"No You Can't Because You Can't"

[jerico08]

I witnessed a really horrible example of poor parenting today:

I was at an all you can eat Chinese buffet and a boy about 9 or 10 years old was holding his plate ready to grab the tongs to put food on it from the tray selection. As he was about to grab the tongs his mother grabbed them and said" no you can't do that" and the boy standing there with an empty plate asked "why not"? The mother said "because you can't" and started putting the food on his plate herself. The boy stood there quiet and followed the mother around until she decided what to put on his plate and they sat down.

A while later I was getting dessert and there was ice cream in a freezer box inside tubs. The scoopers were next to the tubs and you needed to scoop it out yourself. Well here comes this same boy except this time standing with his father. The boy goes to grab the scooper when the father stops him and says "no you can't do that" The boy asks "why not?" and the father says "because you can't" and starts dishing the ice cream into the kids bowl for him.

[defaultuser]

Haha. If you ask my 7 year old what you need for a fire, she'll tell you: oxygen, fuel, and a source of ignition. See, she gets to play with fire, knives, and other things needed to grow up and be capable independent people.

Serving yourself food may be too much for the kid to handle. Hope his parents are around into his 30s when he's still living at home.

Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-VacaaN75o

[minuette]

I get that. My kids all want to do things for themselves, and I encourage them all the way. Back when my eldest was a toddler, one of her day care teachers said that she was very self-sufficient (in a disapproving tone). My husband sometimes intervenes as if I'm doing something wrong ('here, Daddy will get that/do that for you'). But how else are kids going to learn, except to DO? Even if they make a mess (learn x 2: learn to do, learn to clean what was done messily), even if I could 'do' for them faster, their learning is far more important than whatever it is that needs to be done at the moment.

[BubbaGumpShrimp]

Maybe they didn't want him to scoop the food himself because he had nasty/dirty paws and they didn't want him getting the tongs all grimy. Why "because you can't?" You never know...maybe he's prone to 20 questioning his parents to death.

Or maybe they're just bad parents.