Thread: Parents treating kids like their pets

Originally Posted by Arminic

I do not have any kids, but I believe that there is needed certain freedom, as well as lots of patience and explanation, which I consider most important. To raise the kid not the way YOU want it at any cost, but to raise them to become reasonable person, so that you can explain to kid WHY it has to be done that way, and leave space for reasonable discussion, as well as his own decision. This is really important in my opinion, and it must be really hard to achieve.

I'm not also a parent. But as I imagine it, it is indeed very hard to explain to a kid WHY do this, WHY do that, WHY not. How can you talk seriously to a kid? Sooner or later they would forget what you would say, as I did when I was younger. That's why parents do anything they think acceptable to teach their children good deeds. If kids generally are more mature than today's generation, then maybe parents can EXPLAIN to their children. That's much better than spanking.



I had a classmate in high school before. Her parents have not scolded or spanked her since birth. That is just amazing and lucky for her to have parents like that. Someday I wish to be a parent like that. Maybe I would need a gazillion more PATIENCE to achieve that.

That is why I mentioned that the kid needs to be raised to be able to understand explanation and care about it. To teach them that explanation and calm and reasonable argumentation is always better than simple YES or NO. I believe that you can talk kid into something even when they are 5 year old when you know how to do it and have always enough patience to take time and explain in suitable way.

Originally Posted by Nequilius

Unfortunately, most parents treat their kids like their pets. They do not understand that they are dealing with an individual human being just like themselves. Parents force religion down their throats, give them homeopathic/traditional/voodoo bullshit medicine instead of polio vaccines, force what ever traditions there are in the family (career, incest, hate to rival etc) and so on and so on.

"So what? It's my kid, I can do what ever I want to him."

NO YOU CAN'T, good sir. Just because the kid came out of your reproductive organ does not mean you own the fellow. If that were to be true, incest pedophillia is perfectly legit. Your job, as parents, is to make sure your child becomes a civilized human individual, who makes HIS OWN choices, who walks his own path.

You see, every kid tries to be just like he is. But most parents want their kids to be just like them. Too bad, this results in so many broken lives...

And those leashes people use - those are really pet-like

lol on the leashes. If parents were to put leashes here there'd be a public uproar. Plus the kid's already big enough to understand humiliation.
Well I grew up in a normal household with thank god normal parents(No voodoo, incest or teaching to hate). But I do agree on parental guidance and reprimand. It's one thing to controlfreak your children but to leave them to grow up as garbage is another thing. Kids sometimes don't know when something is bad for them. When we say don't take drugs and smoke their natural instinct is to rebel. If we let them to to give way to 'self autonomy' that'll just be parental neglect and you're not fit to be a parent. Sometimes trying to be a 'friend' does not work! You have to be a parent at times when it is necessary. Teaching them moral values are not a bad thing. If you let them have their way most of the time, they'll grow up being selfish humans. I read a case recently of adult children suing their mum for inadequate care.
Inadequate care being exhibit 1; Not getting the son a birthday present. Mum gave him a birthday card stating " Son I got you this birthday card cause it's different just like you"
exhibit 2: Not letting her daughter stay out past midnight during prom night.

So not everything is the parents fault for them turning out like them. We can't blame them for every screw ups in our lives. You are what you make yourself out to be. But in a case where a reasonable man would find your parenting method to be too extreme then that's the line you should draw.

This is a spin off of the spin off... i think that some parents treat children like the family pet? Sleep training, potty training, or disciplining a child ever feel like it's becoming eerily similar to say... training dogs, for example? That the human element is lost on some and parenting becomes less emotionally driven and more practical and absolute? That meeting timelines, having power over child, and preventing neediness is a primary goal... of One's self.

i have a job at a gym with a childcare and frankly, a lot of parents just dont want to spend time with their children because their children come second on their priority list. the ones that do spend time with them, i think are in two categories - normal and nazi. nazi is exactly what you said up there. i know kids like that whose parents have all the money in the world but the parents just push their kids to do everything the parents want them to be. i think its unfair to deprive the kids of a childhood and have them deal with things the parents should be dealing with like maybe helping a younger sibling. instead, these nazi parents make their oldest child take care of the younger so the parent doesn't always have to be there

I think that is so bad thing but I think that they want to save him only not to treat him as pets