Misconceptions about Taking Children Seriously
Misconceptions about Taking Children Seriously
misconceptions about Taking Children Seriously
Taking Children Seriously is a new view of children, not merely a new ‘do’
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.
Think flow
One common misconception is that Taking Children Seriously simply replaces coercion with win-win problem-solving when there is an obvious problem like a clash between parent and child.
“Will a child not made to do chores ever develop a work ethic? And if not, how will they ever have a good life?”
Enslaving our children by forcing them to do household chores is highly likely to impair their happiness rather than promote it, and it does nothing to inspire them to work hard at things that matter to them.
“When a solution is not found, is it always the parents who must bear the brunt of the sacrifice?”
If you think there is a brunt to be borne that is intolerable, what makes you think that it is OK to have a defenceless child bear the brunt of it?!
“Are you advocating that the children should rule the parents?!”
Life does not have to involve either ruling or being ruled. Instead, we can stand side by side with no one ruling, all of us free to be in control of our own life, solving problems individually and jointly, and having fun doing so.
“How can I drop the anti-rational part of my mind that interferes with me taking my children seriously?”
When you struggle against or take a coercive approach with another person, the natural response of that person is to defend their corner and fight back. The same happens inside our own minds. When you are fighting a part of your own mind, that causes the part you are trying to stamp out to dig in, to entrench itself, to defend its corner more vigorously.
“How can I become more aware of anti-rational parts in my mind?”
Drop the second guessing and scrutinising and judging. It is as toxic for us as that kind of thing is for our children. If you are not feeling free—free to think, free to be and free to act in accordance with your own ideas, your thinking flying free as a bird—it might be that you are seizing up your thinking with scrutiny and judgement, objectifying yourself as a parent.
“If a parent has an aversion to something a child enjoys doing, how do you solve that problem?”
Such questions are in effect asking how we and our children can solve the problem created by us in effect having a visceral aversion to our children innocently enjoying themselves learning. Why is that the case, and when we are in such a state, what can we do about it?
“If coercion has impaired my ability to correct errors, is taking children seriously even possible?”
Focus on having fun playfully solving whatever problem you have in the present moment, and move forward from where you are now. Notice just how brilliant and amazing you are and how much you have achieved, alleged impairments notwithstanding!
“Why does it sometimes hurt to think about Taking Children Seriously?”
Life can be messy for all of us. Sometimes when we try to make improvements, part of our mind panics, and that can hurt.
“What kind of children is Taking Children Seriously not a good idea for?”
Everyone should be taken seriously irrespective of age and other such attributes. The question assumes that Taking Children Seriously is a parenting method but actually it is a new view of children—children are full people.
“What ages is Taking Children Seriously most powerful for, or how does its value change with age? When is it almost too late?”
We do not take people seriously because taking people seriously has this or that alleged effect, we take them seriously because it is right, and because not doing so tends to impede the growth of knowledge. It applies to all ages.
“What is wrong with loving limits for children?”
Adding “loving” to “limits” does not make the limits noncoercive, 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.
“If you are not coercing your child, what do you do instead of coercion?”
This question is like a coercively controlling husband asking: “If you are not coercing your wife, what do you do instead of coercion?” A paternalistic husband who controls his wife out of the best of intentions because he honestly believes that it is for her own good, could ask the same question.
“Do children taken seriously ever ask permission?”
Children being taken seriously are not subject to an authority from whom they need permission, so they no more ask permission than we do.
“What is the relationship between Karl Popper’s epistemology, the ideas of David Deutsch and Taking Children Seriously?”
We really do learn from our mistakes, by trial and error. And at the same time we learn how little we know—as when, in climbing a mountain; every step upwards opens some new vista into the unknown, and new worlds unfold themselves of whose existence we knew nothing when we began our climb.
“How can we communicate urgent information to our pre-verbal toddlers?”
Often, we need to increase the bandwidth by communicating not just explicitly in words, but simultaneously also inexplicitly, through our facial expressions and body language, and we also need to find more concrete ways of expressing theories. Show them concrete effects. Help them understand.
“How do you take babies seriously?”
We are attuned to babies’ signals, we take their preferences seriously and assist them in meeting them. We empower them rather than disempoweraging them. Even newborn babies are learning something absolutely vital for their future—something so important and valuable that I cannot stress it enough: they are learning that they can have an effect on the world.
“Who am I to criticise someone else?”
Not all criticism of other people’s ideas is good. Indeed some of it actually interferes with the person’s own criticism in their own mind. Wanted criticism is valuable. Unwanted criticism can be coercive and destructive of knowledge-creating processes that are happening.
“If criticism is valuable why not be more critical?”
Subjecting anyone of any age to coercive education (unwanted criticism) is not taking them seriously. Nor is it even taking the valuableness of criticism seriously! Let alone taking the growth of knowledge seriously.
“Surely criticism is always good?”
he idea that criticism of others is always good is a mistake, just like it is a mistake to think that education is always good. It may be good if it is wanted, but not if it is unwanted. Coercive education is not and never has been Taking Children Seriously.
“What if my child wants me to help her murder someone?”
