“Do you know the surest means of making your child miserable?” he writes. “It is to accustom him to getting everything. Since his desires grow constantly due to the ease of satisfying them, sooner or later powerlessness will force you, in spite of yourself, to end up with a refusal. And this unaccustomed refusal will give him more torment than being deprived of what he desires.” Rousseau says the biggest parenting trap is to think that because a child can argue well, his argument deserves the same weight as your own. “The worst education is to leave him floating between his will and yours and
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