Dear Kid Whisperer,

My question has to do with family plans. If our 9-year-old doesn’t want to do what the family is doing (going to visit grandparents, going out to eat, etc.) he complains and argues, or asks for constant explanations for any plans that are not exactly what he wants to do. My wife feels that he needs to have input on our plans, but it feels like we now spend as much time discussing our plans as we spend doing our plans. How do I handle this?

Answer: What you are doing now is a great way for you and your wife to create a personality disorder in your kid. Let’s change this up before you fully unleash your kid upon the world.

Kids do not have the cognitive, emotional or experiential ability to run a family. They should not be allowed to do so.

However, your wife is correct that your 9-year-old should have some feeling of control over the activities of the family. The problem is that you are giving this control incorrectly. Very, very incorrectly.

When we give control after a plan has been set, we trick kids into thinking that they should be in charge of the family, and we trick them into thinking that being resistant to the leaders of the family is the best way to get what they want. This sets your kid up for a lifetime of pain and suffering, because it is likely that he will try this behavior with other authority figures such as teachers and bosses.

You can teach your kid his proper place in these necessary and important hierarchies, or your kid may spend a lifetime slowly and painfully learning these lessons trying to navigate his world with arguing, needless power-struggles, suspensions from school, being fired from jobs and initiating power struggles that could have been avoided.

Below I will address your main concern: how to properly demonstrate the role of parents being the ones in charge of the family and making plans for the family. In next week’s column, I will address how to give Kid reasonable, age-appropriate levels of control regarding family plans, while also setting and enforcing limits.

Kid Whisperer: We’ll be going to Granny and Grandpa’s today at 5 p.m.

Kid: UGGGGHHHUHH. I don’t want to go because they are boring and their skin doesn’t fit. Can we go to Chuck E. Cheese because it’s fun, there are prizes and because my grandparents are not there?

Kid Whisperer: Nope.

Kid: What do you mean, “Nope”? I am entitled to a reasonable explanation, perhaps with footnotes.

Kid Whisperer (while walking to another room): And what did I say?

Kid: What!?! How dare you!?! As a self-appointed executive member of this family’s board of directors that I just created, I demand an explanation!

Kid Whisperer (from the other side of a closed and locked door, while finding something good to watch on television): And what did I say?

Kid’s feelings about the plans to see grandparents are profoundly irrelevant. If it would be appropriate to explain to Kid about why you are going to grandparents and not Chuck E. Cheese (“Your Grandparents love you and love seeing you”) you can say that ONE TIME PER KID PER LIFETIME.

After that, all requests for further explanations should be met with “And what did I say?” and nothing else. This will probably make Kid mad. Better for them to learn that you don’t always get to do exactly what you want now at 9 instead of having Kid’s boss teach them that when he’s 20.

Remember to tune in next week when I show you how to give healthy control to Kid about family plans before resistance starts!

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