Authority, a manifestation of good love

11 May, 2026

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EduFamilia

Voices

03 October, 2025

9 min

Authority, a manifestation of good love

Love is demanding, but with a kindly kind demand

Authority, essential

Affection, good example, and encouragement are not enough to educate.

It is also necessary to exercise authority, always explaining, to the extent possible, the reasons that lead us to advise, impose, disapprove, or prohibit the conduct in question.

Education outside of authority, once so vaunted, is now presented as a brief, failed, and obsolete fad, contradicted by those who have suffered from it.

Education without authority
has proven to be a failure.

The child needs an authority to guide him: he seeks it and asks for it, even if he sometimes refuses to acknowledge it.

If you don’t find clear signage around you, with well-marked paths, you become insecure or nervous.

Even when playing with each other, children always invent rules that they must not break: they need to know the space, both material and figurative—the rules—in which to move freely.

The child has a need for authority,
even if he refuses to recognize it.

The key to good authority

When authority wavers…

Besides, we all know how unpleasant, annoying, and tyrannical children are when they are spoiled, accustomed to always demanding attention and not obeying when they don’t feel like it.

The children… of others!

Because when it comes to one’s own, it’s harder to make a clear judgment. You don’t know whether to impose yourself or to give in, compromise, and let things happen, so as not to risk a public scene, or end up with an outburst of anger and a scolding, which is more uncomfortable for the parents than the child.

But be careful!

Behind this insecurity often lies a mixture of fears, prejudices and self-love:
the fear of losing the child’s affection, of their physical safety being at risk, of causing material damage or making us look bad.

Behind the insecurity of many parents,
there is often a strange mix
of fears and precautions – and self-love!

Solution: love your child more and better than yourself

Ultimately, even if it’s hard for us to admit, we love ourselves more than our son or daughter: we put our own well-being before theirs.

Solution?

Let us ensure that, above these fears, there prevails a sincere and effective desire to help the child recognize his or her own selfish impulses, greed, laziness, envy, cruelty, etc. (Don’t your children have it? Mine, and especially mine, of course they do).
That feeling of guilt will then disappear when we correct it, using our own influence.

Parental authority
must always be guided by
true love for each child:
the search for their true good.

Authority and obedience

Authority demands obedience

Even if it’s not fashionable, it’s worth repeating that it’s impossible to educate without exercising authority, which isn’t authoritarianism (it’s not rigid, arbitrary, or sullen); and that it’s important to demand obedience from the moment children begin to understand what’s being asked of them, which is around the age of two.

It is also important that, while explaining the reasons for their decisions, parents tell their children what they should do or avoid, not letting their orders fall into oblivion for convenience, nor allowing children to openly oppose them.

It is advisable to demand obedience
from the moment children
begin to understand what is being asked of them.

To each child, his own

As I noted, a basic criterion in home education is that there should be very few rules, very fundamental and never arbitrary, ensuring that they are always followed and allowing complete freedom in all matters of opinion, even when the children’s preferences do not coincide with ours.

By virtue of his personal uniqueness:

Children have every right to become who they are and are called to be.
And we have no right to turn them into a replica of our own self, to make them in our image and likeness.

Children have every right
to become themselves,
and we have no right
to make them in our image and likeness.

Good authority = fundamental and objective standards

Therefore, those that prevail in our home must always be fundamental and objective norms, with which we truly seek the good of others and harmony in the family.

Examples?

Avoid fights, untimely shouting, insults, and rude responses.
Help others when they need it, and it is in our hands.
Do not disrespect others, especially parents and grandparents (and, where applicable, particularly domestic workers, since acting in this way demonstrates and generates inner refinement and human quality).
Eat with gratitude what is served to us, even if it is not to our liking, aware that it is a freely received good that others lack.
Adapting to schedules that make living together and keeping the household running smoothly possible…

And leave absolute freedom
in the debatable, which is
almost everything!

Authority, not arbitrariness

The reference point is not the parents.

Sometimes, however, we forbid ourselves from doing something without really knowing why, what’s wrong with it, just on impulse, out of a desire to be calm or to assert ourselves, or because we feel nervous and everything bothers us.

This compromises authority itself, abusing it, and confuses the children, who don’t know why what was viewed favorably yesterday is prohibited today.

If not, the needs of the child

Every healthy child has a need for movement, inventive play and freedom.

By intervening continuously and unreasonably, authority ends up becoming unbearable.

Like that mother who is said to have told the nanny: “Go to the children’s room to see what they are doing… and forbid them.”

Every healthy child has a need for movement,
inventive play and freedom.

Firm, balanced and serene authority

Firm: without giving in, if there is no reason to justify it

On the other hand, the child’s conviction that he will never make his parents desist from the orders given:

It has an unimaginable effectiveness;
greatly simplifies the training activity;
keeps us from getting burned
and helps enormously to calm tantrums or prevent them from occurring.

