I think this creates an interesting circular problem. Only recently in society have we come to think of children as effectively the parents property. In many ot

I think this creates an interesting circular problem. Only recently in society have we come to think of children as effectively the parents property. In many other cultures it is expected that other adults will discipline children. We have this problem in our library often when kids who are resettled refugees come in and misbehave. The parents send them to the library with the expectation that they will be disciplined if they misbehave. When the kids see they will not, they misbehave knowing they can get away with it. On the other hand, this protectiveness of our personal standard of parenting means that in order to enforce our standards, we must see the kids and people must defer to the parents for discipline. It almost means that because we don't allow others to impose their judgements on our kids, that they then impose their judgements on the parents.