When did parents stop being the boss

[Justsayno123]

Completely aware that I sound like some 'outraged from Surbiton' letter into the Daily Fail... But when did parents stop being in charge of their kids?!

I live in a nice area and socialise with a lot of parents. These are well educated people who have achieved some degree of success in their lives and live in relative comfort. No SEN and a lot of the time the children are onlies. So many conversations recently where the other parent says 'well, I just can't make them' or 'I have to give them that choice' or 'I've given up on that one'. Examples of these things include phone usage, bedtime, mealtimes, attending events, or just essentially anything the child doesn't enthusiastically agree to do. I normally just smile politely but I want to scream at them to just take charge! You can make decisions to stop your child doing something which is not in their best interest. You have a duty to try to inculcate healthy ways of living - for their mental and physical health. That is literally your purpose as a parent. Urgh, I literally despair for the future.

Parents now want to be their child's best friend and a bestie doesn't parent. It's just plain lazy and not good for the child in question who actually feel reassured by boundaries. Some definitely try to compensate for not spending time with their child by saying yes to everything. When you spend a lot of time with your child and they feel loved It's easier to say no and be strict about certain things because that's not the majority of your interactions.

Decline in community is a huge part of this. In a strong community being an asset rather than a drain carries currency. People wanted to do the right thing for the sake of the thing in itself being right. Other parents would intervene if necessary. Furthermore, there was a clear sense of right and wrong. Now we're in the land of "do whatever you want and don't judge", kids aren't stupid, they know the adults around them are terrified of other adults turning on them for trying to set a boundary.

Mine was my third! I was one of those people saying- they just need boundaries. If my third had been my first I would have thought I was a terrible parent (and he may have been an only!!)

I'm the boss in my house.

Yes, he have fun and I speak to my DC nicely, I ask before I tell, we do discuss things, but I have no qualms about pulling rank and what I say goes. If I ask for something to be do, I expect it to be done. The boundaries are clear.

This too, hugely.

This is your answer 🙄. Parents who confuse teaching children how to behave with thinking that they should have a say in everything they do. It’s why I don’t teach anymore.

Yep. It’s right there in a nutshell 🤦🏻‍♀️

I’ve heard myself (more than once) say ‘who is the parent in this relationship?’, to one colleague in particular. She will say ‘yes, I’ve never really used discipline…’

I think the real problem is those who jump from one extreme to the other.
It is harmful to be too strict and punitive. It is harmful to allow children to go feral.
To be a good parent means to find the middle ground, where the child feels safe and happy and content, BUT is given clear boundaries. They have structure and duties that match their age and development. They are supported in those areas they struggle, like for example sharing toys. A good parent teaches a child to share their toys fairly, even if it means dealing with a tantrum and the naughty step or a chart and stickers or similar ( that needs to be fine tuned to each child's personality). If you just let them keep the toy, because it is their personal choice, then you are not preparing them for adult life and building a sense of togetherness, friendship and care in them.
They need rules and boundaries. Those can easily be given with kindness and care and love. But the lack of these leads to a very sad lost child. The less boundaries and structure, the worst the behaviour.

The problem is that in the past kids were punished for the tantrum, for expressing annoyance at sharing. That meant they held the feelings in and didn't tantrum so the parents were seen as in charge. I'll enforce sharing but if my child is upset about it I'll comfort them, which is the age appropriate response. Therefore my child is more likely to show they are upset. They still learn to share in an age appropriate way and manage their emotions rather than suppressing them. The goal is emotionally healthy children growing I to emotionally healthy adults. Not blind obedience and being seen as in charge.

My kids go to a music schools that is by definition elitist in all senses of the word - financially, socially and educationally. It has a majority of wet lettuce parents (the remainder are very Asian style tiger parents). The rudeness of the wet lettuce parents’ kids is breathtaking, and the parents are so ineffectual it’s not funny. It’s no wonder some men have problems with women if they are so vile to their mothers as boys and allowed to get away with it. These kids don’t stay the course much beyond y4 as at that point you do need to actually do what you’re told to progress. You also see these kids being fed by their parents too - literally having bits of sandwich popped into their mouths.

Contrast to my kids’ much scruffier school where parents are perfectly capable of a shouted “NO!” and the behaviour is generally much better and the children are a bit more independent. A bit cheeky or lively at times but very rarely outright rude or defiant to an adult.

You say parents then blame mothers for men being unpleasant to women. Are you a man?

when the smart phone was invented.

This is one of those things I struggle to understand when I’m online, quite often I will say “over my dead body will my child do X” or “why aren’t you saying no” only to get a pile on of “oh yeah I’d like to see how you force that”. And well….I do, my children aren’t my friends, there’s a hierarchy, they (on the whole, certainly when told directly) do as they’re told. Mine are teens now and one has AuADHD (so he will forget things a lot! More challenging to get him to remember instructions). But neither are defiant. Just as I wasn’t, or my brother, or DH from the sound of it.

