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[–]Feather[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

You probably should have let her wear the wrong shoes. Wearing the wrong shoes is uncomfortable. You denied her the minor suffering of wearing wrong shoes.

It's the same thing as why parents should advise kids not to play in the snow in a t-shirt but then let their kids do it anyway if their kids insist; their kids need to learn through literal physical experience that sometimes the results of their choices feel bad.

You make the kid wear a coat and they learn that parents make kids wear coats. You go, "Okay, if you insist on not wearing a coat, go ahead," and they learn that they were wrong to ignore you because they feel horrible and cold. One of the most important aspects of parenting in the younger years is letting them learn that ignoring your advice leads to results that feel bad.

It leads them to trust your judgment later on, since they have an entire library of memories about how it was a mistake to ignore your advice.

[–]lefterfield 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

That's a different philosophy on parenting, and while I don't disagree with it in theory, in some cases it's better to just tell the child what they need to do at that time. My other concern about the shoes was that they were very sparkly and the sort of thing that leads to other children being jealous and wanting special treatment too - I didn't need to deal with that from 10 toddlers. When it's just one it's easier to let them make bad choices.

[–]Feather[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I hadn't thought of that point about one kid vs a bunch of kids. Makes sense.