“How do you raise a child to believe in freedom?”
This question is in effect asking “How do I mould and shape my child into a person who believes that individuals should be free from unwanted moulding and shaping by others?”
your child is not you
No way out—and loving it
What if the thing that the child wants to risk is specifically a matter of not being able to easily get out of the situation? What if Jane wants to go pack-packing in the wilderness without a phone or radio? What if she does not want an escape route?
(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.
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.
What if a child wants to buy something the parent is boycotting for moral reasons?
When a child wants us to buy something we find morally objectionable, we have to remember that it is our child buying it, not us. You have no jurisdiction over your children. What they do can’t be morally wrong for you.