Were such an unlikely issue ever to arise, we would talk about it. And it would be an enjoyable conversation in which I am assuming that my child is well-intentioned. Sometimes a child might be exploring an idea thought-experiment style, or wondering what makes something seem wrong, or why someone might want to do something. Playing with ideas is a joy for all of us, especially children lucky enough to be in an environment in which it is safe to think about and to discuss potentially difficult or controversial issues.
“I’m a vegetarian. What if my child wants to eat meat?”
Our children are not us. They may well have different ideas from ours. Our ideas might be mistaken. We are fallible. That our ideas feel right does not justify coercing our children. Our children are sovereign beings who do not belong to us but to themselves.
“Is coercion always wrong?”
It is not that coercion is always wrong. Self-defence and the defence of others is right. Otherwise evil could win. But when we do intervene to stop one child attacking another, that is a damage limitation exercise, to try to preserve any knowledge creating going on.
“What if my child wants to buy every toy in the shop, and does not consult me?”
The purpose of such what-if questions is to justify coercion, but when you ask the same question about an adult, it is shocking, because we all take adults seriously.
“What do you have against gentle coercion?”
If the coercion is as soft and gentle as you think it is, how is it having its intended effect of forcing the child to obey you? You see the soft gentleness of a velvet glove; your child sees the iron fist inside. It is the iron fist that is doing the work. It is the iron fist that is the underlying reality, the coercive substance under the surface velvet.
“Do children not taught that they can’t always get their own way become entitled and inconsiderate?”
We parents sometimes imagine that we can teach our children to be sensitive to others’s wishes by being utterly insensitive to theirs, but actions speak louder than words, and our children are more likely to be kind and thoughtful if we have been kind and thoughtful to them.
“Is the purpose of taking children seriously to avoid the harm coercion would do?”
Even if childhood coercion has virtually no effect, it would not change what it is right or wrong to do to people. And it is not right to do things to people that will impair the growth of knowledge.
“How is a compromise not a real solution?”
In a compromise, each person gives up something such that everyone involved suffers ‘fairly’ and ‘equally’. A genuine solution, on the other hand, is one which everyone involved prefers, including preferring it to their own antecedent preference. No one is suffering, ‘fairly’, ‘equally’ or otherwise.
“If I am not allowed to coerce my child, surely I am being coerced myself?”
Assuming you are happily married, would you ever be thinking: “If I am not allowed to coerce my wife, surely I am being coerced myself?”?! No! Never! Not even in your worst moment ever! You take your wife seriously. You are not trying to train or change or improve your wife. You are not trying to win at her expense. You want both of you to win! You love her just as she is. You two solve problems together rather than coercing each other.
“Which parenting style is Taking Children Seriously? Authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, or uninvolved?”
Taking Children Seriously is not permissive, uninvolved, authoritarian or authoritative. Those approaches coerce children instead of taking them seriously as full people whose lives are their own.
“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.
Taking Children Seriously: a new view of children
Taking Children Seriously is a new VIEW of children—a non-paternalistic view: children do not actually need to be controlled for their own good. An Oxford Karl Popper Society talk.
Bedtimes and ill effects of lack of sleep
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.
A chat about Taking Children Seriously
You don’t have to be infallible or perfect to improve things. That is what excites me about Taking Children Seriously. You don’t have to get everything right! You don’t have to start out right and have unlimited this, that, or the other, all you have to do is to try to set things up in such a way that what is wrong can be altered, and that what is good can be made even better. Taking Children Seriously doesn’t mean attempting to create a problem-free state, it means having fun solve problems rather than being stuck. Happiness is not being without problems, it is being in the process of solving your problems.
What Taking Children Seriously is, and what it is not
A 2001 take on taking children seriously.
Does breastfeeding require self-sacrifice?
It can take a little time for breastfeeding to stop being painful, but that is just the breaking-in period, like breaking in a new pair of hiking boots.
(NOT) listening to children
Taking children seriously means taking a child’s wish/decision to go to school seriously too.
Choosing to go to school or Iraq
Lots of things ‘suck’ for most people, but very few things suck for everyone. People are very, very different, and there is a danger in just assuming that a child is acting out of desperation when in fact they are quite healthily pursuing their own ends. The danger is that one will then, in effect, be refusing to help them pursue these ends, and, in effect, start to undermine them by constantly seeking alternatives and constantly acting on the assumption that there must be something wrong with them, or with the alternatives that you are providing for them, if they persist in wanting this.
Don’t force children to avoid coercive situations
It may be tempting to try to stop children putting themselves in situations you think might be coercive, like school, but adding coercion is a mistake, and you may be overestimating the potential damage that might be done to a child who has your full support.
What if my child doesn’t want to leave the park?
How things can go better if we adopt a Taking Children Seriously approach, and what that means in practice.
None of my business?
There is no sphere in which creating solutions those involved prefer does not apply, but the right thing to do does depend in part on the respective rights and responsibilities of those involved.
Not riding roughshod but satin-slipper-shod
It is easier to identify coercion that is riding roughshod over a child, than the covert satin-slipper-shod kind.
Rousseau’s Julie and brushing over differences
Why it might sometimes be better not to brush over differences.
Common misapprehensions about Taking Children Seriously
Adults tend to hold entrenched, irrational ideas, which no amount of reason on the child’s part will shift.
Solving problems takes creativity
Learning involves changing preferences. Resolving disagreements involves changing preferences. People’s preferences are not fixed: they naturally change all the time. Problems are soluble!