Parents "Knowing" their Children

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As somebody without kids, I would like to know why parents always figure they know their child best. 1) In anything that requires specialized care, they seek the help of a professional willingly. At least we can assume that professional knows their kid better in that respect. 2) Often, parents don’t talk enough to their own children. When a favourite school teacher or music teacher converses with them, children often tell them things they haven’t told their parents, and even things about their parents.
3) People have different capacities for knowing other people. So theoretically, it’s quite possible an aunt or uncle could know a child better than his parents.
Also, in split up households, the babysitter might have more knowledge of young children than their parents. 4) A lot of parents only spend a few weeknight hours with their kids; the kid’s school teacher actually sees them more from Monday to Friday.

Just wondering why parents always think they know best.
 
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  1. No. My child’s OT knows more about OT than me, and perhaps how to teach my child how to perform a task, but good doctors/teachers/therapists heavily rely on parents, not the other way around. Knowing how best to treat/diagnose does not equal an overall knowing.
  2. Parents are often bad listeners, however, parents who are good listeners will encourage their child talking to other adults. That doesn’t mean the other adults know them more, it simply means that they can offer the child a different perspective–perhaps even a healthier one because they don’t know all the child’s struggles.
  3. Theoretically, sure. In reality? Not so sure. I was a nanny. I spent most of the child’s waking hours with her. I knew things her mom didn’t…but her mom, when it came down to it, still knew her best. In cases of divorce or separation, everyone gets a piece of that child and no one really knows them “best” because the child must constantly adapt to their situation.
  4. Teachers still don’t know “best”. They have a kid in the class of 20+ for 8 hours a day. Some of the most bonding moments and those you know someone best are in all sorts of circumstances…not stuffed in the same 4 walls day after day. The hubris of an educator to say that they know a child more because they see them more would be enough to have me yank my kid from their class.
Parents have a God-given right to raise their children free from influences that they dislike. Good parents will know their minor child better than anyone else, especially while that child is still in grammar school. As that child ages, they will show them how to trust and reveal themselves to others. They will trust that growing child to make more independant decisions as they age…and that trust that the child can make those decisions is a really deep type of knowlege.
 
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The short answer is, because they do know their child better than an aunt, or an uncle.

It sounds like you have some kind of grudge against parents if you think others know better than the parent. Perhaps you know superficial things about a child, but you cannot have the heart that a parent has. Yes, this is a generalization. But unless you give a specific example, that is all people can answer you with.
 
Doesn’t matter who knows a child best, although it’s likely the parents. The point is, you have to respect that you are not their parent, and that parents have something else in mind.

I used to babysit kids. They work the sitter just like they work the parents. It’s the savvy person that can tell the difference between a child handing you a line or a story, and a child who is being truthful.
 
A child is literally one half of their parent. The other half is from someone they know very well, their spouse. Do you know yourself well? Your mother probably knows you better.

Parents get VERY tuned to their children’s disposition, habits, wants, needs and discomforts when the child is a baby and cannot communicate well. That all happens in the first year!

The following years all add to this knowledge of the child. A few surprises come along the way, but most of a child’s actions are no surprise to a parent. Everyone leaves their own signature on every action they do. Parents know these signatures by the time the child is 5 or less.

So you see, no one knows a person’s core better than their parents. It’s that core, that temperament, disposition that is what is known. A child can keep the superficial stuff from a parent, but not the fundamental stuff. The parent already knows that stuff.
 
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Thank you for that reply. It really makes me think about my own relationship with my parents. I know they have my core down, ie. my temperament. But I’m not sure they really know my heart.
 
I wonder if parents tell themselves they know their child best to feel more important? or to feel needed? No, I don’t have any grudges towards parents, irishmom2. Strange to assume that.

It’s theoretically possible for a sibling to know a child best, particularly if the parents have split and the children are spending one week here, the next week there.

Any parents on this site who would say they don’t know their children best? Perhaps the child’s friend knows them best.
 
“Just wondering why parents always think they know best.”
Lara said:
I wonder if parents tell themselves they know their child best to feel more important? or to feel needed? No, I don’t have any grudges towards parents, irishmom2. Strange to assume that.
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is it really strange when you make comments such as these? I don’t think so.
 
Lara said:
  1. In anything that requires specialized care, they seek the help of a professional willingly. At least we can assume that professional knows their kid better in that respect
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Lara, This point is not relevant to the discussion.
Specialised care requires experts, people trained in that area.
No one would assume the professional knows the child ( a kid is a baby goat) better.
The professional knows the diagnosis of the symptom and the possible treatments better.

See the difference?
Lara said:
  1. A lot of parents only spend a few weeknight hours with their kids; the kid’s school teacher actually sees them more from Monday to Friday.
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There is that word kid again. It’s considered disrespectful in certain society.
School is 6 Hours a day, out of 24 Hours. You are forgetting mornings and afternoon and evenings in this argument.
 
