Re-Norming: Please Discipline My Child

Editor’s Note (2026): Four years ago I wrote the first article of this series. The central intuition has only become stronger: many of the challenges facing parents are not simply personal—they’re cultural. Over the next several weeks I’ll be revisiting and then expanding on this Re-Norming Project.

I love to give a presentation I call Mental Health Myth Busting.

Among these myths, the most pervasive and harmful is the following:

The belief that people are happier in “judgment free” zones where they are free to behave as they wish.

The truth is just the opposite.

While studying different societies near the turn of the 20th century, the father of sociology, Emile Durkheim, found that the number one predictor of suicide was a lack of social connectivity, a state which he called anomie. As Dr. Jonathan Haidt explains in his book, The Happiness Hypothesis:

Anomie is the condition of a society in which there are no clear rules, norms, or standards of value. In an anomic society, people can do as they please, but without any clear standards… it is harder for people to find anything they want to do.

So, how do we know if a community has high or low levels of anomie? Haidt offers us a barometer:

One of the best predictors of the health of an American neighborhood is the degree to which adults respond to the misdeeds of other people’s children, rather than look the other way. When community standards are enforced, there is constraint and cooperation. When everyone minds his or her own business, there is freedom and anomie.

In short, Haidt is saying that we need the village to help raise our child. But that is becoming more and more rare in our hyper-individualized world.

As teachers will attest, correcting another person’s kid is now fraught with the risk that angry parents will take offense. 

How dare you talk to my kid that way! 

How dare you take my kid’s iPhone!

We’ve lost the sense that all of the adults have an obligation to help raise all of the kids.

Part of the problem is that, after years of community deterioration, we no longer trust our neighbors to do what is best for our kids. I struggle with this, myself. Many today would impose a degree of over-protection on my children’s play that is disruptive to their development. More still, many adults buy into a culture of child-doting which I find unhealthy.

In the absence of common ideals that pull us to override our own self-interest and in the absence of a shared vision of the type of person we want our children to become, a new parenting culture has taken root. This culture tells parents it is their job to always take their child’s side—to remove every obstacle and grant every wish—to mediate every playground dispute, accommodate every preference, and bend the world to their will.

But our job isn’t to fix every problem for every kid. It isn’t to make sure they are always abundantly comfortable.

Our job is to create great people. And that is just not consistent with the predominant youth development paradigm. 

You know what is?

This…

Parents have never needed the help of village norms more. With the mass normalization of junk food, the rise of hollow materialism, the availability of constant screen stimulation, and the incessant beckoning of smartphone notifications, the number of itches tugging at our kids’ impulses is greater than ever.

Once-impossible temptations tantalize us and our children. But rather than defend against the hacking of our impulses, modern norms simply confirm that constant consumption is normal. In the absence of a shared ethos of what matters and what is acceptable, the cultural apparatus that should be our defense has become a virus blinding us from the insanity of our current course.

And, lacking that common sense, many of the fruitful behaviors that were once normal are only available to parents with the means and foresight to pay for them. As philosopher Matthew Crawford explains in The World Beyond Your Head:

“… the social jigs once relied on by the middle class have been widely dismantled, in the name of personal autonomy... the disciplinary functions of culture have in fact not been dissolved so much as privatized [bolding is mine]. They are located less in a shared order of meaning, such as Protestant thrift, parental authority, or injunctions against gluttony, and more in the professional nagging services provided by financial planners, tutors, and personal trainers.” 

Still, there are vestiges of wisdom that continue to fight the good fight…

Over the past few years, I had the pleasure of working with an unbelievable elementary principal. She’s honest, passionate, and old school.

My son Ace was lucky enough to be a kindergartner at this principal’s school. I caught up with her after his first day of kindergarten and her comments spoke volumes about what makes her so special:

Principal: I sat by Ace for a minute at lunch and I really like him. And you know what? He minds. He got a little cheeky and I just looked at him… and he knew. 

Me: Yes, he knows the look and he knows the tone. Give him the look and he listens. I just wish more people would give him the look!

A couple days later I heard another report. She had said hi to Ace in the hall and he just kept walking.

He’s a tad shy (at first) and my wife and I have been trying hard to teach him how important it is to respond to people, even when he feels uncomfortable. But it is hard to teach this lesson without the support of a village.

Thank goodness this principal was there to reinforce our message. She took off after him and let Ace know that, “When people talk to you, you need to respond. And when you see people you know, it is important to say hi.”

This principal didn’t know that we’d been working with our son on this. She just knew (as every adult once would have) that we should be.

This is the beauty of norms. They are the common sense that facilitates community trust and that helps a community to inculcate fruitful behaviors in their children. 

It is time to re-norm. It is time to re-establish that sense of good judgment which is the foundation of wise societies—to clarify the behavioral expectations that lead to great lives and great communities. 

That will be the goal of this recurring series. I want to explore the norms that deserve to become “common sense” in the 21st century. If you have any thoughts about what some of these might be, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Thank you very much for reading and sharing!

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If you’re digging this vein, see chapter 9 of my book, which I titled Judge Thy Neighbor. To see more about why norms matter more than ever, check out this article.

Carry the fire!

Shane