Sincere tyrannies
I cannot roughshod over my child’s preferences, and expect everything to be ok because I’m doing it for his own good.
pressure to coerce
“Why do parents coerce their children despite having been through it themselves?”
If parents knew that they could reject the conventional approach and it would not ruin their precious child’s life, many more would do so. If you cannot see that rejecting the status quo is not only right, but also will not have any disastrous unintended consequences, it feels safer to stick with the tradition of paternalistic coercion.
Risking coercion due to conflict-aversion
Sometimes it takes courage to risk confrontation with a coercionist adult to avoid risking coercing our beloved child. But seeing the wider perspective can help.
Children do not need what conventional wisdom says they need
None of the reasons why enforcing “clear borders” is good for coerced children carry over in any way to children who are in consensual relationships with their parents. On the contrary, enforcing fixed borders and bottom lines is irrational and coercive, and sabotages the very means by which such children remain happy.
Reflections on self-sacrifice and fundamental assumptions
When you have decided that it is fundamentally unkind to coerce people, but an authority figure is pressuring you to coerce your child, calmly say ‘sorry but I don’t agree with your fundamental assumptions’.’ All you need to concentrate on is that this is a difference in fundamental assumptions. Both the authority figure and you want what is best, and are trying to be kind. You just see things differently, because you view children differently.
He who sleeps with dogs wakes up with fleas
How to handle other parents expecting you to coerce their children when their children are visiting your home.
Doctor, please do not hurt my child
The difference between taking children seriously and merely loving them or caring about them, resides in whose concerns about the children’s well-being take precedence: the children’s or the adults’. Conventional wisdom tries to blur this distinction by portraying children’s concerns as somehow less valid or less significant than those of adults.
Beware the homeschooling mentality
The homeschooling mentality turns education into performance—the semblance of education. This interferes with learning.
Objectifying education sabotages learning
Learning is different from looking at one’s learning. Objectifying education as a thing to look at and judge interferes with learning.
The heavy societal pressure to coerce children
The societal pressure on parents to control and coerce their children can be immense.
Autonomous learning, autonomous life
This 1989 workshop advocated taking children seriously, not just ‘autonomous learning’.