[JustinCEO]

>But the "rules are bad" trope is, unfortunately, a trend in The Netherlands. Parents that live by this rule are sacrificing themselves. It's bad parenting.

TCS explicitly says don't sacrifice yourself, even in the specific essay linked. The people in the Netherlands are not doing TCS.

It's a common trap people fall into though, even with conventional parents. I agree that self-sacrifice is bad. There's a lot to TCS other than not having rules though.

You can't just drop rules and expect everything to work out great. That would be naive. You have to actively seek out solutions that work for you and your kid. And really work, not "work" in a compromising, sharing-of-misery kind of way.

>I see a lot of parents (mothers mostly) in public places desperately trying to explain their dissatisfaction to their misbehaving children.

What you aren't seeing is the thousands of times the child has been thwarted, denied, forced, coerced, dragged around, insufficiently helped, etc.

>The children meanwhile are completely disregarding them and will continue doing whatever they were doing untill the parents give up.

Does that strike you as the approach a child would take if their parent were typically super helpful, responsive, and had a really strong strong track record of taking the child seriously?

>The parents will end up awkwardly trying to ignore their children,

this is not TCS!

>visibly ashamed

ashamed of their helpless, dependent children who are actively upset about something!

>but still unable to use their authority for fear of breaking their chosen path to happy parenting.

You describe a sad situation but something that is not at all a criticism of TCS. It's rather compatible with the TCS worldview (the bare facts of the situations described, not your interpretation)

>They won't even raise their voice.

Having a big person yell at you isn't helpful or nice.

[djrogers]

> Does that strike you as the approach a child would take if their parent were typically super helpful, responsive, and had a really strong strong track record of taking the child seriously?

How many 2 year olds have you raised? I ask, because that’s exactly how many kids act naturally. They don’t realize when parents are ‘super helpful’, their behavior is much more base than that.

I can tell you first hand, a small percentage of kids will behave well almost naturally n matter what you do, and some will behave poorly no matter what is done. Most though seem to thrive with sensible boundaries in place.

[einarvollset]

You have never had children, right? Or if you did, you had one and they’re still pre-toddler?

I know that some people had horrible parents that mistreated them and hence they ended up being very sensitive to any parental reprimand. That sucks. None the less, kids need unconditional love, but they also need boundaries. Loving them means you sometime have to lay down the law. It’s not fun. It’s a hell of a lot easier to not do it.

[hateduser2]

But there are real reasons to not do it? Doesn't it seem rude or unfair or maybe hateful to imply (imply, not say explicitly) that the only reason people would avoid laying down the law is out of laziness?

[einarvollset]

No I don’t think there are reasons to never do it. There are simply so many situations that come up that I cannot comprehend why never doing it is the right choice. Please note though, I’m not saying that the reason you’d not do it is laziness. Hell no. If anything that approach is more work.

[hateduser2]

Hm ok.. I don't know why i interpreted that way but its comforting to hear thats not what you intended.