“The purpose of the extreme scenarios presented in what-if questions about taking children seriously is to suggest that therefore taking children seriously would lead to disaster. But in fact, the more extreme the scenario, the easier it is to persuade a child that that course of action would be a mistake.”
– Sarah Fitz-Claridge
“What if my child does [insert disastrous thing here]? What would a parent taking their child seriously do?”
“What would you do if your child [insert catastrophic eventuality here]?”
See:
- “What if…?” questions
(my original strangely popular problematic 1995 answer) - “What if…?” questions revisited
(my 2022 criticism of the my original answer) - Taking Children Seriously is a new view of children, not merely a new ‘do’
(about a possible source of confusion)
Sarah Fitz-Claridge, 2022, Taking Children Seriously FAQ: ‘“What if…?”’, https://takingchildrenseriously.com/what-if/