How Old Are You?

When children aren’t behaving and doing things they are not supposed to do, parents will say “How old are you?”, “Your like a 2 year old”, “Your older than them”, “Don’t be such a baby” or “How old do you think you are?”.

Now I don’t think using age references helps. If your four year old child is doing something a 2 year old would do, it doesn’t help to say “How old are you? you are supposed to know better” because then when the child becomes 6 it then becomes “Your not 4 anymore”. So the age level is always increasing as the child gets older. If a child sees that the parent is always telling them not to do stuff because of age, then they will realize if when they were younger they got away with it, then now to they can get away with it.

If there are a bunch of siblings at different ages, then the older ones will always be the older ones and the younger ones will always be the younger ones. So you can’t use age references there. It isn’t fair to the older children to tell them they have to give in to the younger ones because they are older. Since if the 10 year old just got a prize from school and the 6 year old sees the prize and wants it, the 10 year old will be forced to give it since the 6 year old is younger. But then 4 years later the 6 year old will be 10 and won’t understand to be able to give, since the older one is always having to give to the younger one, no matter the age.

Rather than use the older and younger terms, each child should be treated as an individual, no matter the age. A 10 year old child shouldn’t be able to take candy away from the 2 year old because that’s taking advantage of the 2 year old who won’t remember what belonged to them. Also, a 4 year old shouldn’t be able to get the 10 year olds stuff even if the 4 year old is younger and doesn’t know better and will get more upset.