They threaten to have the police arrest them or send them to an institution. Some parents even tell young children that monsters will get them. In doing this, parents shrug their responsibility. Children need to know that their parents are in charge. This means that parents make decisions until the child has learned to make the right decisions for themselves.
Parents even decide when and in what areas the child can make decisions.
Children are to be treated as children so long as they choose to act like children, and chronological age is no determining factor of childhood. To rear children effectively, parents need to know exactly what child rearing means. Parents do not rear their children by just telling children what they expect. Unless children conform, children have not been reared. A good environment is also not rearing.