It is understandable that parents see Taking Children Seriously as being about how to be kinder to the inmates, but actually it is more like correcting the idea that they are criminals.
Is there really no decision-making on the part of the parent using ‘natural consequences’?
This question is in effect asking “How do I mould and shape my child into a person who believes that individuals should be free from unwanted moulding and shaping by others?”
How do you yourself determine what to eat? It is the same with children. What we eat is determined by a number of things, including what we feel like eating, which may be affected by our ideas about health and other things.
If, to you, being a responsible parent requires coercing your children, unfortunately I think that very conviction may itself cause some of the very catastrophes you hope to avoid. Children no more react well to being coercively controlled than we do. Coercion has unintended consequences that most parents do not take into account.
Parents interpret unwanted behaviour of their young children as an ‘ill effect’. Not because the parent is stupid or malevolent, but because all observation is theory laden, and because causation cannot be observed.
Practical suggestions about a child not wanting to wear a prescribed eyepatch.
Being ‘nice’ with the ulterior motive of in effect forcing the children to do what you want them to do, such as help with the housework, is very common. Coercion does not always appear overtly nasty.
Taking Children Seriously is neither utopian nor revolutionary. It is fallibilist and respects tradition as well as the growth of knowledge.
It is easier to identify coercion that is riding roughshod over a child, than the covert satin-slipper-shod kind.