Recently, a colleague wrote to me about one of my most recent blog posts. In the post, I talked about the need for punishment and/or consequences when children or teens break a rule or behave in a way that the parents have told them not to. My colleague objected to my suggesting that punishment may be an option. He said, “I prefer consequences. Punishment for me evokes power.”

And this raised a question for me: is the parent-child relationship one in which there is an inherently unequal power dynamic?

In Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children, psychoanalyst and political theorist Elisabeth Young-Bruehl argued that the parent-child relationship features a profound, inescapable asymmetry of power that leaves a lifelong psychological trace on the child. Rather than treating the natural dependency of a child as a neutral state, she wrote that adults weaponize this power imbalance through a deep-seated, systemic prejudice she called “childism.” 

She went on to say that childism emerges from three basic sources:

1. The desire for absolute control: some parents feel they own their child, which she felt can lead to harsh discipline and a wish to control the child and make them what the parent wants them to be rather than who they are.

2. Entitled superiority: this dynamic results from what Young Bruel called the unexamined assumption that adults are automatically more rational, credible and deserving of authority.

3. Erasure of agency: this imbalance results in the adult tendency to dismiss or pathologize children’s emotions and rights because of their age.

While I am not an authority on Young-Bruehl’s work, it is none-the-less easy for me to see the importance of what she has to say.

The parent who does not reflect on their fantasy of who their unborn child will be, who is not able to separate out who they want that child to be from their own wish for who they want the child to be and the parent who is unaware of their unconsious desires to “make” a child into a certain kind of person rather than allowing the child to emerge as who they are, is at risk for using discipline for the wrong reasons and toward an unhealthy end.

At the same time, we know that all children do need guidance, structure, consistent expectations, and at times, discipline. Children are not born knowing how to contain and channel their impulses and they often need help doing so.

We should not treat our children as extensions of ourselves or carriers or our own ambitions but nor can we treat our children as complete equals at all times. There are moments – many moments – when raising children that we have to assert our authority as parents to keep them from harming themselves or others and to guide them toward gradually containing, channeling and taking more responsibility for their own impulses and behavior.

So, how do we do this?

Do we embrace our power in those moments or do we reject it as inherently unjust? Do we exert our authority over our children or do we refrain?

To address Young Bruehl’s work, it is important to note that she makes a distinction between adults who are “childist” and those who are not. Those adults who believe that their own needs and wishes always come first, over their child’s, are inherently childist. Those adults who feel it necessary to impose their own unmet needs and wishes onto their children, who insist that their children serve the needs of the parent to become who the parent wishes they had become or to become a replica of the parent are misusing their power and authority.

But this is not the case with all parents and all power and all authority.

In other words, authority and power can be used for good purposes in raising children. To eschew parental authority entirely would be to throw the proverbial baby out with the proverbial bathwater.

When a child or teen does something they have been asked not to do, the parent needs to find a way to deal with this. Whether they do so with harsh discipline or gentle parenting or something in between is a matter of choice – which can be determined by the relative severity of the infraction, the personality of the child and the personality of the parent.

For example, a child who fools around over and over again just before bed may be given the consequence of having one less book read to them that night. Parents will find that even such minor consequences can elicit a big reaction in small children. They may cry and carry on for quite a while when given such a consequence. The child may feel that this is an unfair exercise of parental authority. But if a parent can hold firm and avoid the temptation to give in, the child can learn a valuable lesson – which is that they have parents who are trustworthy, able to set reasonable limits and, true to their word, will follow through on consequences that have been mentioned. The child learns that fooling around just before bed is not a good idea.

With more important infractions, for example, if a child hurts another family member on purpose, or if they do something which could be dangerous to themselves, this is the time when more serious punishment becomes an option. And in my opinion, it is the parent’s job, not an exercise in the unfair use of power, for a parent to help their child to learn to discriminate between hurtful or dangerouse behaviors and those which are not through the use of consequences, and yes, even punishment. It is the parent’s job to help their child to stay safe and to treat others with decency.

Having parental power is an awesome responsibility. And, as Young-Bruehl made clear, parents must keep in mind that the possibility that their use of their power may be a reflection of unconsious wishes. As such, they are well advised to reflect on how they are disciplining their children and why – and to examine if perhaps they are acting on some less rational motivations rather than serving the well-being of their children.

And, for those who want to share power with their children and teens, there is an interesting, third option beyond parentally imposed consequences and punishment – and that is called “collaborative consequence setting”. Delany Rustin, a pediatrician, discussed this in a recent Screenagers blog post. She said that when an older child or teen misbehaves, the parent can try something new and ask the child what they think their consequence should be. She says that this increases the possibility that the child will actually think about why what they did was not OK. She also says that doing this supports children’s maturation, and it can result in kids being less oppositional and more kind as people.

With collaborative consequence setting, kids have less of an opportunity to think that their consequence is unfair, since they have a part in setting the consequence, the parent becomes less of an authority and more of a collaborative partner, and both parent and child have an opportunity for dialogue rather than argument.