Whenever I write a post about valuing what children value, or allowing them to say no, someone always says ‘but I DO know better than them. I DO know that they might regret it later, and that it’s better to do your spellings than watch YouTube whilst hanging upside down from the sofa. I can’t let them choose, because they’d just choose to play’.
I met a little boy recently who told me that he wasn’t any good at drawing. He was young in his year, and his drawings were, it’s true, fairly basic. He looked at the pictures that other children were drawing and he could see the difference. It didn’t matter what adults told him, because he could see for himself. He was learning to compare himself with others, and finding himself wanting.
I’m running training on giving and receiving feedback for therapists. It’s something I’ve been thinking about recently, not just for professionals but for children.
We don’t value the right to say no, when it comes to children. We pretend that we do. We teach them about consent, and that their body is theirs alone. We read them books and show them films about saying no to adults who tell them not to tell their mum about a secret or who try to lead them away from their family.
No one thinks they will have a child who doesn’t want to open their presents - and who even when the paper is off, doesn’t open the boxes. No one thinks that they’ll be looking at last years’ gifts still sitting in a pile in the cupboard, as next Christmas is fast approaching.
A lot is justified in the name of exam results. It’s okay to control every moment of a child’s day, if the school can show they get excellent exam results. It’s okay to have behaviour policies which put many children in isolation, if the school gets excellent exam results. It’s okay for parents to be complaining, and children to be protesting, if the school can show improving exam results.
Many parents tell me about how difficult their children find it when they know there is something in the house for them - but they can’t have it until later. They pull the house apart looking, or search in the cupboards. They ask repetitively and can’t stop, and then everyone gets upset and frustrated.
The post which got this response wasn’t one which I had thought of as my most controversial. Here is what I said in its entirety.