I have raised two children. They are now in their twenties. From the get go, I dealt with them as beings who did things for a reason, and that reason was generally assumed to be about dealing with their needs, not "doing" something to me. Many parents expect kids to "behave" and that definition of "behaving" is rooted very much in what adults see and think about the child, not what the child is experiencing. This is inherently problematic.

Children may be dependent in many ways on their parents, but once they are outside the womb, if the parent dies, the child does not automatically die. They are a separate being. They have separate experiences. Their reasons for doing things come from their first person experiences.

Then parents very often try to impose third person motivations -- people-pleasing expectations -- that frequently interfere with the child pursuing its own needs.

We need to get better at dealing with kids as separate entities if we want to have any hope of dealing with machines functioning independently.

Your remark just reinforces my opinion that people do this badly. You think dependence is a given and I am not even sure how to go forward with this conversation because of this stated assumption.

Thank you for replying.