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eitland

Very likely.

And sometimes I am afraid we destroy it by laughing at them for it.

Recent example, someone I know:

Parent: you have to come home

Child: No

P: It's getting late

C: Go to bed

Of course it is hilarious, but the reasoning is absolutely on point.

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I would like to be sympathetic to this, because it is true that as a child I was free to do what I pleased at "bedtime" the rule being that I may not leave my room or disturb my parents, so e.g. reading until daylight is fine, playing music is not, but whether I'm "in bed" let alone "asleep" is on me. In fact of course almost always I would end up asleep, maybe not exactly when I "should" be asleep, but likely as soon as you'd end up getting a reluctant child to actually sleep if you're trying to enforce that.

However, we know lots of children left to their own devices get over-tired, they should sleep but they don't and then they're much worse for it the next day. So in practice most parents are doing the right thing by insisting that children should sleep when they were "supposed" to rather than leaving them to their own devices as mine did.

I have a friend who is an angry drunk. The sort of person who door staff may need to kick out of a bar before they start a fight. In his 20s and 30s, loud arguments about nothing of consequence and even occasional violence were a likely end to a previously enjoyable evening. But although he's still an angry drunk he eventually got good enough at understanding his own emotional state that by his 40s he would just leave. Instead of "We need to all go home or J might kick off" it's "Bye J, see you next week" because he's just realised he feels angry about nothing and he has ordered himself a ride home and is leaving, no fuss.

This ability to self-regulate is often not something children are good at, but it's important. There's a difference between reasoning that if you eat the whole cake you'll feel bad and not eating the whole cake because you'll feel bad

The reasoning is perfectly solid and how this conversation should go between two adults. When children talk about wanting to be adults, this is a large part of what they mean: adults are allowed to apply rules and logic consistently and fairly. If children do it they are called insolent and disrepectful

Kids don't apply logic or rules consistently nor fairly. They frequently misinterpret them on purpose and evaluate them in spectacularly unfair ways.

Also, it actually make sense to want the kid to go to sleep sooner then adults and also to go home for dinner or whatever.

Kids are spectacularly good at recognizing what’s unfair to them, just not so much at recognizing what’s unfair to others

This depends on the kid.

> just not so much at recognizing what’s unfair to others

Or just don't care lol. Children love pushing boundaries. Sometimes it's good (learning a sport, improving a skill, taking on the bigger, scarier feature at the playground) and sometimes it's annoying (wanting more ice cream, staying up late, etc...). I'm convinced it's just part of growing up.

They'll often recognise it just fine if the reasoning is spelled out. They can usually understand the logic, but might struggle to come up with all the steps by themselves.

Kids are more like lawyers than philosophers. They will argue the letter of the law and cite precedent if it is to their advantage, but avoid mentioning it if it's against them.

> it actually make sense to want the kid to go to sleep sooner then adults

Yes, but it isn't enough if you know that, the child has to know that, and actually agree with the reasons. If the reason is "young people need more sleep, you will be so tired tomorrow" you can make the child see that reason (let them stay up once, show the consequences, hope it doesn't backfire). You still get push back, but not for it being unfair. If the reason is that the parents want time for themselves then the child is right that it's unfair, and the better solution would be "alone time for everyone. You in your room, we in the living room, internet shuts off at 9". Similarly "we eat dinner together" is a fair rule as long as everyone is held to the same standard. You still get push back, but a fair rule is much easier to enforce than an unfair one.

I think part of the issue is that the child often knows that the adults reasoning is wrong or even deceptive, and as you point out that will feel unfair.

As a child, I often read until 2-3am, and was just fine the following day (wish I could do that now). Any actual enforced attempt at going to sleep would have felt unfair because it'd have been earlier than I needed.

What my parents actually cared about was that I was in my room, and that I got up without being cranky or letting it affect school the following day.

It's much easier to "sell" the child on that, by being honest about wanting quiet time and wanting to make sure the child isn't too tired, than convincing them a bedtime they will have secretly violated multiple times without feeling too tired is reasonable.

So from pretty early, my "bedtime" was "alone time" as you suggest, with the proviso that if I couldn't get up without being prodded in the morning that was evidence I was taking the piss, and the consequence would be tightening up of the actual bedtime for a while. That felt fair, and honest, and the rules were understandable, and meant I often stayed up way later than my parents would have thought was reasonable, but since it worked, it was fine, and I self-regulated.

Yea, I think that "self-regulation" is one of the most important things we should be encouraging kids to learn and feel confident in.

I guess that laughter provides a lot of context that helps learning.

Whenever I laugh in such situations I make sure to point out that my child was right.

It's also a common communications failure, in that you'll do far better not just with children, but with adults to, if you provide a reason instead of assuming that the other party know why you're making the request you're making.

Instead you're inviting pattern matching - the child will have been told to go to bed because it is late, so it's a natural statement to make if you don't understand why the parent is stating it.

Explain the steps, and the consequence of failure in a way that the child can relate to, and you're likely to get a very different reaction("come home, because it's late and you need to go to bed so you're not too tired to play tomorrow").

But really, adding a "because ..." tends to improve compliance even when the reasoning isn't very sound, and even with adults. It's scarily effective as long as the ask isn't too great.

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