As I have already hinted, the exact opposite of this is repeating the same order twenty times—don’t shout, brush your teeth, take a shower, stop playing, go to sleep now…—without demanding, with the same gentleness as decisiveness, that it be carried out immediately.

This way of behaving causes enormous psychological strain, perhaps especially on mothers, who tend to spend most of the day dealing with their children, and diminishes or eliminates their own authority.

The conviction conveyed to the child
that they will never make us desist from the orders given
simplifies our work as educators
and greatly helps to calm tantrums
or prevent them from occurring.

Pondered and serene

For these reasons, before giving an order or imposing a punishment, it is advisable to:

think calmly about whether you are able and fully willing to enforce them,
even if it means the inconvenience of getting up,
leave what was occupying or distracting us,
take the child by the hand
and, with the same calm and peace of determination,
without raising the tone of voice and without the slightest abruptness,
“make him do” what he should do.

Before giving an order or imposing a punishment,
it is a good idea to consider carefully whether you are capable
and fully prepared to enforce it.

Convinced authority

If it is ineffective and counterproductive to give orders that are not enforced, it is even more damaging for the mother to utter the fateful “I’ve told you a thousand times…”, give up, and threaten the child with what will happen “when your father comes.”

With this behavior, she sends the message that she is incapable of running the household, since she has repeated the same command a thousand times, without any result.

And, furthermore, it transforms the husband:

into a kind of ogre, primarily responsible for punishing the bad actions of children;
or in an irresponsible person, because he does not want or does not know how to correct that action that he has neither witnessed nor is it sometimes appropriate to censure after so much time has passed since it was carried out:
Because it is difficult for the child – especially if he is very young – to establish the appropriate relationship between his now almost forgotten bad behavior and the current punishment, which he will perceive as an arbitrary decision.

When giving an order
we must have and transmit the conviction
that it will be carried out.

Authority in practice

Friendly authority

It is also worth paying attention to the way in which an indication is given.

Anyone who gives orders abruptly or raises their voice without reason always reveals nervousness and lack of confidence.
A threatening tone rightly provokes negative reactions and opposition.

Let us give orders with a calm attitude and with clear confidence—truly, not tactically—that we will be obeyed.

Or, better:

Let us please ask for what we want them to do.
Let’s reserve strict mandates for very, very important things.
And let’s stop yelling and losing control at the root!

In addition to their content, the “manner” in which orders and instructions are given
is important .

Respectful of freedom

For most requests, it will be preferable to use a softer form: would you be so kind as to…?, could you please…?, is there anyone who knows how to do this?

In this way, children will be encouraged to make free and responsible choices, and will be given the opportunity to act independently and inventively, to feel useful, and to experience the satisfaction of keeping their parents happy.

Authority properly exercised
does not oppose freedom,
but rather fosters it.

Firm, yet gentle and balanced authority

Sometimes it’s necessary to ask your child to make a greater effort than usual; in this case, it’s important to create a favorable climate.

♦ If, for example, you know that your spouse is particularly tired or suffering from an unbearable migraine, talk to the child alone and say: “Mom (or Dad) has a severe headache; therefore, I ask you to make a special effort this afternoon to be quiet.”

♦ Perhaps it would be appropriate to give him something to do, and give him a loving look or a caress from time to time, to reward his efforts, without forgetting that in this, as in the other cases, we must arrange for the child to fulfill his obligation.

Firmness, therefore, in demanding appropriate behavior, but extreme gentleness in the way we suggest, demand, or even impose it—again, gently but decisively!—and taking the time necessary for our children to understand, assimilate, and put into practice what we ask of them.

Firmness is compatible with affection and gentleness,
but both firmness and gentleness and affection
are usually incompatible with lack of time .

(To be continued)

Tomás Melendo,
President of Edufamilia
http://www.edufamilia.com
[email protected]

EduFamilia

Edufamilia es una asociación sin ánimo de lucro, nacida en el año 2005. Su fundador, Tomás Melendo, advirtió que una mejora en la calidad de las familias facilitaría la resolución de bastantes de los problemas que aquejan a la sociedad de hoy. Y, apoyado siempre por su mujer, decidió lanzarse a esta aventura que cuenta con casi veinte años de vida y con múltiples ediciones de los distintos cursos formativos: Másteres y Maestrías, Expertos, cursos más breves, conferencias, ciclos culturales, seminarios y otros programas educativos. Aunque las primeras ediciones tuvieron carácter presencial, actualmente se ha hecho un gran esfuerzo por promover la infraestructura virtual para adaptarse a los nuevos tiempos y que la formación en torno a la familia alcance al mundo entero.