Hate Me Now, Thank Me Later: How to raise your kid with love and limits

No Hitting Allowed

The most shocking thing in parenting today is watching children hit their parents. Unfortunately, it is not that uncommon. But it is outrageous and unacceptable.

It was equally outrageous for parents of generations past to hit their kids. Parents should never use physical punishment, and there are no exceptions to this rule. You are teaching a child, by bad example, that physical violence is a way to solve problems. You are modeling out-of-control behavior yourself.

Let’s check out the message: My kid is acting up, so I am going to slug him and teach him that when he is feeling upset, just go punch someone!” This is what they know, this is what you have taught them. Yes, you may get immediate obedience in the short run, but you also may get a litany of long-term damage. Research shows that kids who are hit become less likely to comply, more likely to be physically aggressive, and increasingly vulnerable to substance abuse and mental health issues. “I was hit and I turned out fine” is a common, but lousy, rationalization. Memories of being hit plague lots of adults. Just because kids have been hit for centuries does not make it right or a valid teaching tool.

Nor is it right, in today’s inverted power structure, for kids to hit their parents.

Today’s crazy message is: “You’re upset, go ahead and give me a good slap across the face.” You are literally and figuratively giving your child the upper hand—a hand that we now know no one should raise.

At the park, a mum was chatting with some other mums, and told her four-year-old daughter that they needed to leave in five minutes. The girl pitched a fit and whined to stay longer. After the mum said they couldn’t, the girl slapped her across the face. The embarrassed mum laughed nervously and continued talking to the other mums.

The mum squad looked on, shocked and horrified. They should have been. When kids think it is OK to slug Mum or Dad, all respect is lost.

A classroom needs a teacher, a ship needs a captain, and your child needs a parent. Your job is not to please your child, your job is to parent your child. Your job is to set limits and boundaries to keep your kids safe.

TMI: Too Much Information

Another pendulum swing in today’s parenting culture is excessive talk and excessive explanations. We’ve gone from “No, because I said so” to reasoning through every issue until we’re blue in the face.

“This generation of parents never stops talking. Parents today don’t spend time just being with their children, so they try to connect by nonstop talking. It is crazy-making for a child. Children tune out after the first few words. They just stop listening.”

—Early education teacher

I observed a two-year-old on a fenced-in balcony. Mum launched into a soliloquy. “Amy, don’t go so close to the edge. You could fall and you could really hurt yourself and that would be so awful. It makes me nervous when you are so close to the edge. You are making Mummy nervous. I’m going to need therapy. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

TMI. The child is two! How about a simple “No, honey, that is not safe,” end of story.

Make it short and sweet. Give them bite-size pieces, which are easily digestible. A parent’s excessive verbiage can get tuned out—or worse, become baggage. This is a perfect example of how we can unintentionally project our stuff onto our children.

It would be nice to leave childhood without having to check bags. All doctors take the Hippocratic Oath. Parents should as well. Above all, “Do No Harm.”

We need to get out of the habit of creating a laundry list of our own fears and sharing them with our children. Do some verbal clutter-clearing before you speak. Children’s brains are developing daily. Let’s not fill them with unnecessary information, white noise, or worse, our own anxiety.

Slow down, take a deep breath, and give yourself a moment before you speak. Edit out what your child does not need to hear. Less is clearly more.

“There is way too much talking in this generation. Too much talking weakens your position as the person in charge. Kids feel unsafe.”

—Therapist

“Parents today talk too much. It overwhelms a child.”

—Phyllis Klein, early childhood educator

Too Many Choices

A point that closely dovetails with talking too much is giving children too many choices. This also tilts the balance of power and can overwhelm a child. Parents are now looking to kids to make decisions and, in doing so, reverse the power structure that is intrinsic to the family unit.

“With the exception of the imperial offspring of the Ming dynasty ... contemporary American kids may represent the most indulged young people in the history of the world. ... They’ve also been granted unprecedented authority.”

