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.

I think some of it is that a lot of adults can’t cope with being bored. And it’s boring to remind your child every single time to say please/thank you, eat with your mouth shut, apologise if they’re cheeky to an adult (especially if the adult says “oh it doesn’t matter”). It’s boring to enforce and oversee a laborious 15 minutes of tidy up time rather than doing it yourself in 2 minutes once they’re in bed.

And some children are harder to parent “gently”. If I give my son a reason/explanation when I tell him to do something, he sees it as an opening negotiation. I don’t back down, he has always had to do the thing, I often say “it’s not a debate I was explaining why I think this is important” and yet he still tries to negotiate. He’s just a born “yes, but…” rules lawyer type. I still try to keep the balance between explaining so he understands and not forcing him to do it because he’s scared of me.

humans seem to be auto programmed for different behaviours and its trying to guide them thats the tricky part.

But I'll still expect it to be done anyway lol. I hate the 'because I said so' mentality.

I aim for discussion and negotiation but really sometimes the answer is “because I said so”. I don’t need to explain and agree every single thing I ask them to do, sometimes it’s not practical or I just don’t have time for negotiation - in those moments it’s “because I said so”. Parents need to be an authority figure in their children’s lives and sometimes things just need done. You’re setting kids up for failure if they think they can negotiate or have an explanation for everything that happens in life.

I sometimes think of it as the explanation is just why you’re saying so. It’s better (and easier!) if the child agrees with the why, or it helps them understand why you’re saying so, but ultimately the reason they should do is because you say so, not because they are fundamentally persuaded by the philosophical soundness of your explanation 😂

You’re trying to raise healthy adults. That means people able to make wise choices, and recover from making mistakes.

You want your kids to flourish in all situations, and to be able to change their situation if they are somewhere they can’t flourish.

Showing them how to behave appropriately in a variety of situations.

What you aren’t doing, is teaching them a series of behaviours to perform under threat of sanction. Because they aren’t circus animals.

They also come complete with their own personality and you need to help them manage that as well. One of mine, if you showed him a boundary he felt obliged to trample all over it. For a period of time our house was a battle field because I was following all the authoritarian advice. I learned a totally different approach that showed him how to handle all the situations I didn’t want him in, gave him guidance to keep himself safe in all those behaviours. He did so well then- turned out to be a massively sensible risk averse child which you wouldn’t have guessed from his behaviour beforehand!

DC2 was hilarious. He reached his teens and wanted to have the occasional argument and fight, but all the rebellions were going to leave him with consequences he wouldn’t like, so he had to do without 🤣😅.

But my parenting challenges will have been different to other people’s. I loved watching the first time mums at BBgroup be all smug with docile DC 1, have a totally different experience with DC2 🤣

I have 3 young adult children. Their feedback is that DH and I did parenting well. Our DD tells us that she always felt listened to and heard.

I think we were fairly strict re: bedtimes, manners, and always eating meals as a family around a table. They had quite outdoorsy childhoods and we encouraged all their sporting, and arty hobbies. There was a lot more laughter than angst and their friends were always here.

We were not that bothered about school stuff, I think people get too hung up on assessments and grades etc. Mental wellbeing always came first, so we would occasionally let them have a duvet day if we thought they needed it. We even skipped off to the seaside for a week in term time now and again and they still managed to all get good degrees and professional jobs.

Did we smack them? Absolutely not.
Did we shout at them? Yes, and they weren't afraid to shout back! Teenagers test boundaries.

Sometimes having a row clears the air, it blows over and is quickly sorted. Being too polite to argue can lead to simmering resentment (as witnessed in DHs family). My background is Irish and I'd say the Irish have a tendency to express emotions quickly, openly and authentically.
Our DCs are best mates with each other and with us so I think we did ok.

This

I think it’s definitely a balance but I think it has got worse even since I had my DC (youngest is 10).
I would say I’m fairly chilled as a parent and have picked my battles- never been too fussed about what they wear for example. But yeah definitely the important things like bedtime and screen time are not negotiable.

And that's the answer to the original question! From one extreme to the other and probably thinks she's a wonderful parent.

I don't know them, but the Middleton family seem to have a good strong dynamic going on. I imagine they were great parents.

@Barnbrack
I am 61 and I never shouted at nor hit my sons, now 37 and nearly 40.
And my parents never shouted at or hit me.
There are alternatives, explaining the rights and wrongs and ultimately depriving child of park trip or swimming etc.....

I once saw a man who looked solidly middle class, left leaning luvvie type, have a 'difficult' interaction with his daughter in a shop. She was about 7 or 8 and was having a massive tantrum because she'd seen something she wanted and he'd said no.

He looked really embarassed and uncomfortable, was trying to reason with her without raising his voice but she just got more and more into her tantrum. In the end he sighed and said 'Right. Okay. You win. Have it, but please just stop. There, are you happy now?'

