John Rosemond: Not every question deserves an answer

In the mid-1970s, I attended a seminar that promised to train me to become an instructor in positive discipline methods. It turned out that the methods amounted to one: talking. Any behavior problem could be solved, the trainer told us, by properly reasoning with a child. Furthermore, he said, adults should answer children’s questions honestly. To not do so is to disrespect them, to deny they are intelligent. By this point, I had had enough experience trying to reason with my own kids to recognize baloney when I heard it.