respectful parenting

Lol @ninathenana good point! :D

No cuddles? You don't have many years of those and they need to be enjoyed by both sides -children & adults. And adults should always be in charge, gradually letting children make more & more (supported) choices.

Absent, I hear you on the unimportant decision front, but what happens when the answer to fish fingers or (cant remember other option) is chocolate? And if you give in to this, what if it is every day?
I remember when my eldest was young, I fell into the food trap for a while. My mother had always said i had to taste things, but didnt have to eat what i didnt like. This worked well with me, but then I loved eating - still do. With my daughter it meant that one day when she was about four, i realised that she only wanted sausages chips and eggs! We then decided that rules had to change and she had to eat what was on her plate - it took a long time to get her to understand the change and tears were plentiful (for both of us) Lesson learned. My two younger ones always had to eat what was on their plate, and will now eat pretty much whatever is served, with few exceptions.
We are bringing up people (who will one day be adults and have to adapt to society), not little kings and queens. If we consent their every whim when they are young, what will happen when they find they cant have their own way ALL THE TIME?

This type of 'respectful parenting' where young children are given too much choice is quite simply, wrong. My DD has a friend who has an only child of three. The child is given a choice of three prepared breakfasts and asked which one she would like. By all accounts, the child just folds her arms and shakes her head, after which mum rushes round distraught, trying to come up with a breakfast that the child will eat. This child has recently started nursery school, and apparently the mum takes every opportunity of keeping the child at home. How on earth is this good parenting?

There are choices we should allow our wee ones to make,for instance I hated having to kiss and hug a long line of aunts and uncles after a family event...even if they all gave me a half crown as they left and as there were A LOT of them it added up to a tidy sum back in the late 50's..NO child should be made to hug anyone if they dont want to and yes that includes grannies and even mums sometimes.I remember telling my daughter about the underwaer rule and she said but its OK to let relatives see you or touch you...its NOT OK if it makes you in any way uncomfortable .So this aspect of "respectful parenting " is quite right in my eyes..as is not forcing kids to eat stuff they dont like ,well would you eat stuff just because you were told its good for you ? In our house the kids always had to knock the sitting room door after 8pm ..that was adult time and they knocked the bedroom door always from when they wer little and we knocked their bedroom doors once they passed the todler stage .Respect isn't a dirty word ,its essential for the smooth running of a family home and if they learn it at home they take it into the world with them

Who babysits then, if not you? Obviously, someone more respectful. My grandkids do what they're told, when I tell them!!

The problem with all this nonsense is that these appeasing parents are foisting snowflake spoiled brats on the rest of the world. Children brought up as little are virtually unemployable and totally unbearable.

As others above have posted, I let my children learn how to make choices about small things ('red top or green one?') but kept authority over things for which children cannot be responsible. I certainly had the choice of my children's schools though I know other parents let the kids choose, often disastrously. When they came to the age when they had to make proper decisions about real things they had the knowledge and experience to do it sensibly.

If they had cheeked their grannies, however, they would have been in deep doo-doos.

Ok, just to make the point about food; My nine year old just wandered in, and I asked her to make a week menu of whatever she would like for each meal, no conditions. This is what she came up with:

Monday
Breakfast: Chocolate cake with cream and a glass of milk
Lunch: Spaghetti Carbonara and choc ice-cream for desert
Snack: Custard tart
Supper : Chocolate biscuits with milk
Tuesday
Br: Biscuits with choc dip
Lunch: Hot chocolate with churros
Snack: Chocolate spread sandwich
Supper: Waffles with chocolate milk
Wednesday:
Br: Choc croissant
Lunch: Pizza
Snack: Choc Cake
Supper: Pizza
Thursday:
Br: Choc cereal
Lunch: Choc milk and a donut
Snack: Apple crumble with cream
Supper: Roast chicken with gravy and chips (no veg)
Friday:
Br: Sweets
Lunch: Spaghetti with Pesto
Snack: Choc mousse
Supper: Cereal
Saturday:
Br: Crisps and chocolate milk
Lunch; Lasagna
Snack: Hot chocolate with hot cross buns
Supper: Ice cream
Sunday:
Br: Crisps and chocolate milk
Lunch: Burgers with raspberry juice
Snack: Fruit smoothie
Supper: Cannelloni and cake for desert

This is the reason too much choice is not good for her! Should i warn the ambulance service they will be calling?

Jokes aside, she did this dead serious, as I explained it wasnt a joke, but that i was interested in what she would eat, given the choice, it actually brought up an interesting discussion with her. I pointed out the lack of veg, etc and how a diet like this would make her ill. As a result, she has decided to write a menu for all of us, but one that she thinks is sensible. Will be back with results...

over fairly recent years (hard to be precise) I have noticed a continuing trend for the child/children to be placed at the centre of the family world, with parents assuming an increasingly subordinate place.
Whilst one would certainly not want to go back to Victorian times, when children had to 'be seen but not heard', there must surely be a point of balance where children are listened to, with respect and empathy, but where, crucially, parents retain their role as guides and ultimate authority. We do not do children any favours if we don't provide them with boundaries and rules. Effectively, we won't prepare them for the world at large which is one of the duties of a parent.

I think it is partly meant to give the child some control over their life and thus minimise the frustration temper tantrums that the 'experts' have deemed to be caused by their lack of choice - well I am able to report a thoroughly dismal fail with our DDDs!!

