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The golden rule should apply to everyone. There is such a thing as 'ageism', the mistreatment of people because of their age.
Ageists assume that their experience trumps any experience of those younger then them, therefore they are always right. Of course, that is absurd, as every child in the world has at least some experience that his or her parents have not experienced. Example: I have always been into psychology and sociology. I've been studying it since I can remember. My father yelled at me, claiming it was a healthy way to vent anger. I let him believe this for a while, as correcting him would have only worsened the situation. When I was maybe 15 or so, he started yelling at me over something like chores. I asked him why he was yelling at me over 3 glasses that didn't get put into the dishwasher the night before. I stopped talking and let him finish yelling at me how this was symptomatic of my chronic laziness. After he stopped, I asked him if he felt better after he yelled, to which he simply replied, "Yes." I asked him what he felt the yelling accomplished. "My yelling is a way to vent my frustration with you." "No," I corrected, "your yelling is a way to vent your frustration at me." He stopped and thought for a moment. "My yelling at you is a way to communicate how serious I am, and how angry I am." I let it be silent for a second, as I put the glasses in the dishwasher. "Yelling is a form of intimidation, agree?" I calmly said. This struck my father funny. Chuckling, he said, "You think I'm trying to intimidate you?" "Aren't you? You get so angry about three dishes you feel it's necessary to deafen me." -my father has been a singer since he was young, and he has a very powerful and projecting voice, "Don't you think "venting" as often as you do makes you more likely to be aggressive?" At this point my dad has gone from mad, to thoughtful, to mad again. "What makes you think that you know so much about psychology? I have my A.A. in psych. You're in high school." At that, he assumed victory, and left. His A.A. in psych was over 20 years old at the time, and he had just taken some basic psych classes. He assumed that because he is older he had more experience and was more knowledgeable.
A few years later, I brought my dad a copy of a study done at Iowa State University and Case Western Reserve University. The study asked 707 under grads to participate in experiments that included being insulted by an unseen study partner. The students performed a series of activities, some students hitting a punching bag and others not. When the students competed in a computer game with the partner who insulted them, those who had hit the punching bag were much more likely to behave aggressively, the researchers found. My dad simply replied, "That's not conclusive." There was no convincing him.
I know I'll do my very best to never ever think less of my daughters opinions and thoughts because of her age. When she learns to talk, I'll listen to everything she has to say till the day I die.
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