By Jeremy S. Adams writing for Quillette
Good adults use their authority over children not because they want to satisfy their ego or for some power play. They do so because they have experienced life and they want to use what they've learned to direct kids in the best way possible.
Children, especially very young ones don't always understand and responsible adults have to balance between explaining reasons for directions and exercising their authority.
From the article,
Adults have authority not because they are adults, but because the arrows and agonies of life spare none of us. We know because we have endured, we’ve “been there,” we have experienced an electrifying ripening of the soul. Distancing our children from authority is not love and it’s not compassion. It’s a cruel impoverishment of the human spirit. Classrooms have become emotive enclaves of a stark student-centered universe. This pivot towards the teacher-cum-protector role has colossally diminished the authority of the everyday classroom teacher because it has transformed the way students look at us. They are difficult to impress these days because the things that once commanded respect and imbued authority—intellectual achievement, virtuous behavior, classroom dynamism, prodigiousness, substantive life experiences—no longer attract the high regard they once did.