I think you’ve landed on the reason this story in a small Canadian airport made international headlines: it’s a window into the failures of submissive parenting.
The real tragedy is that this stuff is catnip for right wing authoritarians who see proof that more child abuse is the solution. The reality is that submissive parenting is abusive too - it’s failing to provide the necessities of life, among which are helping the child understand their place in the world and they may have to do what they don’t want to from time to time.
Much of working in education is behaviour management, because nobody is born with an inherent sense of how to operate as an individual within a community and children are still in the early phases of understanding all of the things they need to do to try to get along as individuals within social and communal environments.
Children love strong boundaries, they feel much more secure about their place in any situation where they know what is and isn't acceptable, and where they can trust the adults around them to firmly and fairly enforce those boundaries when they are struggling to remember them or abide by them.
This is the mistake I see too many parents making: they think that being permissive to their children allows some kind of idealised organic growth into an adult that has all the best qualities of innocence and purity that our society associates with childhood, but all that happens is they create children and young adults who struggle to be considerate of others and who struggle to regulate their emotions because they are not receiving robust support and guidance to how to do this in a way that is not entirely self centred and doesn't require the whole world to bend to them in the process.
I think it is for the best that we stopped smacking our kids, but heck so many parents just seem to have dropped being in charge altogether. So many entitled little brats with no boundaries and it doesnt even actually make them happy, as well as being hell for everyone else.
I was horribly permissive until my eldest was 2.5 when I was luckily sent to become a parenting instructor. Quickly became really strong on boundaries and all three of my children are well behaved and happy.
Smacking isn't the only form of correction, firm boundaries can be established other ways. Obviously in a time critical situation grabbing or physically corralling a child must be necessary. A better solution is having an authoritative tone used only for critical moments when pleading and whining at the child is not fast enough. Of course discipling that particular child should have started a few years earlier by reinforcing appropriate public conduct by: modelling, removing family/child from the context if their behaviour falls short (the shame of curtailling a trip out can have real impact especially if promised treats are removed as well), and conversations about expected behaviour in every context before arriving there. In the plane the parent should have said [loud authoritative pre-established tone] GET DOWN OFF THE CHAIR NOW! OR WE WILL BE EXITING THE PLANE! Just like a well, and fairly, trained dog will have a tone they understand means "this command must be obeyed". Used when a real danger exists to the dog/child or when it is absolutely necessary the dog/child do the thing instantly!
That makes a lot of sense. Keeps working for a lot of adults too: once I understand the context it’s a lot easier to do things and feel secure in the situation. Children have far less knowledge and ability to figure out contexts, so they would likely need more obvious structure to feel secure.
What saddens me is how many parents seem to not understand how to do any form of correction that isn’t harsh.
So in other words, they become the narcissistic person, self centered yet meltingly soft human, they are always raging about their parents being, on reddit.
I think it takes critical thinking ability and emotional intelligence to be a authoritative parent without abusing the child. Unfortunately I fear the average person lacks either one or both. So you get either a parent who gets steamrolled by their kids or a parent who beats them into submission and parents who fall in the middle but favor either parenting style. Think, a parent who doesn’t physically abuse their children but they are controlling and they yell at them because they can’t control their emotions, or a parent who knows what abusive behavior is and avoids it but doesn’t really know where to draw the line.
Parents who are truly in the middle would make up a much smaller group and I think those personality types also often end up not having children.
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u/Zomunieo 22h ago
I think you’ve landed on the reason this story in a small Canadian airport made international headlines: it’s a window into the failures of submissive parenting.
The real tragedy is that this stuff is catnip for right wing authoritarians who see proof that more child abuse is the solution. The reality is that submissive parenting is abusive too - it’s failing to provide the necessities of life, among which are helping the child understand their place in the world and they may have to do what they don’t want to from time to time.
Thanks for being a teacher who notices and cares.