It's almost like children need parents instead of best buddies. Parents don't act strict because they want to, they act strict because children are dumb assholes with no empathy or foresight.
There's more and more research to indicate that the reason childhood anxiety and depression rates are through the roof, is the kind of parenting that accommodates everything a kid believes or says or wants.
In normal human development, age 2-5 is where most kids start to learn, frequently "the hard way," about the limits of imposing their will. Those photos you see of a sobbing toddler with a caption "I wouldn't let him eat the rocks from our garden" or whatever, that's the phase where kids learn that just because they want something, or feel a certain way, doesn't mean the whole world will bend over to accommodate them. It's a hard lesson after infancy and the early communication period, where it seems to the child (if they have good parents) like as soon as an adult knows what they need, it's supplied for them.
But imagine if your parents never did that. Kids in preschool age ranges are always testing boundaries, trying to find out where the exact places are that they can exercise will or where it doesn't matter. Knowing that is critical to forming judgment and making good decisions later. So if your parents don't let you struggle with emotions that are tough when you're 6, and solve all your problems for you by just doing what you ask and letting you have what you want, eventually you'll hit the wall. You'll turn 13 and you'll feel your first crush stirring toward someone who isn't interested in you, at all, or you'll get to a class where the teacher isn't going to let your mom commandeer the homework situation and you actually have to do the work to get the grade, or you won't make the team when you try out and give it your all.
Those crushing defeats as a teenager are storms we can weather
only because of those times when we were 6 years old and our parents told us we couldn't have any dessert since we'd barely touched dinner, and ignored the tantrum that followed. That's where you learn to sit with your negative emotion, process it, and move forward. Now, imagine your parents won't even let you sit with and process your difficult emotions when you ask for something like "I want to be the opposite sex," which is about as real-world achievable as "I want my own real-life dragon to ride on" and about as likely to lead to eternal disappointment if you tell them it's possible.
Of course these kids are insanely anxious. They've been told that if they feel discomfort, it's the world's job to fix it for them right away, before it gets too bad.
