Why Your Once Rule-Following Child Starts Breaking Rules As They Grow
I was idling in the car pickup line at Lincoln Middle School last October, scrolling through grocery list ideas, when my phone buzzed with a text from the front office: “Can you please come in? Mia skipped 4th period study hall.”
I locked the car and walked in, already equal parts annoyed and confused. This was the same kid who, at 8 years old, reminded our babysitter that our house rule said screen time ended at 7:30, even when the babysitter said it was fine to stay up 10 more minutes. This was the kid who turned in extra spelling homework in 3rd grade just because the teacher said it was optional, and cried when her best friend cheated on the unit test because “it’s against the rules.” Rule-following Mia didn’t skip class.
I found her slouched on the hard plastic chair outside the principal’s office, arms crossed, scuffing her new sneakers on the tile. She wouldn’t look at me when I sat down next to her. The vice principal came out and explained that Mia and her friend had snuck out to get boba from the shop three blocks away. They’d been caught by a parent volunteer on hall duty.
I didn’t yell on the drive home. I just waited until we pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine, and asked her what was going on. She mumbled that everyone does it, that the study hall teacher never marks absences, that her friend said it was no big deal. But when I pressed a little, she said something that stuck with me: “I’m tired of everyone always expecting me to be the good kid. If I never break any rules, everyone just thinks I’m boring. I’m the teacher’s pet. That’s not who I want to be.”
Over the next few weeks, I thought a lot about how we got here. When Mia was little, everyone celebrated her rule-following. I bragged to my friends that I never had to worry about her getting in trouble. Her teachers put her on the student honor roll every semester, commented on what a “reliable, model student” she was. It never occurred to me that all that praise turned “the rule follower” into a box she couldn’t get out of. Every small rule, she followed it not just because it was a rule, but because that was the identity everyone had given her. She was scared to lose that approval, even when the rules didn’t make sense to her.
I realized I’d contributed to that. For years, when she’d follow a rule I’d say “good job” and leave it at that. I never asked her what she thought about the rule. I never pointed out that some rules are arbitrary, and that it’s okay to question them. After the boba incident, I started making small changes in how we talked about rules.
The first thing I did was start naming bad rules out loud, instead of just treating all rules as equally important. If we were driving down our neighborhood street on a Sunday, where the 25 mph speed limit feels far too slow and there’s never anyone walking, I’d say, “This rule never made sense to me. It was made when this neighborhood was new and full of little kids, now there’s barely any kids playing outside. I still stick to it because there’s a school nearby, but if I drove 30, I wouldn’t be a bad person.” That small shift opened up conversations about when rules matter and when they’re just outdated.
Next, I started asking her what she thought before automatically telling her to follow the rule. When she came home complaining that her school bans all outside snacks, and the only options are overpriced chips and candy from the vending machine, I didn’t say “Well it’s the school rule, so you have to follow it.” Instead I said, “That sounds frustrating. What do you think should change?” At first she just shrugged, but after a week of talking it through, she decided to bring it up at student council. She ended up writing a proposal to change the rule, arguing that kids with dietary restrictions can’t eat the vending machine food anyway, so the rule just hurts people who need snacks to get through the day.
It’s been a year since that boba incident, and Mia still gets in tiny bits of trouble every few months. Last month, she got a written warning for wearing a hoodie to school, which violates the dress code. She didn’t get defensive or upset when she told me. She just said the dress code is unfair, because it mostly penalizes girls for “distracting” boys, and it’s cold in the building in the morning. She’s now working with a group of other students to propose changing the dress code too.
I won’t lie, there are still moments when I panic a little when the school calls. I grew up thinking that good kids follow all the rules, all the time. But what I’ve learned is that when your long-time rule follower starts breaking small rules as they grow, it’s not necessarily a sign you’ve messed up as a parent. It’s often a sign they’re developing their own identity, learning to think for themselves instead of just living up to other people’s expectations.
The biggest change I’ve made is that I don’t praise rule-following for its own sake anymore. I praise her for thinking through a problem, for speaking up when she thinks something is wrong, for being kind even when it’s not required. Mia’s rule change for snacks didn’t pass this year, and I don’t know if the dress code change will pass either. But she’s learning something more important than any rule could teach her: that being a good person isn’t about following every rule someone else made. It’s about figuring out for yourself what’s right, and acting on it.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Why Your Once Rule-Following Child Starts Breaking Rules As They Grow