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by zozbot234
1763 days ago
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Temper tantrums are in fact quite common in the office. It's just that most people sensibly regard them as a form of emotional abuse, which is to say a gross violation of any bystanders' boundaries, as well as of basic decency. It's not clear why we should focus on a supposed violation of the kid's boundaries, when the kid's own transgression is so much more readily apparent. |
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Do you want to stop the disruption? Or do you want to punish children for a perceived violation of your authority?
There is no violation of the kid's boundaries, because the kid does not have boundaries, because the kid has not been allowed to have boundaries. There is precious little that the kid can actually control… often, not even who's allowed to touch them. This is not okay.
> Once in a hotel dining-room I said, rather too loudly, ‘I loathe prunes.’ ‘So do I,’ came an unexpected six-year-old voice from another table. Sympathy was instantaneous. Neither of us thought it funny. We both knew that prunes are far too nasty to be funny. That is the proper meeting between man and child as independent personalities.
— C. S. Lewis, Letters to Children