The Problems With Rules
The Sovereign Child
Earlier this year, I read the book “The Sovereign Child” by Aaron Stupple, which has reinforced my mission of raising freedom-loving children.
In Chapter 4, Stupple breaks down the lie that many parents were sold, “good kids follow rules,” and our job as parents is to enforce those rules like a household cop.
But rules don’t raise sovereign children. They raise dependent adults. They raise adults who doubt themselves, wait for permission, and crumble without direction.
These are the four hidden problems with rule-based parenting that most parents don’t see until the damage is done.
1. Rules Damage Relationships
Every time you say, “Because I said so,” you chip away at the foundation of your relationship. You’re not just ending a conversation, you’re sending a message: “Your thoughts don’t matter. Your questions are a threat to my authority.”
What could’ve been a moment of connection becomes a battle for control.
Instead of seeing you as a guide, someone they can trust to help them understand the world, they start seeing you as the prison guard they have to outsmart. That’s when the lying, the sneaking around, and the performance begin. Because they learn that the truth isn’t safe, compliance becomes a safer option.
That dynamic breeds secrecy and manipulation, rather than trust and honesty.
It teaches them that love is conditional. Whether one is accepted depends on performing correctly and following the rules. That’s how you raise a child who will spend their adult life people-pleasing, codependent, and unable to say no.
And it all started with a parent who didn’t want to explain themselves.
2. Rules Crush Confidence
When you micromanage every decision for your child, what you’re really saying is: “You can’t be trusted.”
So they don’t trust themselves.
That’s not protection, it’s programming.
They doubt their instincts, second-guess their desires, and look outward for permission, because they’ve learned that someone else always knows better.
Confidence doesn’t come from praise or participation trophies. It comes from making real choices, facing natural consequences, and realizing they can handle it.
Rules and the kind of parenting obsessed with control disrupt that entire process. They replace internal guidance with external approval, and they leave your child lost and confused once you’re gone.
You think you’re keeping them safe, but what you’re actually doing is raising a child who will grow into an adult paralyzed by self-doubt. One who’s constantly scanning the room for someone to follow, someone to please, and someone to tell them what’s “right.”
That’s how you create people who never take risks, who never lead, and who feel anxiety anytime they have to make a decision without someone holding their hand.
3. Rules Create Moral Confusion
You tell your kid, “Don’t lie,” but every December you feed them the Santa story like it’s gospel. You say, “Don’t hit,” but when they mess up, you spank them.
That’s not teaching, that’s contradiction.
Kids notice everything, even when they can’t articulate it, and they feel the double standard. They hear one thing, see another, and what they learn isn’t the lesson you think you’re teaching.
Rules without reasoning are just propaganda. Kids don’t learn why something matters; they learn what triggers punishment.
That’s how so-called “traditional values” get warped. Politeness becomes more important than truth. Obedience is mistaken for virtue. The outside looks good while the inside rots.
It’s how you end up with adults who look like they’ve got it together on the outside. Well-mannered, well-dressed, and respectable, but inside, they are hollow. Afraid to speak the truth. Desperate for approval. Unsure of who they are because they were never allowed to question anything.
We don’t need more kids like that. We don’t need more rule-followers who are too scared to challenge authority, speak up when something feels wrong, or walk their own path.
We need kids who understand why integrity matters. Those who value honesty because they’ve lived it. Those who know the difference between real values and performative obedience.
That starts with parents living what they teach, instead of just barking rules, because kids don’t just hear what you say; they become it.
“This book is not opposed to rules. On the contrary, systems of rules that attract willing participants, such as the rules of grammar or conventions of courtesy, also known as institutions, are among the most important of human discoveries. In fact, a major problem with enforcing arbitrary rules is the damage this does to a child’s engagement with our greatest institutions.”
4. Rules Kill Problem Solving
If you solve every problem for your child, they never learn how to solve problems for themselves.
You think you’re being a good parent, protecting them, making life easier, but every time you step in before they struggle, before they think, and before they try, you rob them of the opportunity to build self-trust.
Rules and control might keep things neat and tidy in the short term, but they create passive little robots. Kids who follow directions, check boxes, and wait to be told what to do. But the second life gets messy, and it will; they fall apart because no one taught them how to think, only how to obey.
That becomes generational trauma.
Because when they become parents, they’ll do what was done to them.
They’ll bark orders, punish disobedience, and call it “discipline,” not realizing they’re just repeating the same control-and-compliance playbook that robbed them of their own sovereignty.
Generation after generation of children raised to obey instead of think. To please instead of lead. To conform instead of create. To be quiet instead of speaking up. To require control instead of desiring freedom.
And it all started with a parent who meant well but couldn’t let go.
“As for politics, I’m an anarchist. I hate governments and rules and fetters. Can’t stand caged animals. People must be free.”
— Charlie Chaplin
So what do you do next?
You drop the need to control every move and start building a relationship based on trust, not fear. You invite your child into the process instead of forcing them to comply with it. You don’t just give commands, you explain the why behind the what.
You solve problems together. You ask questions instead of giving orders. You allow space for mistakes, knowing that messing up is part of growing up. You trust your child to make choices, and you’re there, not to punish them when they fall, but to support them as they learn to stand.
That’s how you raise a sovereign child.
Not one who’s programmed to obey, but one who’s equipped to lead. One who knows themselves, respects truth, and isn’t afraid of failure, because they’ve been allowed to face it and grow.
In the process, you begin to heal.
Because showing your child the respect you never received, giving them the voice you were denied, and parenting with the compassion you always needed but never got, changes you.
That breaks the cycle.
So lead with connection. Teach through example. Parent with purpose.
This isn’t just about raising better kids.
It’s about becoming the parent you wish you had, and giving your child what every generation before was missing.
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