Rudeness in kids is confidence and self-expression and should be encouraged

Lysander

Lysander

Lysander

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I'm starting to get very worried about the kinds of things we're teaching kids. Or what we're teaching adults about kids. Things that we're not only teaching them but believing ourselves. It seems that a lot of the older societal values have been replaced in the light of 'better' and 'updated' information for understanding kids, when all it really seems to be is excusing parents for being bad parents and letting them get away with their lethargic and blinkard single-minded attitude that their little angel can never do anything wrong and is just far too intelligent/clever/expressive for their own good [and is probably a prodigy to boot].

This recent load of bull-effluent from some wirey-haired Aussie bint really takes the biscuit though. In this completely maddening article she argues that kids are not rude or shy, they are expressing confidence and assertiveness and their behaviour should be encouraged. If you think I'm exaggerating, here's an example of what I'm talking about:

“Why is your belly so big?” asks six-year-old Ron, looking directly into the eyes of a large woman. “Your breath stinks,” says a seven-year-old Lili to her dentist. “Don’t tell me what to say,” asserts Julian when his aunt tells him to say goodbye. “I don’t like this boy, I want to go home,” Tina notifies her mother as she starts back to the car.

These are real children being confident. We want children to be assertive and secure, but when they are, we commonly get uptight and try to dampen their spirits.
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Yes, we get uptight and the kids, in turn, should get a slap round the head. If I had spoken to anyone like this as a kid, I would have been reprimanded, and rightly so. But noooo not anymore. It's everyone else's fault, isn't it? They can't understand that the kid's being assertive and they should just let it go - or worse - engage with them in this ridiculously selfish discourse.

But wait, it gets worse. Here's a story of some kid in the park. Kid is sitting on bench, kid leaves bench, man comes and sits on the bench, kid comes back and tells the guy off for sitting in her place.

Parents sometimes discourage the self-assured child. In a phone session a mother complained, “My daughter is so rude. The other day she said to an adult in the park, ‘Get up, this is my place, I just went for a second.’” The man called her rude and refused to leave.
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Sounds pretty rude to me, right? WRONG. The Aussie vermin continues on her brainwashing to make the doting mother realise nothing is her daughter's fault! Nothing!

“Are you sure she was rude?” I inquired.
The mother thought for a moment and said, “Actually, she was just giving him information he didn’t know and requesting fair action.”
“And how did you react when you believed she was rude?”
“I was tense and I took sides with the man,” she said.
“If you weren’t seeing her as rude, how would you have responded?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, she said, “I would have enjoyed her self-confidence.”
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Here's the kicker though. It's like the mother had a switch flicked in her brain. The drug of arrogant fail-parenting has taken over and she's victim to its trance.

“Who was rude?” I asked.
“The man was obviously rude,” she said.
“Yes, and that’s his business which you cannot change.”
“And, I was rude to my daughter,” she added, “by thinking of her as rude and by taking sides with the man.” She looked delighted by the realisation that her child was simply assertive in a childlike way. She laughed and went on, “My child has a clear sense of justice and of being worthy and deserving.”
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So what do we think? That encouraging kids to be "assertive" in this way is just encouraging rudeness rather than teaching a kid what is and isn't acceptable? Is there no such thing as rudeness anymore? Is it just an expression of confidence and assertion and kids should be allowed "to develop at their own pace"?

TLDR; parents of spoilt rude kids are being told by flaky psychotherapists that their kids are just being assertive and that their behaviour should be encouraged.
 
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Totally agree with you, kids get taught that they can get away with anything these days, no respect no manners. I feel sorry for teachers who have to take their abuse all day and cant do anything. I mean you get suspended / sacked for putting sticky tape over their mouths to keep them quiet. One of the mums called it "horrendous" lol, its sticky tape for gods sake you sap id have slapped the kids over their heads instead.
 
Self confidence is a skill which can get you a very long way in life - it really, really shouldn't be discouraged but instead guided into fitting acceptable social norms.

The most deferential section of society? the working classes - taught to do what they're told and conform. If you want your offspring to be leaders, you need to allow them to lead - don't punish it out of them.

That DOESN'T mean you don't correct them when they err, of course.
 
The amount of lazy and useless parenting I've seen with kids when they've done something wrong or just don't behave, doesn't surprise me that people are starting to believe that it's OK for kids to behave that way & starting to make up excuses as to why they're doing that.

'I can't be a bad parent, it's OK for my kids to back chat & misbehave!'

I dread the next generation of parenting.
 
Children are pre-disposed with "survival of the fittest" traits and also do not understand the structure and etiquette of our society. To fail to curb this behaviour and inform them of the correct way to address and treat others is doing them a huge disservice. Children who’s feral urges are left to run free will not make for happy adults.
 
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Kids obviously do not have the same inhibitions and instincts that adults do.
These things are leant as they grow up in society.
Parents can only do so much but at the end of they day they cant control what comes out of their childrens mouths.
Children have thought processes of their own and will act accordingly.
Some people will say is cute and funny, they made a tv show called "kids say the funniest things" and we all laugh at how cute they are, others will take offence and blame bad parenting.
I feel, in extreme cases of obvious rudeness, yes maybe the parents do have something to answer for but on the whole its all part of learning and growing up.
 