—Elizabeth Kolbert, “Spoiled Rotten,” The New Yorker

It is burdensome and stressful for a child to have to make too many daily choices. I watched in shock as a mum asked her five-year-old daughter about the mother’s future employment opportunities. “Do you think that Mummy should take the new job at the bank or keep my old job?”

Overload alert! Kids don’t have the brain capacity for those big decisions. Kids’ frontal lobes, where critical thinking resides, are still in the very early stages of development. The frontal lobe will not be fully formed until they are well into their twenties. Hence our tiny progeny do not have the neurological capacity to make decisions for us. The girl looked at her mum and said, “Beats me.” Well put.

Empowering kids to make choices has to be age appropriate. “Do you want chicken or pasta?” is fine for a five-year-old girl. But asking her to weigh in on the bank job is absurd.

Tolerating Unpopularity

“Parents today are befriending their kids rather than taking their position of authority. Kids today are looking for leadership. It is nice to look up to someone bigger, stronger, and wiser than you.”

—Ellen Basian, PhD, psychologist

Being your children’s friend puts you on an equal playing field. The problem is, the playing field should not be equal. If we befriend our children, we are tipping the balance of power once again. If you are a friend and not a parent, then your child is left an orphan. Psychologist and author Wendy Mogel gets right to the heart of it: “Your children don’t need two more tall friends. They have their own friends, all of whom are cooler than you. What they need are parents.”

As a psychiatrist, I often hear from patients who longed for their parents to step up. One of my patients, Jill, had a mum who desperately wanted to be cool. She would serve alcohol to Jill’s friends when they were underage, blast her daughter’s favorite music while driving in the car, and dress to look hip. The mum was taken aback when Jill, by then twenty-five, asked her to join us in my office for a therapy session.

The mum began, “Jill, you are my best friend and you have always been since you were a little girl; I don’t understand what went wrong.”

Jill looked at her mum with tears in her eyes and said, “Mum, you tried so hard to be my friend. I have a lot of friends, but you only get one mother. I did not want your friendship, I wanted your mothering.”

This point cannot be overstated. Children need and want parents. If done right, parenting will make you periodically unpopular. Take your lead from great leaders. Look how kind history is to world leaders who take a firm stand on doing what is right, even though it might mean being very unpopular at the time.

One great dad learned how limits make children feel safe. His son had lost his mum when he was a toddler. Jay had never known the love of an adoring mother, and, as a result, his father felt terrible and spoiled him. His father never gave him any consequences for bad behavior.

Ten-year-old Jay pitched a fit in a video store. He wanted to see a PG-13 movie that his father deemed inappropriate. Jay had a tantrum, a true fit replete with kicking and screaming on the floor. I had been working with his father on setting limits and sticking to them, but until this point, he had not had the courage to implement them. Finally the father’d had enough and calmly told Jay that they were going home without a video. Jay cried all the way home. About an hour later, the boy seemed euphoric, laughing and joking with his dad. Jay turned to his father and asked, “If I didn’t get my video, why do I feel so happy?”

“Rules give kids comfort and confidence.”

—Judy Mansfield, elementary school teacher

“Discipline and boundaries are a way of loving your child.”

—Mother of two

You must do what you know deep down to be right, even if it means tolerating a brief drop in your poll numbers. Children are not supposed to understand all your motivations. You are the one with experience, wisdom, and perspective—a perspective that kids just do not have.

We need to be able to hold a loving space for our child’s anger, hurt feelings, and disappointments. We need to stay the course in the throes of our kid’s stormy emotions. Go ahead, cut loose, free yourself from fears of being the bad guy. Tolerate disapproval today and I can assure you that history will be kind to you.

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant, I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he learned in seven years.”

—Mark Twain

Hate Me Now, Thank Me Later

1. Parenting is a benevolent dictatorship. Rules make kids feel safe.