Lisa

“Dissent in children looks like “disobedience” or a lack of cooperation. Our tendency is to double down on persuasion. In the old days, parents talked about a child’s obligation to obey parents, even when they didn’t understand the command. The child was literally taught that they were safer abandoning their critical thinking faculties in favor of trusting an adult authority. This kind of framework sets up a child for peer pressure in their teen years when a new authority emerges: the slightly older teenager! Today’s parents often believe they’re doing a better job than their parents. These parents don’t require obedience. They explain to the child why they, the parents, require cooperation from the child. I call this style of parenting “manipulative obedience.” The old and new parenting styles share the same goal: cooperation with a parent’s instruction. The difference now is that rather than cooperating for the sake of respecting authority, the child is also expected to agree with the parent’s reasoning. The space just got much smaller for critical thinking!”
― Julie Bogart, Raising Critical Thinkers: A Parent's Guide to Growing Wise Kids in the Digital Age