Actually, High-Fiving Kids is Totally Fine

My takedown of a ridiculous parenting op-ed.

Yesterday, I stumbled across a remarkably silly op-ed published in the Omaha World-Herald after writer Lyz Lenz shared it on Twitter and my local bookstore tagged me, asking for my take.

The op-ed is titled “Living with Children: You Shouldn’t High-Five a Child,” and in a nutshell, it argues that parents should never high-five their kids because then their kids will no longer respect them and will become hellions.

In tweet form, here is my take:

Okay, but you know me — I always like to share the why behind my opinions. So today, I’m going to tell you why this op-ed is a steaming pile of old-school authoritarian parenting poop, and why this guy’s opinion directly contradicts the science on child development. Although the op-ed is silly, I also think it’s extremely harmful, because it promotes outdated, unscientific ideas about parenting.

First, let’s take a quick look at the author of this op-ed, John Rosemond, who refers to himself as a “family psychologist.” When I found his website, I learned that “John’s new book, The Bible Parenting Code, is now available for purchase!” I could say a lot about this book title, but I’ll just point out that the Bible is not exactly a paragon of parenting excellence (I’m looking at you, Abraham), so we might not want to use it as our go-to parenting guide.

Here’s another gem I found on Rosemond’s website:

All of his professional accomplishments aside, John is quick to remind folks that his real qualifications are that he’s been married to the same woman for over forty years, is the father of two successful adults, and the grandfather of seven children…make that seven well-behaved grandchildren.

Skipping past his moralizing comment about marriage, I don’t agree that the goal of parenting is to produce 1) successful and 2) well-behaved children. Sure, I want my kids to do well in the world, but I more than that I want them to do good in the world and make the world a better place. I’ll dig more into the problems with focusing on “obedience” as a parenting goal in a minute, but suffice it to say that this was another red flag.

Moving on to the actual article, here is the crux of Rosemond’s argument:

Respect for adults is important to a child’s character development, and the high-five is not compatible with respect. It is to be reserved for individuals of equal, or fairly equal, status. It is good for children to view responsible adults as people who exist in a higher plane. That “looking up” causes children to aspire to become adults, which seems to be in short supply these days. The child who is allowed to high-five an adult has tacit permission to talk to said adult as if they are peers. Do not wonder why, if you high-five your child, he often talks to you as if you are his equal. (By the way, a child does not ever think of an adult as an equal. He either thinks the adult is his superior or his subordinate. In a child’s mind, there is no middle ground.)

Wow, there’s a lot of bullshit to unpack here.