When a solution is not found, is it always the parents who must bear the brunt of the sacrifice?
If you think there is a brunt to be borne that is intolerable, what makes you think that it is OK to have a defenceless child bear the brunt of it?!
self-sacrifice
Are you advocating that the children should rule the parents?!
Life does not have to involve either ruling or being ruled. Instead, we can stand side by side with no one ruling, all of us free to be in control of our own life, solving problems individually and jointly, and having fun doing so.
Do children not taught that they can’t always get their own way become entitled and inconsiderate?
We parents sometimes imagine that we can teach our children to be sensitive to others’s wishes by being utterly insensitive to theirs, but actions speak louder than words, and our children are more likely to be kind and thoughtful if we have been kind and thoughtful to them.
Surely coercion is ok when the parent is right and the child is wrong?
Being fallible implies that we can be mistaken including when we feel certain that we are right. And because we are fallible, there is no reliable way to know who is right and who is wrong. Disagreements can either be resolved through reason, or they can be dealt with coercively. So no, feeling that we are right does not justify coercion.
Great change of mind without self-sacrifice
The unexpected benefits for ourselves in our own minds, of taking our children seriously.
Does breastfeeding require self-sacrifice?
It can take a little time for breastfeeding to stop being painful, but that is just the breaking-in period, like breaking in a new pair of hiking boots.
Identifying coercion is itself a creative task
Overt coercion is less likely to corrupt children’s interpretation of what is happening to them. But given that part of our self respect as parents taking our children seriously comes from being non-coercive, it might well be that the coercion we inadvertently engage in is interpretation-corrupting double binds. So we need to be particularly aware of the subtle mind-messing forms of coercion.
Are children being taken seriously good at detecting coercion?
Unfortunately it is not true that children taken seriously are good at identifying coercion (except perhaps overt coercion).
A lack of forcefulness is good not bad
A lack of forcefulness is not a negative characteristic unless you find yourself sacrificing your own desires. You respect your children and take their desires seriously. You need to be sure to respect yourself and your own desires as well.