She Says You’re Not Teaching Your Child A Lesson By Yelling And Kids Deserve The Same Respect You Show Adults
The fact that many adults don’t see children as individuals deserving of respect is a persistent problem. Instead, they view kids as people they can boss around just because they’re younger and don’t have the power to defend themselves.
TikToker Abby (@itsme_abbye) is sharing an important message with parents–when your child is seeking out the help of strangers, you are not teaching them a lesson.
One day, she was at McDonald’s with her kids, and she noticed a little girl there struggling to put on her shoes. She was in tears and asking her guardians for help.
But instead of giving her a hand and showing her how to do it, her guardians merely demanded that she get her shoes on. They repeated the same phrase over and over as she continued to try her hardest to put on her shoes.
She couldn’t stop crying out of frustration. Finally, the little girl came up to Abby, handed her the shoes, and gave her a pleading look.
Abby invited the girl to sit down so she could help her out. Her guardians yelled at her to leave Abby alone, which caused the girl to hang her head and sob even more.
Abby understands that parents need to teach their children to be independent and learn how to do things on their own. But in her opinion, screaming at kids is a very ineffective method of getting them to do something.
She points out that when an adult struggles with a task, nobody would be shouting at them to figure out how to do it themselves. It wouldn’t be appropriate. Screaming at someone doesn’t help; it just makes the situation more stressful.
A better action plan for the little girl’s guardians would’ve been to sit down with her and demonstrate how to put a shoe on.
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What helps Abby handle these types of situations with more grace and kindness is to envision herself as an adult struggling with the same task and think about what would help her the most in that moment of struggle.
And what she would want is empathy, direction, and guidance from somebody with experience. Children deserve the same respect that’s given to adults. If you truly want to teach a child independence, it will take a lot of repetition and effort.
Several TikTok users shared their own experiences with being scolded for not knowing how to do something as a child.
“Sounds like they did teach her a lesson, they taught her they won’t be there for her when she needs them,” commented one user.
“This sounds like when I’d get yelled at to clean my room but was never taught HOW to clean it,” wrote another.
“They claimed they were ‘breaking me out of my social anxiety’ by forcing me to ask strangers for help,” chimed in a third.
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