A few years ago, I realised that I have been unconsciously raising disobedient children.
The realisation came through the experience of hiring, and later parting ways with, a nanny. She arrived with glowing references and seemed well suited to the role.
At first, our issues were small. She seemed timid, unwilling to truly step into the role as part of the family. Instead of using the agreed systems, such as our bean jar for managing positive and negative behaviour, she preferred to complain to me about infractions hours later.
Over time, deeper differences surfaced. My children are used to two-way conversations. They are encouraged to negotiate, to ask questions and to test the logic of a decision. They are not accustomed to hearing “because I said so” as the final word. The nanny, however, framed questioning as disrespect and respect as obedience.
I noticed, even in conversations with me, another adult and her employer, she would return again and again to her original point without expanding, as though repeating it more loudly would make it more compelling.
Eventually, we parted ways.
And in the quiet afterwards, I saw something clearly. I had raised disobedient children. Not disobedient in the sense of being wild or unruly, but in the sense that they pause before complying. They test whether a request aligns with logic, fairness and shared values.
What some call disobedience, I call leaving behind an old way of thinking, one where respect meant silence and children were seen but not heard.
One of my earliest experiments with this was the “Thinking Step”. Whenever my daughter behaved in a way we did not agree with, she received a clear warning. I explained why the behaviour was unsatisfactory, and that if it happened again she would spend a short time on the Thinking Step. If it did reoccur, she sat for a minute per year of her age, reflecting on what had happened. Afterwards, I reminded her of the reason, asked whether she had thought about her behaviour, encouraged her to apologise, and then finished with a hug before we moved on.
I repeated this countless times one summer, to the bemusement of my in-laws who were certain that my husband and I had lost our minds. They thought it was pointless. They thought spanking was quicker. Over the years, however, they changed their minds as they watched my children mature.
For me, corporal punishment was never an option. It felt disrespectful, based entirely on power inequalities between parents and children. It gave children no agency and offered no way to evolve the relationship once they grew up. Respect, in our family, necessitates dialogue.
That value was tested one afternoon when, in the middle of an argument, I lost my temper. My preschooler looked me straight in the eye and calmly told me my behaviour was unacceptable. She told me I needed a time out to reflect.
So I took one.
Thirty minutes later, she came to check on me. She asked whether I had reflected, whether I was ready to apologise. She offered me a hug before we went back to our activity.
I did not think it ridiculous. I thought it was fair. She was applying the norms I had established, even to me. In that moment I understood that raising children to think critically also means accepting that they will hold you accountable to your own rules.
The same instinct shapes my professional life. When I worked in hospitals, I quickly realised that my handwriting speed could not keep up with the volume of patient notes. Instead of accepting this as a limitation, I created a template for admission notes. I carried it on a drive, filled it in, printed it out, and placed it in the charts.
At first, the nursing staff assumed these were referral letters from GPs. Once they understood, they preferred the clarity. There was no handwriting to decipher and they came to trust that key information would be consistently documented. My colleagues did not adopt the practice, nor did they need to. Their system worked for them, and mine worked for me.
It was a small act of disobedience, not against rules, but against the assumption that things had to be done one way.
Later, as a medical advisor, my role included training commercial teams. Typically, this training focuses narrowly on clinical trials that support the medicinal product being promoted. I chose a different approach. Alongside product studies, I taught wider principles of HIV so that my team understood the condition more holistically. I also made a point of sharing the latest research and debates from international conferences, whether or not they were directly linked to our product.
At first, the response was curious but uncertain. This was not the standard model. Over time, however, it transformed the team. Their
knowledge of HIV became the strongest in the country. When they met with doctors, nurses or pharmacists, they were able to converse with confidence and credibility. The conversations became deeper than products and side effects. They reached into the lived experience of HIV, aging, acquired toxicities over lifetimes of treatment and stigma.
This was not rebellion. It was disobedience to convention, in service of something greater.
In families and in organisations, obedience can look tidy, efficient and safe. Yet what appears safe in the moment often comes at a cost. Blind obedience erodes trust, silences creativity and weakens the very instincts that allow us to act ethically when it matters most.
Disobedience, when rooted in respect, nurtures independence, ethical reasoning and the courage to choose what is right rather than what is easiest. It asks us to test authority with questions, to stretch roles beyond their narrow definitions, to treat even children as partners in dialogue.
I began by noticing that I had raised disobedient children. Perhaps what I was really doing was raising children who understood respect as something deeper than obedience. Children who expected fairness, who demanded dialogue, who held me to the same standards I set for them.
The same choice faces us as leaders. What kind of people do we want to raise in our families, in our teams and see in ourselves? Those who follow because they are told to, or those who pause, reflect and choose their responses?
Raising disobedient children, and leading disobedient teams, may be uncomfortable. It may take more time, more patience and more humility. It is also how respect is built, how ethics are strengthened, how trust endures and how change begins.
The future belongs to the disobedient, if their disobedience is rooted in respect.
