Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Amazing how we differ here.

Show me a child who acts like an adult, and I'll show you a child who should be treated like one.
Mary Anne — (archived)

Adults model behavior. This is not the same thing as treating children as peers. They aren't.

Children deserve respect, but they will never learn anything if they aren't trained. They are born with no sense of the importance of others, and when they are very small and totally dependent, or just learning to master their physical and mental capacities, they should not be expected to have that sense. But by three, they need to start to learn through active involvement of the parents in correcting their self-centeredness.

I have dealt with children whose parents have not bothered to tell them that they must wait their turn when dealing with others, and who have gotten the idea that interruption is fine because Mommy or Daddy will drop everything, no matter what it is, to answer Darling Dearest. I tell you, it's just like dealing with someone who doesn't understand cell phone etiquette.

You make a mistake when you equate punishment with abuse. Abuse is criminal behavior. Punishment is a measured lesson in the results of wrongdoing. The world is far more cruel. The world doesn't care about a child's needs or feelings any more than it cares about an adult's. Those lessons are best taught by a person who loves a child when that child is old enough to understand, rather than to make the child learn it from a stranger and to inflict a child's poor behavior on others.

Children should be seen and not heard? No. Children should be seen first, and then heard, later. Caring for them includes making sure they know how to behave. That process isn't all sweetness and light, because children aren't all sweetness and light, either.

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