We’ll sometimes negotiate of course, if I need them to do something we can discuss when it works for them, arrange a reward even. But what DH and say, goes.

I agree with your first points but your example is where we would differ, and for me is where things have gone wrong.
I agree that children are as important but not more important and we need to teach how to balance individual and society needs.
My solution to an exhausted 3 year old and a full bus was to say to my child. ‘You are tired but so is this lady so you can sit on my knee (she’s a bit big)’ if that didn’t work I’d have given up my seat.

Their needs were being met but they were also being taught to think about the needs of others. That’s the lesson that is often being missed and is causing most issues in schools- everyone (pupils and parents) are so fixated on themselves that they fail to see things from anyone else’s perspective.

I'm 42 and had horrific anxiety as a teen and child. Absolutely terrible. Could barely function at times but had to so kept going. Imagine if someone had treated me with respect then and had sought therapy or shown me how to do self care rather than push through? That's what I want for my anxious kid. So he doesn't spend his 20s and 30s trying to figure that all out on his own. I didn't even know what amxietyw as until I was maybe 30 and called it 'that before exam feeling but about everything '

Completely agree. In many Asian countries the community comes first. In my experience if Western communities the individual is everything.

Yep mine sat on my knee today, but I didn't stand up and force her to stand with me to let someone else have our seat.

We don’t want to be our teens best friends jeez no, that’s what their friends are for!

I think there is an element that informed, kind, devoted people have a baby and think that the baby they produce is going to be the one that saves the planet!

There is much caring parenting but how many tell their kids you are an average human, with average human parents (without a trust fund), we have told our kids this, to us they are the centre of the universe, out there you are one of billions so you want to ‘succeed’ (define that how you will) you need to be resilient, kind, know how to behave in different circumstances, learn about who is behind your phone platforms.

But you have to accept your child and your parenting is one of billions and that might be harder for some, there is an ego with parenting as all things, it can be ‘gamed’.

Even when ours we small, they would show us a terrible drawing say, we would say, “you’ve done better” (perfectly true) just to introduce criticism into their lives. They didn’t burst into tears, they looked at drawing and nodded and said “yeah”.

Great posts @Barnbrack. It’s hard work staying patient but you can be firm and still respectful of their own thoughts/feelings, taking them into account. I believe it pays off in the long run. Also I would say MH issues are equally prevalent in the adult generation. There is just more awareness across the board.

I think your approach is right.
Mine responded better to stickers when little. Then a well done and pat on the back when older.
They are different, they change. You adapt how you deal with their emotions and help them navigate through it. But you tell them to share that toy and it gets done.

I think what OP is refering to is about doing nothing and letting the child keep a toy that should be shared, so the child learns that crying or shouting gets them what they want. They never learn to share the toy.

When more parents started to use nurseries and childminders. The nursery workers become the 'boss' of your child for up to 8 hours a day (10 in some day nurseries I've been in). So choose your nursery / childminder carefully and read their policies on behaviour management. Look at what nurseries are allowed / not allowed to do to discipline your child before you make your decision as this is where your child is going to learn a lot of the 'rules' of how to behave. Look at the people working there carefully - they have so much influence over your child's development. Those early years are crucial in setting the boundaries. I know this seems obvious, but I don't think a lot of parents like to admit it.

Interesting about criticism. I often think it’s a pretty useful thing that my kids are unphased by criticism and in secondary the teachers that are shouting and bawling my kids brush that stuff off too. In their hobby they don’t require constant praise and can deal with the older kids being arseholes, they either ignore or give it back to them. All useful life skills I think.

Are you very young? You seem to have decided that everyone in older generations was brought up and then brought up their own children in the same way. Common sense should tell you this is not likely to be true. It's not true now, so why would it have applied in earlier generations? My parents, born in the early 1930s, could have been described as authoritarian with my brother and me, but were loving parents who did not expect tiny children to suppress their emotions. Toddler tantrums were not punished.

There are many times in life where there just isn't time to embark on a long explanation and debate about why X is not a good idea and Y is what needs to happen right now. Toddlers have neither the language nor the life experience to understand that sort of conversation anyway, except in the simplest form. Even in the early 90s when my children were tiny I observed parents who behaved in the helpless way described by the OP and seemed to think it was amusing. It wasn't. It's an important life lesson to learn that 'no' means 'no', not 'Oh, all right then, go ahead, it's not the right thing to do, but you've worn me down'.

I am an old-school sort of parent and even in school dc are never told what to do. They are encouraged to be well behaved with stickers, sweets and prizes and kept quiet with Barbie videos. Sometimes the teacher will come out at the end of the day and say dc didn’t do x/y/z after she’d asked and is there anything going on at home or what kind of thing do I usually do to get them to do stuff 🤯