teaboot: The only downside to talking to small children like they’re normal people and treating them like normal people (as per my mom) is that as they develop into bigger children they are viscerally aware of every single moment in which they are pandered to like stupid little accessories (as per my dad, my teacher, the special ed aide, every adult in my middle school) and you end up getting a lot of phone calls from people reporting your kid for (checks notes) “undermining authority”, “disrupting the classroom environment”, “disobeying elder peers”, and “unionizing the grade eleven gym class with intent to incite a mutiny” (as per me) and you end up with a Grown Adult who will absolutely encourage and enable other people’s children to fuck the sustem