And the little girl changed like someone had flipped a switch. Not even a sniffle came out of her like it would if someone had been genuinely crying and upset. Like an oscar winning actress would be after performing a scene of high emotion. She just stopped dead, composed herself, did a smug little smile and brushed her hair out of her face as she took her prize off the shelf triumphantly.

The look I gave that man probably stripped him of any remaining dignity he still had, which wasn't much as his daughter had just relieved him of most of it.

Yeah, imagine the impact on teachers in the classroom.

Are these children polite, respectful, well mannered, kind, able to sit quietly for an hour or so, engage in a little conversation, play with their friends and know right from wrong?

There are some things that are just not worth battling over.

Its like childhood as been replaced with device's.
Parenting as been replaced with device's.
All bad behaviour is down to SEN of somesort.
But i dont believe all these kids have SEN it feels like its used as an excuse now.

My 7 yr old has ADHD, he can get really dysregulated and it can look like begging for something but it's a coke bottle effect, the emotions have been rising up and the disappointment over a toy just tips him over the edge. The difference is I could then get him the toy but he'd still be melting down because his rational brain is scrambled at that point. So I'd still be there with the screaming 7 yr old who is massive and looks 11 which is worse but I'd be sat on the floor with him while he screams until he's calm enough to half carry to the car. He doesn't get the toy but then it's not about the toy. I often think people around me are thinking, it's a £3 hot wheels, just get him it but I can't, and it won't stop it

I find this interesting that there's clearly a certain type of parent that thinks that bringing your child up to be polite, friendly, and generally just a well-adjusted person is a bad thing, because you might have to occasionally say "no" or ask them to do something they don't want to do.

You're doing your children no favours by having no boundaries and letting them "rule the roost" so to speak.

And no, it's not about being authoritarian, or hurting or screaming at them. It takes yet again, a particular type of parent who interprets the above as that. It's about knowing that the benefit of age and experience actually counts for something.

I'm not sure when or why this happened, but I agree it's the "I can't say no" and "I can't stop them" types.

Don't be so ridiculous. It's not some sort of binary, 'draconian and abusive'/'let them do exactly what they want at all times, ffs.'

It's part of a parent's duty to equip kids for life by modelling structure and rules because these are part of civilised society. The vast majority of parents manage to do this with love and an acceptance of their kids as 'human beings in their own right'. Of course they are, but they need to be taught and guided.

It's absurd to suggest that discipline equals treating children like robots, screaming and hitting. If you have children do you let them do exactly what they want, when they want? You're doing them no favours if so.

But why should either one of them give up their seat to an able bodied adult? It's nice to be nice for sure, but teaching children to blindly put others' needs ahead of their own is definitely a cycle I'm trying to break.

I disagree, my children are polite, kind, can share, have friends, commended for behaviour at school including my eldest SEN child. However out and about there are days you'd see me huckling this massive boy onto my knee in a shop where he's melted down and I've not seen the signals and I'm comforting what looks like a tantrumming 10 yr old asking for a toy. And I suspect a lot of judgement is going towards parents in similar situations seen in a snapshot of their lives. Because in the 80s a child who could actually like that wouldn't be taken out of would be left in the car or would be terrified to speak due to repeatedly being screamed at or hit. I probably looked like the model child at 7 because I was so anxious I could hardly more than whisper in public.

I'm sorry I really don't understand what your post has got to do with mine?

Are you saying you've never said no or asked them to do anything they might not want to do?

“Felt listened to and heard”.

I think that’s key, in that your child should be listened to and heard - but that doesn’t mean always getting what they want (or think they want at that fleeting moment).

We can hear our children without forgetting that we are still the adults, still the parents, still in charge.

(Love your user name btw!)

Or what it has to do with the OP which quite specifically calls out people the OP knows whose children do not have any SEN.

I completely agree with this.

I also believe children thrive best in this relationship. Children need boundaries and they need parents to instill good habits in them, including doing things that aren’t fun to do.

And parenting means stepping up to do the hard work of enforcing things your children need to do. You have to go through that pain barrier with kids when you put in the hard work to enforce a rule.

My kids Father doesn’t do this and frankly they run rings around them. I do enforce expectations and rules. Guess who they prefer spending time with? Me. I care about them enough to spend a lot of time with them, have a lot of fun, but I also lose my shit with them less as I’ve spent time developing a close relationship, but where they know the routine, have the security of knowing I am in charge, and I do the things I do with their best interests at heart. I’m not prioritizing my own, ‘can’t be arsed with this fight’ lethargy. I’m prioritizing them. And they know it.

I loved the recently trending videos where children were asked to finish sentences such as
Children should be seen and...
I brought you into this world so I can... etc etc
.
None of the children knew the correct endings and some of the responses were like "children should be seen and loved"

Feels like progress to me.