‘Because I said so!’ The right to an explanation

When you’ve been told to do something, and you don’t know why, don’t you want an explanation? Suppose you ask for a reason and the response is, ‘Because I said so’? That response doesn’t teach anything constructive. Of course, you may reach a point occasionally, after a seemingly endless succession of ‘why, why, whys’ from a child, where you resort to that response, but on most occasions a child deserves a better explanation. Reasons that may be perfectly obvious to an adult may not be to a child. The world can be full of mystery.

If we want children to eventually have self-discipline—that is, to be able to regulate their behaviour—then we must help them understand the reasons for rules and limits. A steady diet of ‘Because I said so’, means that children will continue to rely on control by others rather than learning self-control.