On Saturday, June 13, we invited families to take part in a simple yet meaningful experience called Question The Rules.

The campaign began with a very simple question:

“If you could choose one thing that is usually not allowed in your family, what would it be?”

We imagined it as an opportunity to recognize something we often forget: children also have the right to be heard. We wanted to offer them a space to express themselves, to share their perspective, and to experience what it means to participate in the rules that shape their everyday lives. We also hoped it would encourage families to pause for a moment and reflect on the boundaries they create and the reasons behind them.

The children responded genuinely and sincerely. What we did not expect was for the question to end up coming back to the adults. As children began to question the rules, many parents started questioning their own. What began as an invitation to question rules ended up revealing something deeper: very often, behind every rule, there is a story. A story about fear, trust, inherited beliefs, family values, and the delicate balance between protecting our children and allowing them to become who they are.

The stories we received were not really about rules, but about where those rules came from.

“Sometimes we say ‘no’ to our children without ever stopping to ask ourselves whether that ‘no’ is truly necessary.

Sometimes it comes from social conventions. Sometimes simply because it is what we heard from our own parents.

We would like to invite children to question the ‘no,’ and adults to reflect on it too. Does every ‘no’ deserve the authority we give it? Or are some of them simply habits passed down without ever being questioned?”

 

When we set limits from fear

One of the stories we received was about a little girl who wanted to be allowed to jump from one of those play towers we often find in playgrounds. Nothing suggested that the situation was dangerous. Yet for years, that had been a limit others had set for her. The reason had nothing to do with the tower. It was rooted in her mother’s fear of heights.

Without fully realizing it, she had turned that fear into a rule. A rule that was not protecting her daughter from a real danger, but protecting herself from her own discomfort.

That Saturday, the girl had the chance to jump from a certain height for the first time in her ten years of life. And her mother had the opportunity to make a different kind of leap: to look inward and distinguish what belonged to her from what belonged to her daughter.

Sometimes the limits we place on our children come more from our own fears than from an objective threat.

“Sometimes the words ‘it’s cold’ leave our mouths automatically, simply because it’s January. And we put a coat on our children before giving them the chance to experience what cold actually feels like.

We are not exposing them to danger — at least not where we live. Perhaps only to a small risk.

As a mother, my only concern was making sure the coat was in the backpack, ready if it was needed. The rest, I preferred to leave to experience, to the body, and to their own ability to notice when they were cold.”

When a limit is valid even if it seems irrational

Another story challenged us in a completely different way. A mother told us that painting is not allowed in her home. At first glance, some people might consider this rule irrational. Yet when she explained it, something more complex emerged.

For her, order and caring for the shared space matter deeply. Painting does not only leave stains; it also creates a sense of discomfort that prevents her from being fully present and enjoying the moment with her child.

So her decision was neither to allow painting at home at any cost nor to ban it completely. Instead, she found another space where her child could freely explore with colors, brushes, and messy materials.

In this story, we did not find one need opposing another, but rather an attempt to make room for both. On one side was a mother’s genuine boundary regarding the care of a shared space. On the other was a child’s need to explore and express themselves through painting.

This story reminded us that questioning a rule does not always lead to removing it. Sometimes it leads to understanding it more deeply. An authentic “no,” when it responds to a real need, can still remain a “no.” The difference is that the other person’s need does not disappear; it is also acknowledged and given a place where it can unfold.

The goal is not permissiveness. The goal is awareness.

Perhaps that is where the true value of questioning rules lies: transforming what we inherit into conscious choices. And ultimately, it is conscious choices that shape family culture.

 

When a limit remains

Another mother wrote to us about a very different situation. When she asked her children the question, they told her there were no rules they wanted to change. However, they did challenge her with one request: they wanted to be allowed to use violence for one day.

The mother’s answer was a firm no.

Not because she was unwilling to hear the proposal, nor because she rejected the conversation itself. In fact, the question had fulfilled its purpose: the rule had been placed on the table and examined. But some rules, even after being questioned, remain necessary.

This mother reminded us that parenting is not only about revisiting the limits we inherit. It also involves holding on to the values we consider fundamental. Respect for others, mutual care, and rejecting violence were not, for her, arbitrary rules but expressions of the family culture she wanted to pass on.

Perhaps questioning a rule does not always aim to change it. Sometimes its value lies precisely in confirming why it is still there.

 

When one question opens three generations

One of the most beautiful moments happened when the question changed direction. A mother asked her son which rule he would like to question. He replied that he would like to be allowed to ride his scooter inside the house. But then he returned the question:

“And what would you choose?”

The mother paused to think. Finally, she answered that when she was little, she would have loved to be allowed to eat in her pajamas and spend the whole day barefoot. And then a third person entered the conversation, even though he was not physically present: her own father.

She explained that these had been rules she had never been able to question. Rules that, many years later, were still alive in her memory.

In that moment, three generations entered the conversation at the same time: the child, the mother, and the little girl that mother had once been. The question had managed to bring them together around the same reflection: which rules we inherit, which ones we keep, and which ones we choose to transform.

The question kept traveling. Another mother told us, laughing, that she ended up visiting her own father to ask him something she had gone years without questioning: why he had never allowed her to use his exercise machine.

There was something deeply touching about that scene. A grown woman returning to a childhood question, and a father trying to remember the reasons behind a rule he had taken for granted for years.

What moved us was not so much the answer as the gesture itself. A seemingly simple question had opened a conversation between generations that probably would never have happened otherwise.

What We Learned

If there is one thing this experience taught us, it is that rules are rarely just rules. They are fears, values, memories, cultural beliefs, and above all, the genuine intention to care for our children. Sometimes they are inherited wisdom. Sometimes they are inherited wounds. And often, they are both at the same time.

Question The Rules taught us that questioning a rule does not necessarily mean changing it. Some rules disappeared. Others found new paths. Others remained exactly where they were. But almost all of them transformed into something different: they stopped being inherited rules and became conscious choices.

Because a family is not built only through the limits it sets, but also through the conversations it dares to have about them.

We believe the world needs children brave enough to question the rules. And this experience reminded us that it also needs adults brave enough to revisit them.

Thank you to everyone who shared their stories, their doubts, their reflections, and their courage. You reminded us that questioning rules is not an act of rebellion, but a way of understanding more deeply the world we live in.