I don't like how people tend to speak to their children

[BeWaryFinch]

Fairly sure if another adult spoke to you the way that you speak to your children you would not like it. 'put your shoes on now' 'go to bed now' 'get in the car now' many other examples, or changing your tone of voice to be different than if you were speaking to another adult. Why do parents do this.

Be prepared for a meltdown on the day you don't have some chocolate with you

Telling them to shut up is very different to telling them loudly to do something 'now' after they've ignored you the 10 previous times.

OP, you are very much oversimplifying. My toddler occasionally refuses to get ready for nursery because they want to stay at home. I have to go to work. My toddler may decide this when we are about to leave. I dont have 30 minutes to wait for him to be ready.

Your point about refusing to put on school shoes- not everyone drives or needs to drive to school. I live in quite a rough area, theres usually dog shit, vomit, broken glass, all sorts of rubbish. I would rather force shoes onto my screaming child than let him walk barefoot to school.

And I'm not bribing them with chocolate every time I want then to do something.

Agree with the first reply. “Now” usually comes out after the 19th “shoes on please darling”. You didn’t see the first 19, you haven’t seen the mum who has been asking nicely for the past 6 minutes while trying to stop the buggy rolling away, stopping the dog trying to attack the neighbours cat and trying to blow my hair out of my eyes with my hands full, all while already being 15 minutes late (and dad has been in the toilet for the last 45 mins).

But everyone has demands made of them that they probably don’t want to do. Work, washing up etc and sooner or later someone else will absolutely tell them what to do - no ifs, no buts, no chocolate buttons and zero choices and you won’t be let off if a judge delivers a prison sentence just because you saw no reason why you shouldn’t drive without a licence, or have that stuff you couldn’t afford. That might seem extreme but it’s a fair conclusion to absolute autonomy for your own gratification. More relevant perhaps employers definitely expect you to do as you are told, or there are consequences worse than being told 32x with a rising voice.
Eating as well - eating what you don’t like at 2 is the parent introducing you to new tastes - eating only chocolate cake from 2 to whenever as it’s nicer would make a very unhealthy person and a child might not make that connection unless they are sick whilst eating the 40th bit in a row - they really have to learn to do things for their own good to be able to accommodate doing that when flying solo. I’m not saying force feed them something they really despise but letting them choose completely is too far the other way.
Basically too life is never fair, often hard, little lessons on the way help you cope with that later - you can still have the magic with your kids too, just don’t bring them up incapable of doing what they are told without a treat.

Perfect parent OP

Oh wait you don't have any.

Chuckling at this thread. Great start to a miserable looking Sunday.

The flaw in your argument is the assumption that children have the language, comprehension and reasoning skills of an adult. Young children don’t.

A simple, clear, firm instruction using a command-style syntax ‘Put your shoes on, thank you’ cuts through. Doesn’t have to be screamed or shrieked, just delivered with the confidence of an adult with authority.

For many children, commands are liberating because endless nagging, reminders, choices, questions and woolly paradigms a la ‘what do you think you could be doing now, Timmy’ are confusing and overwhelming, particularly for children with SEN.

And if you think that adults never have to ‘endure’ such requests, clearly you have not opened your eyes to the world around you. How do you think the police officer gets a distressed drunk to calm down? How do you think the army officer gets a soldier to be ready for front line duty? How do you think a surgeon enables speedy work by his assistant? When you’re on the train, does the ticket inspector start his request with a story, a few options, maybe an apology? No. He says ‘tickets, please’ and you are expected to comply.

Also saying “can you get in the car now please” when you mean “get in the car now” - when it isn’t an option devalues the language and in 40 years someone will moan that “can you ..” is an order and we shouldn’t speak to children like that

Abuse? Now it’s abuse?! Omg…
this is how we end up with crap adults. Cos their parents could never say no or tell them what to do

Kids need strong short instructions especially when they are pretending not to know what you want them to do.

I never swear at my kids or make horrible personal jibes, and the first time I ask them to do anything I ask very nicely, but yes I do shout at them very occasionally and often have to use “now.”

If I let my kids do what their “energy” was telling them, they’d be on an iPad for the next 10-15 years eating haribo and watching YouTube.

Your course hasn’t done you any favours- it’s the good parents who are the ones who do occasionally have to get a bit stroppy and enforce a few boundaries. It’s the ones who you won’t hear doing this you need to be worrying about.

I agree. I’m actually quite appalled by the way some of the teachers speak to the kids at school. My eldest son was shouted at and called a liar when he insisted he didn’t hit another kid (mistaken identity).

The other day he said he was asked to do something (and for whatever reason didn’t) and the teacher shouted ‘ARE YOU DEAF??’

It’s wild to me that other adults talk to my kids with a level of disrespect that they would never be subjected to at home.

And then I have other adults asking me how my kids are so polite? like duh, kids will model how they’re used to being spoken to 😂🙄

I'm not a parent and never will be and I would never dream of lecturing those who are about how to raise their kids, as I don't know the first thing about it. Just as I wouldn't appreciate someone patronisingly lecturing me about something I'm an expert in and they are not. You're just making yourself look stupid OP.

I thought this was going to be about how people spoke to their older children, i.e. being surprised that a late teen / adult may answer back and the difficulties around this (my mother simply always chose to go toe to toe in a row from when I was about 7/8 upwards, it could get extremely vicious).