Many kids are little psychopaths, they have an underdeveloped sense of remorse and little/no empathy in some situations.

That being said, I wouldn't worry about parents teaching kid to express confidence and assertiveness. Their main problem is the parents often ignore them.
 
Lysander said:
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None of those examples (except possibly the "don't tell me what to say") are kids being rude per se, they are naive kids saying the things that naive kids say because they are too young to understand the concept of "rudeness" and the nuances of socially unacceptable behaviour.

This should have course be addressed by the parent, whose primary role is to educate their child.

The behaviour shouldn't be encouraged, it should be explained to the child why they shouldn't speak and act a certain way, but the OP phrasing the article as "Rudeness in kids is confidence and self-expression and should be encouraged" clearly shows someone with an agenda.

Oh, and fix your link to the article please ;)
 
Zethor said:
Many kids are little psychopaths, they have an underdeveloped sense of remorse and little/no empathy in some situations.
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ALL kids are psychopaths by that measure - empathy and remorse are concepts which are gained in the normal development of children

Zethor said:
That being said, I wouldn't worry about parents teaching kid to express confidence and assertiveness. Their main problem is the parents often ignore them.
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You don't teach kids to express confidence, quite the opposite; you avoid teaching them NOT to express confidence. Reassure them that when they do show signs of confidence they are correct to do so. If they need guidance as to the intricacies of that (such as not coming across as excessively rude when aiming to just be assertive), then that's where parenting comes in.

If your parental response to your child's assertiveness is to simply admonish, then you are communicating to them that assertiveness is bad, and you are failing to rise to the challenge as a parent.
 
Haggisman said:
None of those examples (except possibly the "don't tell me what to say") are kids being rude per se, they are naive kids saying the things that naive kids say because they are too young to understand the concept of "rudeness" and the nuances of socially unacceptable behaviour.

This should have course be addressed by the parent, whose primary role is to educate their child.

The behaviour shouldn't be encouraged, it should be explained to the child why they shouldn't speak and act a certain way, but the OP phrasing the article as "Rudeness in kids is confidence and self-expression and should be encouraged" clearly shows someone with an agenda.

Oh, and fix your link to the article please ;)
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Well, it's basically what the article is saying, isn't it? The children described there are acting in a rude manner, and completely beyond their station when it comes to addressing adults with respect. That shouldn't be encouraged.

She laughed and went on, “My child has a clear sense of justice and of being worthy and deserving.”

READ:

She laughed and went on, "My child has a clear sense of inflated entitlement and of being sanctioned to demand instant gratification regardless of the situation or consideration for others."

Without correction, that will continue well into later life, and that's not a good thing unless you're ultimately socially protected by large amounts of wealth.
 
Pestilence said:
Well, it's basically what the article is saying, isn't it? The children described there are acting in a rude manner, and completely beyond their station when it comes to addressing adults with respect. That shouldn't be encouraged.
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The child's behaviour is rude - that doesn't necessarily mean that the child themselves are rude, they just don't realise. Punishing them for this is not the correct way to deal with it, educating them is. Unfortunately most parents are too lazy to educate their kids, and most adults are too stuck up to realise kids are kids and are still learning how to behave appropriately (an attitude which is very evident by the majority of replies in this thread).

You could liken it to someone travelling to a different country, where a perfectly innocent hand gesture in the UK is actually a very offensive sign in the country they visit. Do you beat the **** out of the guy for inadvertently telling you **** off, or tell them what it actually means? I guess that depends on how much of a meathead you are. ;)
 
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A fine line exists between genuine self-esteem & narcissism.

What really should be used is an evidenced based approach, as many traditionalists come out with tripe just as bad as the article (this thread as an example).
 
Haggisman said:
The child's behaviour is rude - that doesn't necessarily mean that the child themselves are rude, they just don't realise. Punishing them for this is not the correct way to deal with it, educating them is. Unfortunately most parents are too lazy to educate their kids, and most adults are too stuck up to realise kids are kids and are still learning how to behave appropriately (an attitude which is very evident by the majority of replies in this thread).

You could liken it to someone travelling to a different country, where a perfectly innocent hand gesture in the UK is actually a very offensive sign in the country they visit. Do you beat the **** out of the guy for inadvertently telling you **** off, or tell them what it actually means? I guess that depends on how much of a meathead you are. ;)
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You are assuming that a kid of 6 or 7 has never been rude before and that this is all a completely new concept to it. It's very likely that the kid has been told what being rude is and its consequences and has chosen to ignore them. As you and I both know, kids like to push things. This behaviour should not be rewarded but reprimanded.
 
I overheard a passenger the other day at work in a conversation with another guy. He was saying how kids these days are zombified and lack any self character. That parents are just happy to leave them in front of a screen and not do any actual parenting/educating.

He's right.
 
Lysander said:
You are assuming that a kid of 6 or 7 has never been rude before and that this is all a completely new concept to it. It's very likely that the kid has been told what being rude is and its consequences and has chosen to ignore them. As you and I both know, kids like to push things. This behaviour should not be rewarded but reprimanded.
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And you are assuming the opposite.

Which is why parenting should never be based on articles on the internet :p
 
If a child back-chats me at work then they get a piece of my mind, the complete lack of respect that they show to all staff members (more-so associate staff if I'm honest) is appalling and the majority need to be brought down a peg or 2.
 
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