“Are you ready?” Klaus asked finally.
“No,” Sunny answered.
“Me neither,” Violet said, “but if we wait until we’re ready we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives, Let’s go.”
— Lemony Snicket, The Ersatz Elevator (via anikaanaki)
So often, I hear a parent say “Don’t talk back to me!” when what they mean is “Don’t question me or voice any disagreement!”
Children are autonomous little humans with minds of their own. They’re going to want to know why they can’t have a chocolate bar or why they don’t have unlimited data or why they can’t stay out until midnight on the weekend.
Maybe instead of just demanding unquestioning acceptance of your authority, you should explain why your way is the best way.
TO ALL PARENTS.
As someone who’s parents do this every single day I can tell you that all this does is make your kids resent you. Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents, but they make it really hard to take them seriously when they never explain themselves and expect me to follow blindly. It makes it seem like they don’t actually have a good reason for anything they tell me to do and like they’re just taking advantage of the fact that they’re the parent and I’m the kid.
This is the major thing that confuses me about parenting–how so many people ACTIVELY train their kids to think that “no,” is an arbitrary thing people say for no reason except to flaunt power over you.
I just got back from hanging out with a family with kids, and fucking hell, the number of times that they just yell at the oldest to accept their decree without argument–I was grinding my teeth the entire time.
And the thing was, I WOULD explain stuff to her, and she started coming to me for questions instead of anybody else. And if my answer was, “I can explain in a sec, but I’m in the middle of figuring something out right now” SHE WAS TOTALLY COOL WITH THAT! She’d say ok, and then linger in the general vicinity until I was done and could answer her question.
I get that kids are different around people who aren’t their parents, but fuck, if their parents don’t escalate EVERY STUPID LITTLE MOMENT to a full-on screaming match or 10 minute lecture about why the child is failing as a person, then MAYBE THEIR KID WOULDN’T HAVE TO RESORT TO MANIPULATION TACTICS JUST TO GET SOME SIMPLE ANSWERS TO SIMPLE QUESTIONS!
As someone whose parents were actually very good about either explaining their reasons for things, or else letting me find out the hard way, it really does make a world of difference.
The problem is if you get to school and the teachers abide by the old philosophy.
