borders on serious child mental health conditions when a child cannot rationalise their own emotions due to not being taught and shown how to.

Luisa, I agree. It's been interesting to read 😊

DRAGON

Sometimes ‘talking through it’ is the worst thing, because their feelings are not rational. They cannot be explained away. The best thing to do is to let them calm down and if they don’t insist that they do calm down.

Otherwise you end up debating away a day with an irrational small person

Laughing at the idea that set bedtimes are abusive.

Bollocks. I liked some adult time in the evenings, and the kids needed their sleep,even if they didn't believe that.

I remain firmly rooted in the benign dictatorship camp.

Cantankerous

Their feelings can't always be rationalised but they can be explained.

I do think sometimes just letting them finish the tantrum and then talking about it after is good. Sometimes I can see a tantrum coming and pre-empt it with a conversation.

Of course children's feelings and emotions are of equal value to adults though.

Children need their caregivers to be responsible for them, guide them, teach them, protect them, sometimes overrule or discipline or decide for them depending on age and situation.

That doesn't mean children's feelings and emotions are less important though!

If a parent doesn't feel like going to work, or feels sad because something at work went wrong or someone said something they know they should rise above but still hurt, or feels angry or grumpy because it's one of those days and small things keep going wrong - those feelings and emotions are not in any way more important than a child's sadness, don't feel like it mood or grumpiness!

Adults and children all have to "snap out of it" sometimes, the only difference is adults should be able to snap themselves out of a bad mood for the sake of a family day out (or know when it's serious and they need to work something through) and children can need help regulating and processing feelings and emotions.

That doesn't mean one age group's feelings and emotions are more important though!

But the very point of being a child is that your feelings and emotions are not equal. They’re often extreme and irrational. If we start giving equal credence to irrational and extreme emotions and feelings, it’s going to have a serious affect on life AND be very damaging for children:

The best thing you can do for children is to teach them what is expected of them and why. This means they won’t cock up and feel guilty. Guilt is a horrid emotion.

Equal in feelings and emotions is a very interesting point. Many professionals agree that the frontal cortex of the brain, responsible for good judgement and understanding long term consequences, isn't fully developed up until we are 25 years old. We may want to teach our children how to make the right choice in terms of assuming the consequences. But some would say that it's a long learning curve and we cannot expect young children to have the same understanding of their own emotions as a fully grown adult.

Meh.

Of course my children are equal to me. In almost all ways I put their needs way before my own. Sometimes they get to choose what's for dinner - usually at the weekend when there is less time pressure.

But in general, if you ask a child in a supermarket to choose, they'll pick the things they fancy. Whereas I will be thinking about whether it's healthy, how expensive it is, how long it takes to cook, what else in the fridge needs to be used, what else it goes with, whether it will make leftovers tomorrow, if the rest of the family likes it and a load of other very boring calculations that are part and parcel of being an adult.

If the DC will eat pork or salmon, it's not abuse. If they have tried salmon and don't like it, it is abusive to force feed them it.

There has to be a balance- if they don't eat any fish or any veg, that is an issue. But giving them salmon when they like every other fish because that's what you like and 'you only make one meal' is just teaching them that their views and opinions don't matter.

That can have very serious consequences in future with a lack of self-worth when it comes to relationships, for example. "I don't really want to have sex with him, but my opinions don't matter."

Babysitting DN:
Me: Time to go in your car seat
Her: No
Me: But we’re going to the park and you need to be safe in the car
Her: No
At that point she’s wrestled into her seat no matter how upset she gets. I don’t negotiate with toddlers because I value my sanity and her safety is more important than her feelings. The scene she makes would imply the world was ending. Her feelings are NOT equal to that of an adult because she’s far too young to understand properly or to reason with.

Also trying giving them ‘choice’ when you’re cooking for more than one child. If I have DNeices and DNephews then guaranteed they all say different things (not all of them are old enough to understand we will have your pick tomorrow) and I’m lucky if 1 is even a sensible enough suggestion to run with. Far easier to stick something on the table that you know no one hates and save yourself the drama of 2 out of 3 kids upset. That goes for the supermarket too, if I ask DNeice what veg she’d like she’ll say carrots, then DNephew will pout that he doesn’t like carrots and he won’t be eating carrots and did he mention he hates carrots.

