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I wondered about the "average of fewer than one rule" cited in the article. Some parents have zero rules? I consider myself a pretty liberal parent and we definitely have more than one rule. e.g., Don't be mean, brush your teeth, be careful crossing the street, take your shoes off inside the house. Even if you generalize those to "be good to others and to yourself," that's still a rule!

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I wonder if "don't smash that block into the TV" counts as a rule? Or "don't eat that knife"? Or "don't play in traffic?" Or any other common sense thing that helps keep a young child alive for more than 24 hours?

This article is silly and evokes an extreme to try to make a point.

I think it depends on what you mean by "rule." I would say that we don't have any hard and fast rules that our daughter must obey simply because we say so. That doesn't mean we let her do anything particularly dangerous, but we try to explain why we say, "no," rather than just saying, "because I said so."

Exactly - that's been our approach too, at least once she reached ~3. "Brush your teeth because otherwise you get cavities." I'd still call that a rule but the article was vague.

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