by Sarah Fitz-Claridge

What is wrong with loving limits for children?

Adding “loving” to “limits” does not make the limits non-coercive, it just adds confusing mixed messages to the coercion. The parents are coercing the child while acting as though that is not what they are doing. They are pretending that they are not responsible for the distress they are in fact causing.

At what age should children first leave the house on their own, visit their friend next door on their own, go to the cinema on their own, hitchhike from coast to coast on their own, etc.?

In a relationship characterised by consent, on those occasions when the other person is warning us that our proposed course of action may be unwise, and explaining why, we have every reason to trust that such warnings are not attempts to thwart us and ruin our fun, but are actually important – that it is actually in our best interests to heed the warnings.

How is the word ‘parenting’ not taking children seriously?

Why is it that there is a word “parenting” but no word “childing”? Because in our culture, children are not taken seriously. Words like “parenting” embody the idea of hierarchical, top-down paternalistic/authoritarian parent-child relationships in which the parent is actively doing to the child and the child is passively done to. The parent is actively moulding and shaping the child from above.

Children fending for themselves like adults?!

Children very much need our love and protection, our care and attention, fun and play, support and vast amounts of engagement with their ideas and interests. They are not born able to survive and thrive without us. Only in the case of children do people think that needing support, protection, assistance, information and other things implies not having the same freedom, rights, respect and control over their lives as others.

What is Taking Children Seriously?

Taking Children Seriously is a new VIEW of children – a non-paternalistic view: like other groups of human beings, children are people, not pets, prisoners or property. Full people whose lives are their own, not a different kind of person – full, equal humans who should no more be coerced and manipulated and moulded and shaped by others than we adults should be.

Why does parenting feel so hard?

What most parents think they need to do as parents – moulding and shaping their children – is an impossible task. No wonder parenting is a nightmare for so many parents! But there is an alternative!

How to read this site

Ultimately, we all (including our children!) have to do what we ourselves think best, what feels right to us ourselves, not what someone else says is right. We are all moral agents in our own right. When we self-coercively override our own wisdom and do what someone else thinks we should be doing, we are acting wrongly by our own lights. No good can come of that. Treat this site as a source of speculative guesses and interesting arguments, not as an authority you should obey.

Friendly criticisms of Kiss Me, by Carlos González

Friendly criticisms of this warm, charming, beautiful book that is absolutely brilliant at showing us how it is for our babies and young children, creating empathy, and at doing that with gentle humour and without demonising parents.

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.

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.

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.

“What if…?” questions

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

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.