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.

The difference with him is that if he's genuinely 'dysregulated' as we call it these days, he wouldnt stop immediately, he'd take a while to calm down and would still be visibly distressed. This child was just a spoilt, manipulative little madam.

Depends on what it is and the age of the child. Bedtime is kind of flexible for us but when we say it's bedtime it's bedtime. DD is too young for screentime to be a big issue for us, but if she is watching TV on her tablet and we ask her to turn it off and she gets stroppy, we take the tablet away for a few days so she can have a screen reset. Mealtimes...well we expect her to sit at the table and try everything on her plate but if she says she doesn't want it then she doesn't eat it. There's no options- if she was that hungry, she'd eat what she was given.

The going to events one is a bit weird. I can't really see an example of where I'd force my child to attend an event. We wouldn't book an event if it wasn't something she'd enjoy.

See my previous response.

There have always been good and bad parents, there have always been parents who are neglectful as you describe. But this idea of kids ruling the roost etc comes from people seeing gentle parenting principles and thinking it means never saying no or letting your kids do as they please.

If you see my previous response you'll realise I mean that people making these judgements have no idea what they are seeing half the time. And that kids being let 'run riot' are often kids being upset and not being punished for being upset. Rather than kids not being told no. My youngest is like an absolute model child in day to day life, I have old ladies stop me in the street to commend my parenting but I'm phoning it in. She's just a compliant kid who responds well to gentle parenting techniques and can self regulate at 3 way beyond her years. Whole with my son I'm implementing parenting techniques learnt in actual parenting courses for Neurodivergence, advice from qualified children psychologists and his neurologist and absolutely bashing my brains in and yet because he struggles emotionally I get stares and turns from those same old ladies.

I know exactly what you mean but I still get people, particularly older women, tutting, shaking their heads and telling me to control my child who has a disability.

A lot of the replies on here seem to ignore that children - if nothing has gone majorly wrong - generally have an innate desire to maintain a relationship with their parents; the people who keep them safe. There should be some element of natural authority - because it's authority with a clear, loving purpose - hence why so many posters reference just a 'look' being enough.

So many people excuse excessive bad behaviour by saying the child feels 'safe' to exhibit this with their parents, and that is a positive thing. For the occasional tantrum, yes, but on a constant basis, it's just indicates some has gone awry.

Exactly 💯 this. I've just read an article about how we need to teach our children more grit, as so many don't seem to have it.

I guess maybe a lot of parents perhaps mollycoddle their children too much, but wrapping them in cotton wool is of course counterproductive (as my parents did to me, and im lacking a lot in confidence at times).

Being able to be confident, assertive and independent people come from not being mollycoddled, but as you say, a lot of this generation seems to be the opposite.

Yes, same here. We have never tolerated any type of rude, unpleasant behaviour, we always immediately nipped it in the bud. I'm often horrified at how children and teens speak to their parents, yelling at them, even swearing at them FFS! And the rudeness, sneering and belligerence is off the charts and the parents just suck it up!

In fairness though, we have never sworn at our DDs, or used derogatory language, or belittled them, so it cuts both ways.

I actually believe that the advent of smart phones made it much easier to install good behaviour in children. We never policed our DDs' phone usage, but we made it very clear that the minute their school grades dropped, or there was a disappointing parent's evening, or they didn't willingly do their chores, or they were ever rude/belligerent then their phones would be removed, the taxi service would stop and their allowance would stop.

It's really not hard. Teenagers know which side their bread is buttered and are quick learners. But they need to know you are fully prepared to 100% follow through with sanctions, every single time.

The do, and yet so many of us born in the 80s and 90s are no contact with our parents. What does that tell you about parenting then?

I hear what you're saying, and I agree people shouldn't be judging you in that scenario.

This is ridiculous.. children need discipline and boundaries and this doesn’t have to involve hurting or screaming

Couldn't disagree more. I want my daughter to respect me, not be afraid of me.

I was afraid of my Mum and I was very well behaved and very miserable throughout my childhood until I left home and went all the way off the rails. It took us years to have a decent relationship and there's still a lot of resentment.

No, you just think there are so many of you because 'NC' is a Mumsnet hot topic, alongside the excessive warping of therapeutic concepts by people who have no qualifications to do so. You're in an echo chamber.

Shit parents have existed forever. The majority of parents will do something wrong, however well intentioned. But most people do not feel the need to NC their parents, egged on by random people on the internet.

Overall, I do think that there are some parts of society and some parents that have gone too child centric (eg the people on this thread and others where the idea that a child should give a seat to an adult on a bus is viewed as something outrageous) in a way that is detrimental to society as a whole. And there's definitely an odd disconnect I notice at the moment where on the one hand children are given so much automony to decide what they do, and yet also very little independence. Which worries me.

But I also think people forget how they were really parented. One thing I used to find amusing when my children were little was how often I'd hear people commenting like, "well, when we were little, we certainly weren't allowed to run aroudn a restaurant -we had to sit quietly and colour". But really, the difference wasn't that as toddlers we were more behaved, it was that as toddlers we weren't taken to restaurants. The time we remember - with the colouring in - was when we were older. So there's all this outrage but it's about the wrong thing. (and inf act, I quickly realised it was better for all of us if I didn't take them to restaurants until they got older!)

