article on compliant children versus rebellious ones, just appeared on guardian.co.uk

[moanyoldbag]

check this out - it's just gone up on the Guardian's website. Brilliant Annalisa Barbieri questions whether compliant children are really the aim of the game when it comes to parenting. Join the debate or forward the link on...

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/19/are-obedient-children-a-good-thing?INTCMP=SRCH

It was implicit that they had to go. I am not an UP person. I just don't expect blind compliance. The background stuff comes with the family culture- there is a lot of subtle imprinting that parents do with their children very early re attitude to school, homework etc. You can't really think that school and by extension HW is an imposition on your child's freedom and still imbue them with enthusiasm for it- they see through it very easily. It did help a lot with ours that DH and I were both reasonably successful in the education system and therefore sold on it.

They always knew they would go to school. In actual fact it was a very bad choice for DS who would have been far better off being HE until he was about 15. He hated school but he still went every day, where he behaved very well but never did as much work as he could have. Frankly school spent 15 years knocking his natural enthusiasm for learning out of him. I just hope he can find it again (he's 18 now and few signs of that yet). Both DD1 and 2 are very successful at school and love going.

belgo- logical consequences is not a threat- that's the whole point. It's the logical extension of their refusal to behave sensibly for the situation. It's them dealing with the world, not just me. I really would have taken them in pyjamas! They would have been fine and safe, just potentially embarrassed and in trouble with school.

I also use logical consequences with the little ones - if they won't put coat on, well "let's walk to school and when you feel how cold the wind is you can ask for your coat. "

But the endless talking and reasoning... I can sit and talk to my two year old about why she needs to accompany her sisters to school, meanwhile time is ticking on, DD1 is tearful because we might be late, DD2 is frustrated and DD3 has all the attention.

I have three children close together and compliance is needed sometimes for the good of the whole familycompliance is needed because sometimes we all need to go shoe shopping for one child which is dull for the others but needs to be done. They have to understand their needs do not always come first.

I dislike the individualistic outlook of 'non compliance,' that your child's need to express themselves should take precedence over an adults need for obedience -because the adult's world is more important than the child's.

'just potentially embarrassed and in trouble with school.' yes exactly, that's the threat; that's the punishment.

belgo, nobody is disputing (I don't think) the need for children to grow up integrated into society are they? And belonging to a club requires abiding by its rules. UP people don't bring their children up to be marginals any more than than the next parent. They just don't expect their child to jump just because they or someone else tells them to.

I think this unconditional lark is designed mostly for PFBs, can't see how it is workable with more than one, or if you actually need to be anywhere on time.

Also think it's not very fair on children to burden them with too much choice/freedom when they're still learning what kind of behaviour is acceptable - I don't want my children to end up in trouble with other children or adults, because I want to pat myself on the shoulder for having raised a free spirit, whilst my free spirit ends up deeply unhappy because she gets the punishment for misbehaviour from her peers.

Norman- exactly! I don't see coat-wearing as a particularly important battle. If they get cold they will realise the need for a coat. If you have a massive battle about the damned coat before you've even left the house, who are really doing it for? You've thwarted the will of your child who feels perfectly warm, and for what? I can understand if it were Montreal where it's currently -25C (and when we lived there there was absolutely no question of them leaving the house without a coat and padded trousers), but this is the UK and it's hardly ever cold enough to even get hypothermia.

I don't agree that your method of parenting is really so different to so many of us.

Logical/natural consequences is simply another way of using very traditional parenting methods to induce compliance.

I'm not saying that is wrong; I just don't understand why you need to dress it up as being something that it's not.

belgo I'd say that "traditional parenting methods" would be "I will decide a punishment for you if you do not put your uniform on quickly enough", whereas "If you don't put your uniform on by the time it is necessary for us to leave the house, then your choice will have an unavoidable consequence" is different.

Not as different as "If you don't put your uniform on nothing will happen and we will all just not bother going to school today, and I'll not go to work", but different enough.