Your point is interesting OP. I usually assume if I see people being stern with their children, I'm witnessing the end of a process that started with a slightly gentler, more nuanced instruction - or at least issued less firmly- and that that parent is doing what works or is having a tough day and that I'm not seeing what they're like 100% of the time. Children do need clear instructions and many would take a mile if given an inch - i.e. if something is said as a question with choices, they see room to negotiate. I think for most people they naturally evolve away from this as their children eventually come out the other side (some sooner rather than later) and these children have seen their parents modelling lots of good manners etc as well as being authoritative as needed. I think we all would love children like the few pp who obviously do have DC that naturally don't need to be instructed quite as much as others! It doesn't mean people don't understand or sometimes empathise with their children; we've all been there as that 5yo, but now as parents they can see the bigger picture.

It's not always easy, either. I was an extremely fussy eater as a child and still reject many of the same foods. People accept this more readily -mostly- from me as adult than they did from me as a child and teenager and to be honest, their subsequent reactions to my younger self still bother me. I know I'd struggle with now being in the authority position to a picky . And yes, I think we do occasionally see people we just instinctively know we wouldn't like to emulate as parents because of their overall manner etc.

I don't have DC yet but I can still see that what you did in your example is bribery, which is a terrible, unworkable strategy. I also had to chuckle at the pp who mentioned not saying please but saying thank you. I picked this up in teacher training and used it as retail manager. My husband complains that I use it on him!

Please don't have children. And if you do, please home school them.

We have a huge percentage of children in our primary school who have clueless or useless parents, like you clearly will be should you have them, and they are a nightmare to deal with - both the children and the parents.

Oh finally, the voice of reason!

Obviously OP does not have children.......

She said she doesn’t

I keep coming back to see if @BeWaryFinchwill come back and show any insight. I think you have a general point by the way, but it’s delivered with such crazy naivety about what’s involved in raising children. That’s why I posted that Michael McIntyre clip earlier - we all ‘thought we knew’ what it was like to raise kids before we did. I think people would engage with your points a bit more if you could actually show some humility and realise you don’t know much about the reality of parenting kids 24/7.

“I don’t tell children to do the things they’re refusing to do, because we wouldn’t do that to an adult. If I need a child to do something I encourage them with chocolate coins instead.”

So basically you train them with treats like a dog? Right, yeah. That’s much better then, isn’t it? Maybe get a clicker to signal the reward as well, and maybe start on the crate-training for when you’re out of the house. Don’t forget to fill a chew toy with treats to keep them busy as well. They need the enrichment.

Also LOL at ‘If they don’t want to wear shoes to school, put them in a bag and take them with you and they can put them on later’… ie, don’t perform essential care tasks for your own child because you’re scared to issue basic orders, but expect their teacher to do it all for you instead.

I have been able to calm my friends child down and get him to do xyz when she couldn’t

a friend has been able to get my son to read and do his homework enthusiastically I failed this throughout his school years

how children behave with a parent is often very different to how they are with other adults (including grandparents or Nannie’s/childminders) because the relationship is different, it’s not bad parenting or wrong parenting its you just can’t compare

this is fundamental to understand when analysing how children react and how parents parent

I tell you what, I was an absolutely amazing parent before I had children.

From the age of 12 I looked after my little sister, a lot. She was 10 years younger than me. I mean I had her a lot - fed her, bathed her, played with her, taught her, took her shopping for clothes, put her to bed, took her to nursery and school (and missed my own schooling), counselled her, comforted her. I thought it had prepared me a little bit for having my own child. It did, but only in the most superficial ways, because ultimate responsibility did not lie with me for anything. It was a lot, but it was still nothing like being a parent. Even with all that kind-of responsibility, I could still hand her off to another adult or phone another adult to deal with it or to find out what to do. There were no consequences for me. When she was ill I comforted her but I didn't make any decisions about medicine, doctor or hospital. That applies to everything. If she didn't get didn't get her shoes on ultimately I didn't have to argue with her and try to get her to do it. That responsibility to get her to school was on me for that day in the most superficial way - but the responsibility for her to go every and receive an education wasn't. I could have bribed her and probably did but what did it achieve in the end? The only 'achievement' was probably just to make things harder for her actual parents.

So maybe the OP really does believe that hanging around intervening with bribes now and then is the same as parenting but we all know she is utterly, utterly wrong.

Because OP when my children where little they tested boundaries like all children do. After I've asked nicely a few times I will tell them to do it now. Parents don't have all day to put them in time out if for example I need them to put on their shoes to pick up another child from school. Also don't bribe them with chocolate, they will expect it every time you ask them to do something. Not a good parenting choice.

I used to think like OP when I was about twelve. 🤔

@whispycloud I remember a teacher when I was in year 4, who would yell regularly "are you deaf, daft, or disobedient?" And no, this wasn't combined with a lesson on alliteration. She also once gave an order in French, and challenged the class to translate it for her (one child could!), to make the point that she might just as well be speaking in French, from how much people were listening. I also remember a teacher saying to one child, and I quote: "what do you think you're doing, you horrid little boy?" And not in a cheerful jokey way, but with pure venom. And it wasn't even her class. Teachers speaking in this way did not make me respect them.

Actually, I have to admire some of the tricks my parents played when I was older. When I simply wouldn't take advice from them as a teenager, such as the importance of doing homework, they got other people to persuade me, such as my grandmother, because it was a very different relationship. And I have to say, this approach worked. I did feel a little tricked when I found out, but even then, I saw why they did it.