Should You Negotiate With Your Children?

Sometimes when we ask questions on Facebook, the answers take us in a different direction. This one is a perfect example of that. It was a simple question about what you use as leverage when negotiating with your kid but it turned into a debate about should you negotiate or rule with an iron fist. Here’s a look at both sides of the parenting issue.

Matt Gracie: For my oldest son? Nothing. There’s nothing he wants. It’s like trying to punish a monk.

Rob Tucker: My dad gave me good advice some years back. There’s SOME things you can negotiate with your kids (I’m talking teenagers now) – curfews based on good/bad behavior, things like that. Some things – like family rules, moral things, etc – are NON negotiable. Make sure you have a clean, distinctive line between the two.

BF Murray: Negotiate? What parent does that? Our word is law. You do what we say, no questions asked. What we say goes. I’ve seen too many times in other families where the parents become their kids ‘buddies’. That’s where things start eroding. Parents are parents for a reason, not buddies.

Tim Atherton: I don’t negotiate. My approach is more of a terrorist threat/psychological approach: I hide their cell phones, turn off the internet, hide their favorite shoes, etc. Once they cooperate things magically reappear.

Arthur Charlton: Rules are rules, but there are things we negotiate. Like what game to play, movie to see, park to go to, etc. There’s value in teaching them how to properly use a constructive argument to persuade you to accept their point of view.

David Rauch: You don’t negotiate. Children need to learn to respect the wishes of their parents. When you negotiate, you are giving them the power to go against your wishes.

Gene Wisenbaker: Best leverage is to not negotiate with kids. This is why we have a generation of young adults that do not respect authority nor do they know how to take orders. Incentivizing is fine but don’t negotiate with children because no one wins.

Mark Exley: My oldest is 2 and I bribe her with milkshakes from Sonic. It pretty much works for everything. Encourages good behavior and corrects bad behavior.

John Robert Fisher: I try to leave them to the right decision. I ask them what they know to be good and to follow it. They haven’t let me down yet.

Rob Sowell: I give her impossible missions:

Kid: Daddy I don’t want to go to bed…
Me: Why not?..
Kid: I’m not tired and I wanna play the game with you .. (Ps4)
Me: I tell you what if you can count to 1000 before you fall asleep you can play…now go lay down..
Kid: (runs off)…(falls asleep in 6min)

Where do you stand on this issue? Should your kids have any say in anything or do you rule with an iron fist?

*Flickr photo by changeorder, used under Creative Commons license.