There are huge swathes of generally accepted child-rearing practices, which are considered necessary, and dependent on the use of force for their continuation. It is widely assumed that without the use of coercion, children will not:
- go to sleep at night
- eat decent food
- clean their teeth
- go anywhere without their mother
- attend school
- learn to read
- learn arithmetic
- pass exams
- go to university
- be able to get jobs as adults
However, in everyday reality, people can and do find solutions to every one of these problems, which do not involve making people do things they find wrong for themselves, which are widely found to be good and useful, and which can be part of creating and growing good relationships within the family. But there are more to be found, which is one reason for the existence of this website.
Aren't children basically irrational?
The basic answer is no, there is no reason to think that children are irrational and plenty of evidence that they are at least as rational as we are. If you look at the world from their point of view, everything they say and do that we don't like is rational: it's just that we haven't solved our conflict of interest with them, or found adequate ways of explaining complex ideas. Or (and this is a biggie!) sometimes we are the ones who are being unreasonable, and we need to sort that out like responsible, well, adults!
In the past, women and black people were considered to be inherently less rational than rich white males. The reason generally given was that their behaviour differences were the result of the way their brains worked, rather than from being obliged to deal with extreme levels of unfair nightmare difficulties, sometimes failing and sometimes fighting back. Suggesting that children today are widely mistreated in the same way that women and black people were mistreated years ago in the same societies might sound revolutionary and extreme, a call to liberate them by closing down the schools, abolishing green vegetables and setting them all free in the wilderness.
However, rational parenting is not about permissive liberal laissez-faire (non) child-rearing. Children are young, have not yet acquired the knowledge they need to survive as happy stock-brokers and rock starts, and do need lots of help, support and learning. Living with them is a hands-on job. It includes talking to them a great deal about all sorts of things such as what is right, why and how people matter and what makes for friendly life with one's siblings.
What we are suggesting here is that, with children, parents largely get what they deserve. Heavy coercion and discipline can lead to rebellion, a don't-care attitude, or worse. Respect, consideration and genuine concerned helpful input, on the other hand, results in little people with their own interesting ideas and uniquely generous feelings. Of course, some parents don't even notice they got what they deserved, and are amazed when their adult kids cut off all contact with them. But we assume you don't want to be one of those parents.
When families disagree, there are reasons for that. In the child's eyes, the thing they are insisting on seems right (exactly as your idea seems to you!). Maybe we failed to communicate better ideas in a language they could understand: with pre-verbal children, explanations about car seats and tooth-cleaning are very difficult to get across, of course; but that doesn't mean that such problems can be over-ridden by the systematic use of force or discipline. It just means we haven't found a way of explaining things better yet.
Or alternatively, it might mean that we are wrong. (Yes: wrong. Our own parents got things wrong, fairly often, and we are perfectly capable of doing the same thing! See How do you find first-rate solutions to difficult problems? on the importance of self-criticism, above. Any opinion we hold might be mistaken. We are not perfect beings; anyone who went to school can remember how infuriating it is to have a teacher who can't admit their own mistakes. Admitting your own mistakes is a great gift to your child: it means they can learn first-hand that mistakes are learning-opportunities and nothing to be ashamed of.
Parents are wrong about many things, in the sense that they think they have the best or the only solutions to problems when actually better ideas are out there; its just that we haven't found them yet! All parents should bear this in mind, all the time. Every problem you gave up on, someone else solved: a solution really was possible. Don';t hit yourself over the head about it- there's no point- just remember for the next tricky problem. Also, you should come back to things, if they haven't been properly resolved yet, as often as possible, and bear in mind the rightness of being and saying you are sorry if things didn't work out well.
Or maybe we are expecting our children to understand things they aren't ready to learn about yet. Perhaps if we trust and help them, they will pick those things up better in their own time, later on.
The mistake is to think that, because our children don't want to know our better ideas, they are immune to reason and unwilling to learn. As soon as you start thinking like that, you make it appear to be true. There is no surer way of preventing someone from co-operating with you than going about with the idea that they are incapable of proper co-operation.
Even if it were impossible to prove that children are fundamentally rational human beings, treating them like they are is certainly the way to encourage the growth of reasonableness. And doing the opposite is certainly the way to store up ever-increasing problems for the future. However, if you still don't agree, we can only wish you luck..
