My husband is the oldest of eight.

Eight.

I don’t know how his parents even survived that, let alone how they turned out eight amazing kids, but you’d better believe they expected their kids to pitch in to a reasonable degree. My husband, being the oldest, had plenty of opportunities for responsibilities.

As family lore goes, one day his mom asked him to do something…… and he talked back. Politely.

My husband, calm and logical even as a kid, essentially said, “Mom, you’ve asked me to do X, but I’m also responsible for Y. I also have this, that, and the other that I’m supposed to get done too. Which thing would you like me to do?”

He wasn’t being sassy. He wasn’t being rude. He was communicating.

If kids learning to communicate is back-talking, then I say, “bring it on”.

His mom hadn’t realized that all his responsibilities were piling up, and if he didn’t speak up, she wouldn’t figure it out until things started falling apart.

Kids need to learn to be obedient and follow directions…. but not blindly.

Kids also need to learn to disagree, be assertive, and even talk back….but not rudely.

It may seem these two objectives are juxtaposed, but they really go hand in hand. Like so many things in life, it’s about striking the right balance, and overcoming the temptation to live life in philosophical polarities.

We want kids who are able to follow directions and be respectful of authority. But we also need them to be willing to stand up, even to authority, when the situation requires it. Authority and peer pressure start to look an awful lot alike as life goes on, and neither is universally nor unequivocally correct. I want my kids to be able to talk back to both when the conversation is taking a wrong turn.

Like anything else, we have to model and we have to teach. I try not to over-react when my kids disagree with me, though it may require some extra deep breathing. But I do take the opportunity to walk them through the appropriate way to communicate assertively rather than disrespectfully, to share ideas and concerns and not just cut people off. That exercise in communication requires that the expectation for respect in conversation goes both ways.

Whether it’s voicing an uncommon viewpoint in a meeting, standing up to a friend who’s offering drugs, standing with someone who’s being picked on, saying NO to a predator who’s trying to lure them in, or simply letting a playmate know he’s not OK with the way a game’s being played, I hope that throughout life, my kids have learned not just to be polite, but to speak up and talk back now and then too.

More Heat:

The Pitfalls of Obedience Training {Peaceful Parent}

The Reason Every Kid Should Talk Back to Their Parents {Kelly M. Flanagan, Huffington Post}