From the archives

The Taking Children Seriously survey

The survey showed that favouring coercion over any one issue is not a good predictor of favouring coercion over any other issue, even an issue that the majority considers more important. The fact that so many parents believe that so many others have got their priorities the wrong way round is very hard to explain in the conventional terms of ‘strict’ vs. ‘lenient’ enforcement of a larger or smaller core of objectively important things. Most of us can see quite easily the irrationality of many other people’s justifications for coercing children. But it is in the nature of irrationality that we cannot see our own.

Practical Taking Children Seriously

Three examples of explicitly coercive and implicitly coercive approaches, and Taking Children Seriously approaches to sample problems. Each scenario is also followed by a list of possible solutions as well as some suggestions on how one might prepare for solving such problems in the future.

Question or command?

Parents sometimes imagine that phrasing a command as a question will somehow make it more palatable for the child, but it doesn’t.

Reacting to an angry child

When a toddler hits a parent, should the parent communicate their honest reaction, whether it be showing hurt if they’ve been hurt, or any emotional response, such as feeling anger or sadness?

Can an emotion be wrong?

Everyone agrees that behaving angrily can be wrong in some circumstances, but what about being angry itself? Can an emotion (or the thought-content associated with the feeling) be wrong in itself?

The dark side of John Holt

John Holt was so critical of school that sometimes he appeared to suggest that even children who want to go to school should not do so.

Where is the choice for the child?

When children know that if their parents deem them to be watching too much TV, their parents will ban TV-watching, they self-coercively limit their watching out of fear of losing it altogether.

The importance of video games

Videogame players are learning not just knowledge of the overt subject-matter of the game, but inexplicit knowledge that applies in all creativity in the world. In a way, they are (mainly inexplicitly) learning how the universe works.

Creativity and untidiness

Professor David Deutsch explains why he says that he could not be very productive without also being untidy.

How would you like it?

Imagine if your husband denied you dinner because you had not yet completed the chores he had decided you must do before dinner…

“What if…?” questions

What if [insert feared disastrous outcome here] happens as a result of taking my children seriously instead of coercing them?

There is no safety in ignorance

American children should be prepared for the playmate who reaches into his parents’ drawer and comes out with a loaded gun

Common emotional blackmail

Why some children run away, but others do not. Using love as leverage to double-bind children to obey – threatening to withdraw the relationship – is wrong. Children have a right to our love.

Theory-laden observation

Sense perceptions – physical sensations – DEPEND – on a rather low level – on how one is thinking about them. Observation is theory-laden.

The primary function of teachers is to coerce children

The primary function of teachers is to hold innocent people against their will (in other contexts known as “imprisonment without trial”), to force them to do things they don’t want to do, to stop them doing things they do want to do, and to “train” (coerce) them to conform.