I agree with a lot of the linked paper on Children’s Rights, and try to raise my kids (somewhat) like this.

But it is... really difficult. And particularly as a single parent.

I’ll share in this thread some of what that looks like overall, mostly funny-frustrating but worth it https://twitter.com/acidshill/status/1280730887244529665

1) Teach kids about body autonomy from a young age; tell them about “body rules” and that no one can do things with their bodies they do not want, but that they are free to do what they want with their own bodies, in private.

Now, bath time for a smart and willful 7yo! He argues that he does not want a bath, and that it would be wrong for me to force him, because body rules.

He is correct. So I argue: I am not going to physically “force” you, but there will be consequences for choosing not to bathe.

Kid points out: OK you’re not physically forcing me, but you are *choosing to set up these arbitrary consequences* to make me do what you want, which is effectively forcing me to do things I don’t want with my body.

(That was not verbatim, obvi, but that was his argument, which was effectively a rebuttal to the approach advocated in the linked paper. I will have to read the paper more thoroughly and see what the author’s response might be.)

So what do you say to this? Keep in mind this is in real time, after work, school pickup, cooking dinner, and while a 5yo also needs attention and I have to do the dishes and pack up lunches for the next day, etc. *Obedient sheep children would be so much more convenient*

I actually don’t have a good response to his argument *at all* off the top of my head, and part of treating kids like humans is *taking their ideas very seriously*.

But I still want him to take a bath, so I change strategy.

Look, if you do not take baths somewhat regularly, there are *other* consequences that I do not set up: it will be bad for your body; caring for yourself routinely is important and I want you to develop that habit; you don’t want to look dirty and smell bad at school, yada yada

Kid: I am fine with my level of bath-taking; I do not itch or smell; and I do not care if other people think I look dirty; I am a kid and get dirty and it’s *normal*

Fine. Skip the bath. Just please brush your teeth. (He did brush his teeth.)

I’m sure there are better ways to have dealt with the bath time thing, but this class of thing where you’re trying to get kids to do things they don’t want to do still isn’t something I’ve really figured out how to do super ethically

This is partially due to personalities, but I spend a significant amount of time in these arguing-negotiation modes with my kids, and which sometimes feels extremely difficult and tiring and not how I want to spend my time with them

For instance: Both my kids understand and can recognize things like hypocrisy, and both my kids are 100% comfortable with telling me if I’m being a hypocrite.

BUT that sort of pushback from kids is *not* acceptable to most other people, who tell me to establish more authority, to discipline more, enforce these consequences that I do find morally suspect, etc.

Parenting judgement wears on you, and I have plenty already.

Since then (now he’s 9) I have mainly gotten more honest about my motivations. When they don’t want to wear jackets to school in the winter, and swear they aren’t cold, I have asked that they wear them *so that I don’t look like a negligent mother*, and that so far seems to work.

I do tell them that I think it does matter, on some very practical but not fundamental level, what other people think of him. I think I do have a responsibility to communicate my knowledge of the social landscape to him.

But appealing to my own emotional motivations helps.

Know what else becomes obviously weird when you have bodily autonomous kids? Tickling. I think tickling is actually a super important context for developing ideas about consent, and how it is communicated and established verbally and non-verbally, revoked, etc

Ok so parenting this way makes some things more difficult, but here’s the upside.

A few months ago my son told me about a disagreement with one of his friends about whether parents can *make kids do things.*

The friend was saying *of course they can*, they *make* me do stuff all the time!

And my son was making the bath argument: they only set up the consequences, and *you still choose* what you do.

The other boy still just could not see it this way, still insisted that parents exert direct force, and my son found this totally bewildering.

He has since coined the phrase “remote control kids” to talk about this.

I think there’s something good here about raising agentive, aware, critical, reflective kids, who can navigate these landscapes of consequences, and critique how and why they got set up in the first place, who and what purposes the they serve.

(It’s still just a PITA sometimes)