There is some good in the idea as long as it is not taken to extremes. Animals discipline their young with a cuff or a harmless bite so that they learn limits of behaviour, but also display endless patience (see lots of U tube videos of patient dogs and cats with their young!).
Children need to learn that other people have the right to be respected as well, otherwise they will never be able to make and sustain relationships at work or in the family. Perhaps in part this respectful parenting trend is a reaction to busy parents who do not have the time and energy to interact in depth with their children, due to both having to work, and/or to people spending so much time immersed on screens instead of in the real world.
If it were me, Tiggersuki I would go along with it, don't criticise, ask your daughter to teach you how to do it, so that you can play a greater role in your GC's life. No doubt the limitations of this approach will become clear in time.

I live in the states and have never heard of that term. I can tell you, being a retired teacher, that the parents are the problem. Also the television does not help. Many of the comedy shows have children putting down their parents or the grandparents. They laugh, joke or poke fun at them. That shows a disrespect and subserviency to those that are older. What's wrong with children being seen and not heard when adults are having a conversation? I was talking to a friend outside who had her granddaughter with her. The Grandaughter corrected her grandmother , my friend, as we were talking. And my friend didn't tell her that the adults are talking and it wasn't her business.
I think everyone is afraid of what they would say to the children as being seen as being verbally abusive. Also it's much easier to let the children do what they want than discipline them.

God what will they come up with next. Rediculous

Respectful parenting sounds a bit like indulgent grand-parenting.

...don't we all do that when we can simply give the grandkids back to their parents?

www.janetlansbury.com/2012/09/respectful-parenting-is-not-passive-parenting/

Janet Lansbury writes behaviour books... this post on her site and the comments do not seem to reflect what OP is being subjected to, but I have not looked into any other books except this one on Amazon UK as you can Look Inside to see what it's about.

www.amazon.co.uk/Elevating-Child-Care-Respectful-Parenting-ebook/dp/B00K2YYP1O?tag=gransnetforum-21

Inside the book, it says she found RIE (Resources for Infant Educators) and Magda Gerber to be wonderful it seems.

But not initiating affection? Hugs, etc? That was my mother and I grew up fearing affection, even from boys when old enough to date. It took some hard work to accept that affection is a natural human trait. Bugger, even primates are affectionate! (I am studying Cognitive Archaeology)

Hmmmm...

Little brats become big brats. I spent years in Early years education and can pinpoint the decline in children's behaviour and speech, the introduction of Sky t.v. Cartoon network became an instant virtual babysitter , Mother stopped talking to their children and within 2 years we were having to deal with an increase in the numbers of children who had delayed speech. Another side effect was toddlers watching unsuitable programmes and copying the sassy behaviour that they saw.
Of course today it is even worse as babies are given screens whilst they are still in prams.We reap what we sow.Heaven help us.

paddyann Sat 17-Jun-17 10:33:59 The end of your post made me LOL. When first married to my widower DH, we went up to bed early ...and...well, before I came along the oldest (then 21) was in the habit of popping into dad's bedroom to grab the newspaper for a quick read. And...SURPRISE! (We all had very red faces). DH then put a lock on the door, but it put me off early bedtimes!

It sounds like an excuse for lazy parents.

I believe in allowing children freedom in their lives e.g. would you like peas or sweetcorn, the red t-shirt or the blue one but surely there are non-negotiables in life. I'm thinking such as putting a hand on the hot oven, running in the road, sticking a knitting needle into a plug, being in your car seat. How does a child react to that when thwarted?

Lisalou maybe you should have let her have her menu for a week or two and she would soon have asked for real/better food.Its like adults who work in food outlets and say they can eat anything they want but after indulging for a while they are desperate for something homemade and simple .She would be begging for beans on toast or an omellette before you know it..lol

Ugh!! Never heard of this! Totally confused. You cannot pick your grandchild up or cuddle? Why? Please tell me I have read all this wrong

Tigersuki, is this by any chance your dil? It is a load of.... I think it just a way of the parent or parents making sure they have the control and you are excluded. It will all backfire on them hopefully.

One of my happiest memories is of when I met my two granddaughters (aged 4 and 6) at the airport, and there was a huge yell of GRANNY! as they rushed past all the people waiting and into my arms. I hadn't seen them for 8 months either, although we talk on Skype. You can't buy that kind of love.

Children need the time to grow and flourish, free them with removing the difficult choices of what t shirt to wear or what to have for supper. Don't give them these choices taking away time for their brains to have fun fantasy and play and the joy of developing relationships. Children need a certain amount of structure. The same as we live with structure and rules in our adult lives. This method encourages selfishness and unaccountability. We need to aim for the medium

Help! As a retired school teacher, I shudder at the thought. We didn't call it anything that I remember, but the same style of bringing up children was popular in the 1970s here in Denmark and resulted in a lot of six year olds starting school who were completely incapable of sitting still for even two seconds, teaching primary school was an absolute nightmare, and when the little darlings grew up and I had the pleasure of them in secondary school very few of them had learnt to show their classmates any consideration.
It had taken the primary school staff so long to persuade the children and more especially their parents, that school is not, and should not be a matter of merely learning what you want to that far too many children lacked knowledge of basic subjects.
We try to make learning fun, but frankly how many of us would have learnt the 7 times table or how to spell if we had been given the choice of not learning the things we found boring?
I know I learnt the multiplication tables because I had to, not because I wanted to, but they have come in very useful, as I am sure you will agree, and I do not think I came to any harm by being told firmly but kindly what to do, or what not to, for that matter.
I am very much afraid we will just have to wait for the fad to pass, but I cannot see why it should be considered disrespectful to cuddle a two year old, unless he is going through a phase of disliking cuddles, which does not seem to be the case.
This is the time for us grandparents to hold our tongue, although the temptation to point out to our sons and daughters that they are laying a mighty rod in pickle for their own backs is overwhelming. The very thought of the teenagers these little ones will become makes me shudder!

Been there, done that! Very off-putting!