It's about punishment being something arbitrary handed out by the parent for non-compliance, versus unpleasant consequences following from your choices.

An unavoidable consequence is still being used as a threat. As the parent, you are simply shifting the responsibility of the punishment to the school. I didn't think UP used natural consequences for this very reason.

I think some children are just naturally more 'compliant' than others. My daughter has a real sense of right and wrong and will, generally, veer towards the 'right' choce. She likes rules and hates chaos. She is neat and ordered in her thinking. She's like her dad so there's an element of nature in this one.

I suggest things sometimes and she looks at me askance and tells me it would be silly or dangerous or wrong! It's just her personality.

On the nurture front I am an oldfashioned mum in some ways. I think that children do need to respect others and they have to be taught how to do that. I think that children who are taught to share and be considerate towards their friends are more likely to be well liked in school. I think that teaching basic manners is imperative whilst the child is young and I do believe that children need clear boundaries. So perhaps this is a case of nature and nurture meeting in the middle.

I had a friend whose daughter was never told to say please, thank you or sorry when she was younger. The parents never interfered with playtimes, even if their child was snatching toys off others and making them cry. They believed that you have to let the child sort things out themselves, that it made them more independent.

Said child is now 12 and suffering horribly from a lack of friends. She still doesn't do please or thank yous. She doesn't understand the mechanics of playtimes or the rules of friendship. She is incredibly clever, but really lonely. How horrible must that be?

Obedience isn't the be-all and end-all of being a child, but it has to be an element in the repetoire. My dd is obedient on the whole and compliant. She also questions everything and refuses to go with the crowd just for the sake of it. At 11 she is becoming more rebellious with me, but at school, with other parents and when we're out and about she behaves beautifully. She does not, however, behave like a sheep and stands out from her wide group of friends for her individuality.

Obedience and sheepish behaviour are not necessarily twinned and the needs of society must come into the rearing of a child or you end up with the horror stories that often hit the MN pages about kids causing riots in cinemas and restaurants.

I have two close friends both of whom are very up in their approach. They are both six. Both are okay now-one is still rough and hurts my young ds sometimes seemingly intentionally, but this is rarer now and more often followed by sorry. But, and this is a big but, my dd has had years (pretty unavoidably as we are neighbours) of being hit and kicked by him with seemingly little consequence. So fine to have your own "they'll get there in the end" approach within the family, but it is very difficult for those who suffer the fallout while they're learning. In the end he was kind of withdrawn from play when he hurt dd but to begin with there was an awful lot of "well molehills dd, x hit you because...". Fair enough, but not when the hitting itself goes unchallenged and dd's crime was to occupy the same square mile of space. The other child is a deep thinker, and much more immediately empathetic and it worked happily for everyone concerned.

Sorry - the friend's dc are both six-they are a bit older!

In the end our whole society runs on compliance. Rather like a large family when sometimes you have to do this you think are pointless or put others first. That is being an adult, surely.

I like my children to challenge ideas - and they do, DD1 will happily tell you why she doesn't believe in God ( she thinks it's pointless praying to something which might not be real)

But they do defer to adults. They do ( some of the time) say please and thank you. They have an understanding that their needs do not always come first.

I think the whole debate is quite complex and it is an argument easy to win on both sides just by using extreme case formulations.

I think you're right Norman. It's not one of those debates where either extreme really works. The balance is so hard to find. I veer towards wanting too much control and compliance and that's just as bad. The boundaries have to allow enough room to help a child function in society without squashing who they are. And it's not just what you do it's how. Getting compliance nastily is wrong. Allowing a child freedom because you're being lazy is wrong. I wish I could find a better balance.

I like to keep my children on their toes by adopting different parenting 'styles' according to mood/ circumstance.

(I think that's what most people do)

Me too! Low boredom threshold

i LOVE this article... i've printed it out so i can re-read it after every conversation with my mother that veers onto the topic of the 'monster' i'm raising (her words!)