“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?!
self-sacrifice
“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.
“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.
“Surely coercion is ok when the parent is right and the child is wrong?”
Being fallible implies that we can be mistaken including when we feel certain that we are right. And because we are fallible, there is no reliable way to know who is right and who is wrong. Disagreements can either be resolved through reason, or they can be dealt with coercively. So no, feeling that we are right does not justify coercion.
What Taking Children Seriously is, and what it is not
A 2001 take on taking children seriously.
Great change of mind without self-sacrifice
The unexpected benefits for ourselves in our own minds, of taking our 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.
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.
Identifying coercion is itself a creative task
Overt coercion is less likely to corrupt children’s interpretation of what is happening to them. But given that part of our self respect as parents taking our children seriously comes from being non-coercive, it might well be that the coercion we inadvertently engage in is interpretation-corrupting double binds. So we need to be particularly aware of the subtle mind-messing forms of coercion.
Are children being taken seriously good at detecting coercion?
Unfortunately it is not true that children taken seriously are good at identifying coercion (except perhaps overt coercion).
Stumbling towards taking children seriously
Beginning to think about taking children seriously brings up many hitherto hidden problems. We are all in the same boat. No one has ‘arrived’.
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!
A lack of forcefulness is good not bad
A lack of forcefulness is not a negative characteristic unless you find yourself sacrificing your own desires. You respect your children and take their desires seriously. You need to be sure to respect yourself and your own desires as well.
‘Influence’ versus ‘coercion’
If I disagree with the substantive theory assumed by your word choice, you can’t expect me to build that substantive theory into my language, because if I were to, I would be being forced to lie or contradict myself every time I use your term.