My children are treated with equal respect to an adult.

Where possibly my children choose and make decisions for themselves, including vegetables (although I always encourage them to try new things) I take overall responsibility but they are practicing independence regularly and as much as possible.

My parents motto is that the adult is superior to a child, and I can not tell you how much I do not agree with that sentiment.

Children are not second class citizens in my view.

Its lovely and fluffy and nice sounding, but its pure bollocks and you and we all know it. Kids don't get the same level as input, they don't have an equal vote, and we do constantly over rule them and do all kinds of things they wouldn't choose.

If we say otherwise we are either lying or shitty parents.

But that didn't mean your nieces and nephews have less value than you or than they will in 18 years.

If they're all round yours when they're 18+ for tea, chances are they'll still all suggest different food to each other. You make a sensible choice as you're cooking /buying. As adults were all happy they're equal to you but that didn't mean they all get their own way.

....loving all these comparative RL anecdotes 😂😂

Agree with you Sleeping

Good points

Really interesting question. My gut feeling is that they are equal (absolutely no disputing in terms of equal feelings and rights as a person etc) and actually in terms of meals, days out etc I would do what they wanted to rather than what I wanted to.

BUT, I struggle with discipline, did a parenting course and one of the things I realised is that I was giving them too much choice and freedom. It was pointed out that in terms of crossing the road, going to school, other things then I am the adult and would not hesitate to enforce boundaries and so need to do it on other areas too.

Also I realised that in always doing what they wanted to do I was in danger of making it seem that I was less important to them, eg never choosing what I wanted to eat for once and actually they could become quite entitled.

At the end of the day though I still struggle with boundaries and really wish I could nail the benign dictatorship but find it very hard - where is the rule book ?

Going back to the toddler at swimming question though, if you are trying to control a toddler at swimming lessons then i’ll give up my seat to you (and then) any day of the week.

Sleeping I think you’ve nailed it; choices don’t have to equal value. I agree completely you wouldn’t invite adults round for dinner and ask each one individually what they want, doesn’t mean you don’t value them or see them as equals. No different with kids!

CalF123
You must have had a very damaged childhood if you believe that strict parent = low self-estime adult who will end up victim of sex abuse. It's utter bollocks, proven to be untrue and these beliefs are the most damaging to the children in the long run.

Kids need boundaries, if only to push them. A self confident and happy adult comes from a happy house with real parents not afraid to be parents, and not "mates". When you impose strict rules on your kids, they know you care and that they matter. They know you have their back, and that you can be trusted. Ultimately, it's easier to let them have free will, eat whatever they want, go to bed whenever they want and so on. It makes your life so much easier, but that's not what being a parent is.

Twofishfingers the fact that an 8 year old or a 12 year old will not be able to regulate all of their emotions all of the time doesn't mean that their feelings and emotions are less important than a 48 year old's, merely that they still need their adults to help them learn to regulate them and to sometimes make some decisions for them.

Not acting on someone's emotional response doesn't make that feeling unimportant, or at least no more unimportant than anyone else's.

Some (many/ most) decisions should not be made on the basis of irrational feelings. That means they shouldn't be made in the basis of an adult's feelings and emotions at the expense of a child's. They should be made rationally not emotionally.

Children's feelings and emotions are possibly more important than adults, and at least as important. That has nothing whatsoever to do with who makes the decisions about anything important!

Any adult making important decisions for their children based only on feelings and emotions is no fitter to be responsible than a child themselves!

I don't see any contradiction between saying children's feelings and emotions are as valuable as adults, and bringing up children with firm boundaries.

To recognise that all humans' feelings and emotions are of equal value does not mean that they are all acted upon at all!

We all have to do things we don't feel like. Adults at least as often as children.

I think calf wins the award for how many times she can get the word 'abusive' into a thread. There's actually something quite disturbing about constantly thinking other people's way of parenting is 'abusive just because it differs to yours.

@metalmum15

Force-feeding children food they don't like isn't a different way of parenting, it's abuse. Social services would agree with me.

calf 7! I rest my case 😁