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.
pressure to coerce
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.
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.
The heavy societal pressure to coerce children
The societal pressure on parents to control and coerce their children can be immense.