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So, I’m willing to concede that parents sacrifice the most for their kids. And perhaps, when they are really small, they know their temperaments best. Once they’re teenagers, kids may give their parents far less information about themselves, choosing carefully what they share. At this point, I have my doubts that parents necessarily know their own kids best. But, since I received few replies, I will drop it.

As for the word kid, where I’m from it’s more commonly used than child. We also use the word female indiscriminately without offending anybody.
 
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Lara said:
Once they’re teenagers, kids may give their parents far less information about themselves, choosing carefully what they share.
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That’s a perfectly normal stage in human development. A teenager will choose carefully what is shared with any adult.

The word kid can be regarded in some cultures as bad as the word n…r. It can be incredibly offensive.

Lara is there a reason you asked the question or started the discussion , are you in teacher training or childcare?
 
I know them best because I am raising them, I provide for them, have and will spend countless hours with them.
Not to mention many of their personality traits derive from me or my wife.
 
Roseeurekacross said:
That’s a perfectly normal stage in human development. A teenager will choose carefully what is shared with any adult.
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Not only that, but part of knowing a child who is moving into their teen years is knowing that they are free to trust others. My parents knew us best this way. They knew who we trusted and who we didn’t. They gave us the freedom to trust and tell our desires to who we wanted to. They didn’t know our thoughts, anxieties, and minds as well as some of our friends or mentors, but they knew our whole selves.

I think often tweens and teens mistake who they trust for who “knows” them best. Many times teens feel that they are not understood by their parents when in reality their parents understand them enough to set (or free) them from certain restrictions or obligations.
 
Sometimes this is actually the truth.

I was an only child who liked to stay home and read, didn’t have close relationships with any other relatives like uncles, aunts and cousins, did not have close ties with any other adults like teachers, and had very spotty relationships with “friends”. Throughout my childhood and teen years, I had a series of “best friends” who would hang around for a year or two and then prove themselves unreliable or untrustworthy in some way.

My mother and father did not know every single thing about me, but I would say they definitely knew me best right up till about the time I moved out of their house.
 
Lara said:
It really makes me think about my own relationship with my parents. I know they have my core down, ie. my temperament. But I’m not sure they really know my heart.
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Nobody is going to know someone else 100 percent. My mother didn’t know me 100 percent. I don’t even think my husband knew me 100 percent.

I’d say Mom knew me 90 percent and husband knew me 95 percent. They pretty much beat out the percentage of everybody else on earth. There are parts of me that will likely be known only to God forever.

Since you don’t have kids, I too am wondering why you are so interested in parent-child relations.
 
My question is, in part, motivated by a book I read entitled “The Nurture Assumption” by Judith Rich Harris. It was particularly interesting to me because I have relatives who are identical twins. It’s difficult to summarize this book without starting a disagreement because it seems to have been a pivotal work which engendered much controversy. She relies heavily on twin studies-- twins living in the same home, twins raised apart–as well as studies on adopted children. Her own hope was that parents reading the book would relax a bit, knowing there’s only so much you can do to affect the personality and character of your child. She believes a good deal of personality, about 45%, is genetic. Of the non-genetic component, it seems a great deal more has to do with a child’s peers and cultural influences than it has to do with parental influence.

A few weaknesses in the book: Harris only gives one paragraph to homeschooling parents. Of course, if a child relies more heavily for his/her education on his parents, it would seem Harris’s thesis might need revision. Another problem is that as a Catholic, it would seem to be very important to raise one’s child as a Catholic. Harris never mentions religion or its impact on personality. Plus, it’s very questionable how differences in personality can be arrived at by questions. Some surveys asked for parental responses, some for teacher responses, some for child responses. But Harris doesn’t spend much time talking about those questions. Nevertheless, the book is a good one.

In considering your points in this thread, I wonder if a parent of 19 children, such as the Duggar family parents, can honestly say they know their child best. I think everybody should care greatly about children, whether parents or not. Many non-parents act as spiritual mothers and fathers in various roles; at least that’s what the priest says on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Perhaps CAF readers can bear a reminder that a non-parent can care deeply for children and how they are raised.
 
Blessings
It’s the, we created them thing. Shared DNA. But, today’s society w kids shooting up schools, those parents no nothing.
Teach a child, the way they should go and they shall not depart from it.
Keep kids close. NO SLEEPOVERS. One kid can be a Saint. Put two together and they come up w creative, destructive ideas. The mechanics of other families may not be as they seem.
In Christ’s Love
Tweedlealice
IF YOU WISH FOR WISDOM, ASK FOR IT!!
 
There are twins in every second generation in my family.
I totally agree that non parents can and do care deeply for children.

It’s a bit of tricky spot about getting involved with how they are raised…the interfering mother in law and all that. Potential minefield.
 
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