“The decision to go to the park in the first place should itself have been part of the great project of cooperation in which parent and child are jointly engaged. So they should both have been aware of a common ‘exit strategy’ for the park visit. As the visit progressed, there should have been a flow of information between them so that if either party’s preferences began to change in a way that might make this exit strategy no longer the best one, they could both think about the problems that this raised and solve them, thus making the visit even better than they had planned.”
– Sarah Fitz-Claridge
From the archives: First published in Taking Children Seriously 31, 2000
A reader asked:
“Is denying a request necessarily coercive (in a case such as when the parent wants to leave the park and the child doesn’t)? I try to find solutions we both prefer, but sometimes the child simply does not want to do anything else. Does a parent have the right to say ‘no’ or is that automatically coercive? Is it coercive for a parent to decide that he or she really wants to do something at a given time when the rest of the family is demanding something else of that parent?”
In every case, the child’s request is just the expression of a theory—the theory that so-and-so would be the right thing to do. If the parent believes that this theory is in fact false, because some different (incompatible) thing is a better thing to do, there will be reasons for that. Other things being equal, the parent is not only entitled to, but has a duty to bring those reasons to the child’s attention. So what the parent should be doing is not denying the request but expressing the opinion that under the circumstances, the child is mistaken about what would be the right thing to do.
Of course it may well be that it is the parent, not the child, who is mistaken, or they may both be. It is essential to be open to those possibilities.
You said that ‘sometimes the child simply does not want to do anything else’, but it can’t be ‘simply’ that. There is a natural misconception about Taking Children Seriously which could be stated like this: ‘Taking Children Seriously is different from conventional child-rearing in that whenever a situation arises in which the adult would conventionally override the child’s wishes, the Taking Children Seriously parent and child instead seek, and expect to find, a new idea that they each prefer to their respective initial opinions’. This statement is literally true, as it stands, but it does not adequately characterise the difference between Taking Children Seriously and other philosophies. Finding real solutions is not, and cannot be, only a substitute for compulsion, punishment and self-sacrifice. It is a whole new way of interacting.
Specifically, one should be able to do better than merely trying to find a real solution at the moment when the parent wants to leave the park and the child doesn’t. One should make that effort of course. But also, the solution-creating process should have been in action throughout the visit—and before: the decision to go to the park in the first place should itself have been part of the great project of cooperation in which parent and child are jointly engaged. So they should both have been aware, probably only in broad terms (and if they visit such places together often, probably only implicitly) of a common ‘exit strategy’ for the park visit. As the visit progressed, there should have been a flow of information between them so that if either party’s preferences began to change in a way that might make this exit strategy no longer the best one, they could both think about the problems that this raised and solve them, thus making the visit even better than they had planned.
You asked whether a parent has ‘the right to say “no”.’ If ‘no’ means ‘no I shan’t do that despite your wanting me to’ then yes, it is automatically coercive. (And if children are used to their parents’ ‘no’ having that meaning, then it’s probably best to avoid even using the word, in response to a child’s request.) But if ‘no’ means, ‘no, I don’t think that would be best, and when you’ve heard why, I don’t think you’ll think it’s best’, then it is not automatically coercive; in fact it is most unlikely to be coercive unless you’re lying, or the child thinks you are.
As to whether it is coercive for a parent to decide that he or she really wants to do something at a given time, again, it depends what ‘deciding’ that means—whether it is a decision to do that thing regardless of what the others’ preferences may turn out to be, or whether it is just a matter of forming a tentative opinion that doing that thing is best under the circumstances, and that the others (who also want the best thing done) will think so too, though perhaps only once they’ve heard a reason of which they are not yet aware.
See also:
Sarah Fitz-Claridge, 2000, ‘What if my child doesn’t want to leave the park?’, Taking Children Seriously 31, ISSN 1351-5381, p. 7, https://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/what-if-my-child-doesnt-want-to-leave-the-park
I get where you’re coming from with the negotiating with the kid before you go to the park, but whos to say the kid won’t change their mind about what you’ve agreed prior to going to the park? My kids don’t necessarily abide by their agreements. What if after you agreed and it comes time to leave they refuse to leave the park?
You’re twisting/misinterpreting what the article means and thinking in coercive terms. The article specifically says that negotiations and agreements may and will evolve and be amended over the course of the visit under TCS. It’s very likely that minds will have changed by the end of the visit. See the paragraph number 4.
“As the visit progressed, there should have been a flow of information between them so that if either party’s preferences began to change in a way that might make this exit strategy no longer the best one, they could both think about the problems that this raised and solve them, thus making the visit even better than they had planned.”
The point here is this visit to the park need not be bound to a rigid structure that must be conformed to no matter what. You seem to have the idea in your mind that once you and the kid have agreed to something, the discussion cannot re-opened later. The article is saying the exact opposite, in which case your identified concern no longer exists since the changing of minds over the course of the visit is allowed and considered normal. I’m sorry but you post here a lot but seem not to fully understand Taking Children Seriously, or are using straw man arguments.