This gal caught my eye for a couple of reasons. One is that she’s a wonderful public speaker. I can learn from watching her speak. In many ways, she’s a better public speaker than I am and that means she can teach me in this area. The second thing that struck me about her, though, was that her message is not a good one.

There’s a reason we say that throwing a tantrum or failing to exercise self-control is childish behavior. We say that because children, as they grow, learn to exercise self-control. And they should learn to exercise self-control. When adults fail to control themselves, they are acting in a way that is acceptable for children, but unacceptable for adults. When we tell adults they are acting childish we don’t mean that there is anything shameful about children acting like children. We mean that there is something shameful in grown men acting like small children.

Adora goes on to say that teachers should learn from children, but she never tells us why. She says because we don’t trust children, we restrict them—we restrict their internet usage, for instance—and we shouldn’t restrict children because that’s what fearful, control-freak totalitarian regimes do.

Well, sure but it’s also what loving parents do. We restrict children to protect them while they are learning how to exercise self-control and while they are learning how to think critically.

Adora goes on to tell us that adults underestimate children’s ability. When her mother tried to help her get published, they were disappointed to find that one children’s publishers didn’t publish works written by children. (I’m sorry, but even we adults have to fight the urge to believe that just because our mothers love our work, that doesn’t mean it’s fit for public consumption.) And finally she tells us that we need to turn children into better adults than we have been. This is how progress happens.

She sums up her talk by repeating her main points:

• We need to listen and learn from kids
• We need to trust kids
• We need to expect much from kids
• So that we can make our children into better adults than we are

OK I don’t really disagree with her points. What rubs me to the wrong way is the emphasis she puts on them. As if children, just because they are children, are somehow wiser than adults. This is what the sitcoms teach. Dad is a dolt, Mom is smarter than Dad, and the kids are smartest of all. Once upon a time we believed that Father Knows Best, but we had a big knee-jerk reaction to that. Has anyone seen the Flicka movie that came out a couple of years ago, and compared it to the one with Roddy McDowell?  How about the remakes of Cheaper by the Dozen (the movie that made poor Steve Martin fall off the pedestal I had him on) and Yours Mine and Ours?

Those three remakes speak volumes about the differences between the way many people in our society used to view children and parents and discipline and teaching and wisdom and right and wrong, and the way they view those things now.

I think Adora, rather than lecturing adults on how they need to listen to and learn from children, might do better if she lectured children on how there is some wisdom in saying that children should be seen and not heard. Regardless of age, we need to listen and learn before we can teach. Children, most often, have not listened and learned long enough to be able to teach adults.

Generally speaking.

Yes, children do sometimes see that the emperor has no clothes. Yes, children are sometimes right. Children sometimes see truth before adults do.

And that’s what matters. Whoever is right should do the teaching, no matter what the person’s age is. If Adora is right she should teach. If she’s wrong she should listen and learn. It has nothing to do with age and everything to do with knowledge and wisdom, which are often gained by way of experience.

So…have any of you seen those three movies—the originals and the remakes? What’s your favorite sitcom and what does it say about authority/discipline/children?