Ditto with independence or bed times for older children. I remember bedtime being very strict. But then, when I think back properly, I also remember strict bedtime being in the house we lived in until I was a young teen. I do not, in fact, remember strict bedtimes in the house we lived in later. But in my head, "bedtime was a super strict thing in our house" but it took my brother pointing out this dicotomy for me to realise it was... when we were little.

@Barnbrack

You're making a lot of assumptions and making a lot of statements based on your personal experience.

I do practice gentle parenting, in that I don't shout or rule my kids with an iron fist. What I don't do, is let them get away with bad behaviour and rudeness, or flagrant flouting of accepted social rules because I "can't say no".

Your language is stating that there's two ways - permissive or "hurting and screaming" at children - which isn't fair. This conversation is also not talking about children with special needs. I'm sorry you get looks and feel judged, but this is conversation about parents NOT parenting, while you clearly are, regardless of what a few people that don't know you feel about seeing a split second of your day.

And your parents being abusive and you now having no contact also isn't relevant. I'm genuinely sorry these things are your experience, but they are not the norm.

My point is actually that a lot of sweeping statements and judgements are made with no idea of specific circumstances and little grace given.

I'm in my 30s and none of my friends throughout my adult life have had great relationships with their parents. In my experience the previous generation made a lot of mistakes and passed down a lot of trauma. In trying to be not like them my generation has a tendency to be too soft and really just doesn't know how to parent kids because they weren't parented well. Add to this the fact that smartphones, tablets, the internet weren't around when we were kids, it's a completely new world to navigate

How sad that there are only 2 ways to parent.

1. control, force, shout, hurt children.
2. let them do what they want, when they want, with no boundaries.

oh, hold on a minute...

@Barnbrack NOW it is. Your very first comment is not.

And you disagreed with one of my comments that I have asked you about as I don't actually see that it's relevant...unless what you're saying is that you made an assumption from my post of the way I parent my children?

Obviously that's not good parenting but I think a big part of the reason that happens is because he knows that people (like you) are watching and judging the whole time and just wants the tantrum to end so people stop staring.

I once had to carry/drag DD (4 at the time), kicking and screaming, out of The Works because she wanted a cheap toy, the whole shop was staring and to make it worse, one person said, "Aw!" and another said something like, "Ooh, you're a stronger woman than me!" in a judgey tone, as if by not giving in to the demands to buy a £2 lump of plastic I was being an unduly harsh parent.

Other times I have given in before it escalated to that and had some judgey looks for that too, so you can't win with strangers in shops.

DD is now 5, well behaved 90% of the time but still extremely strong willed.

It's not a simple concept though. How much of the dissatisfaction with one's parents comes from a perception that 'gentle' parenting is a panacea. If you look at them with that lens, they will fall short, but that is not the context in which they were operating!

I do think parenting should ideally improve with each generation and so we do need to find the issues with older styles and correct them, but you can go too far the other way.

If I were to generalise hugely, I think the older generation were perhaps more selfish - kids had to fit in whilst they got on with their lives and this can become apparent again when they become more distant GPs than their parents were. But now many parents sacrifice their entire identity to parenthood which is equally a recipe for disaster.

Why would a child give a seat to an adult? Preteen children are smaller and weaker than adults, and less able to stand for long periods of time, especially on an unstable surface. They are also more likely to seriously hurt themselves if they fall. If it's a question between a 12 yo and a frail old lady then maybe, but in that situation there's probably lots of able-bodied adults that could give up a seat.

My children are in their 30s, their partners and friends are in their 30s and they all have great relationships with parents

That’s rubbish. I had strong boundaries with my children 20 odd years ago and I had certain expectations of them. We didn’t have a house where people screamed at each other or hurt each other-I’d say it was pretty relaxed. My now grown son says he used to think I was a bit mean sometimes-like not letting them have Cola when their friends did but he’s now glad. Children don’t have the experience and ability yet to be able to make life choices so a good parent needs to do it for them.

You've reminded me of a public information film we were made to watch in primary school in the 80s called 'Building Sites Bite'.

Lots of different scenes of a kid exploring various things on a building site, and ending up dead in all of them. I remember at one point he was crushed by the wheels of a giant vehicle.

I was only about 7, had nightmares for weeks!

We were left to roam wild back then, and come back when it got dark. My experience was that the adults didn't want to hear about our problems, or really have much to do with us at all. There were absolutely as many mental health problems back then especially as teenagers, we just said nothing to our parents, and had to deal with it ourselves. I have made damn sure that I have a better relationship with my daughters.

But if you're going to go there - then why wouldn't you assume that the adult standing has an invisible disability? Or is suffering from vertigo? Or is newly pregnant and feeling sick?

A small child with an adult whose hand they can hold, or whose lap they can sit on, probably has other options. As does every other adult - I guess my point is just that we can all use whataboutery for every single instance and we can use it till the cows come home. This example there isn't a right or wrong answer.