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
Anyhow the most empowering shit you can say to a kid in my experience has to be
“Wow that adult was being a jerk”
“That sounds really frustrating”
”Good job handling that, I would have lost my mind”
“It’s cool, I don’t expect you to remember me”
“You don’t have to hug me if you don’t want to”
“Yeah sometimes (authority figure you can’t avoid) doesn’t know what they’re talking about, it’s not your fault, just do your best”
“I don’t totally understand what you mean but I get that you’re upset, is there anything I can do?”
”Wanna go yell and break stuff with me?”
“You don’t need to be friends with that kid as long as you can still be polite”
“If an adult tells you to do something that will get you hurt, you don’t have to listen.”
“My number one goal is to keep you safe, but I don’t know everything and sometimes I’m wrong, so let me know if I make a mistake.”
“Man. Today sucked.”
“Yeah I also kinda wanna cry right now”
“Whoops, yeah, my bad”
“I don’t know the answer to that but we can probably figure it out”
