'Parenting expert' says high-fiving your children is inappropriate: 'Children should know their place'
By Georgia Weir|
In what can only be described as a first world problem, one journalist has made the impetuous claim that 'high-fiving' your children is inappropriate.
John Rosemand, a self-professed 'parenting expert' has made the bold claim that the high-five is "a gesture of familiarity, to be exchanged between equals."
Writing in the Omaha World-Herald, he said, "I will not slap the upraised palm of a person who is not my peer, and a peer is someone over age 21, emancipated, employed and paying their own way."
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As he does not recognise children and parents to be on equal footing, children wanting a high-five is perceived by Rosemand as disrespectful.
"Children should know their place," the author brazenly asserts.
"Respect for adults is important to a child's character development, and the high-five is not compatible with respect."
Most modern parents would agree this assertion is archaic จC in fact, so archaic it actually appears in 9Honey Parenting's Vintage Parenting Advice.
Rosemand argues you wouldn't high-five a judge, the president or your doctor, so a child should not high-five their parents or grandparents.
Whilst the psychologist/journalist is busy obsessing over the perceived societal implications of high-fiving a child, what about the positive aspects of the gesture?
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High-fiving a child is a meaningful way to build a connection in a singular moment and recognise accomplishment, not as an equal relationship but definitely as a mutually respected relationship.
To erase the psychological benefits that small gestures like high-fives have on children is damaging and reductionist.?
Whilst Rosemand is correct in his assertion that parent-child relationships are meant to be unequal, that does not mean they cannot be mutually respectful. Respecting your child is not to be submissive to them, but to treat them in a way that you yourself would wish to be treated.
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Twitter users were quick to call out the ridiculousness of the op-ed.
"My personal goal today was to respond to emails but now it's high-fiving every kid I see," one user said.
"Imagine being so obsessed with where you stand in a social hierarchy relative to others in it that you think basic gestures of humanity ought to be withheld from your inferiors for the sake of decorum," another Twitter user slammed.
"He's wrong on this one, and this doctor high-fives patients. I still command respect. Maybe he's doing something incorrectly," another user pointed out.
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