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| TCS and Unschooling | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 28 2008, 02:33 AM (461 Views) | |
| Post #1 Feb 28 2008, 02:33 AM |
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I do not have kids, and I don't want kids, but I am a fan of the parenting style of Taking Children Seriously. (Please note, the link goes to my website.) Also, I am a proponent of the education style of unschooling which follows the same principles. Basically, I think if you treat kids like slaves, then they will learn to behave like them. If you teach them to blindly obey people who claim to be "authority," then they will become that type person as an adult. In contrast, if you treat them as much as a free person as you can, then they will learn self-responsibility. For example, if you order your child around and then give them an allowance, they will only learn how to blindly take orders. But they would learn personal economics if you offered to pay them money in exchange for doing labor. What do you think? |
Civilian
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| Post #2 Feb 28 2008, 07:31 PM |
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| I think that saying that treating kids like slaves is a bit of inflammatory hyperbole and that strict upbringing raises free-thinkers, just truly sociable and productive free-thinkers. |
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| Post #3 Feb 29 2008, 02:49 PM |
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It is hyperbole to call children slaves, but I was just trying to show the contrast between giving a child more freedom as opposed to limiting it. I was trying to show the difference between two bipolar extremes. I disagree that strict upbringing raises free-thinkers (except when it backfires, as is the case with many rebellious kids). I think not giving children freedom stops them from learning to take care of themselves but teaches them just to follow orders. Children learn to respect their own freedom and other people's freedom if adults respect the children's freedom. In contrast, ordering kids around only teaches them unfair power relationships and leads to them being bossed around or wanting to boss other around--they generally become either push-overs or bullies because the relationship between push-over and bully is what they are taught. Children need to be given freedom to learn self-responsibility; otherwise they will just learn how to mindlessly submit to the will of a boss. And they need to have their own freedom respected to learn to respect the freedom of others. Strictness is good for raising children to become good soldiers. Freedom is good for raising children to become free-thinkers and free people. |
Civilian
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| Post #4 Feb 29 2008, 03:31 PM |
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| You need a balance. Kids need to learn to think for themselves, but they also need to memorize multiplication tables and grammar. If you're a free thinker who can't do basic math, your education failed you. |
Civilian
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| Post #5 Feb 29 2008, 10:09 PM |
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Parenting is a balance of ginving a child freedom and "ordering them around" rather than on eor the other. A young child clearly can not make appropriate decisions for their own longterm safety. They will eat icecream 3 meals a day and play in the street afer dark. They need to know that you are in chrge. You can't be discussing with them twhy they need to get out of the strret when a Mack truck is barrelling down at them. The difficult part is knowing when to let freedom reign and when to hang onto the "power" relationship. For example, because I was the younfest child and a girl no less, in a family that leaned more toward the power model, I don't remember making too many decisions for myself until college (where upon I made some pretty bad ones at first). I don't have too may memories of even simple things like ordering my own food in a restaurant until I was in college. Perhaps too little freedom. However, I was kept safe and learned how to function in a society that does often require an ability to function in a power relationship (one side or the other). |
Civil Servant
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| Post #6 Mar 2 2008, 10:48 PM |
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I see free-thinkers raised all the time by strict parents. I also see losers (raised by parents afraid to parent) who think they are free thinkers, who are actually just anti-social and self-absorbed. A strict upbringing, not an abusive one, raises free-thinkers who realize that they are a part of something bigger and owe much to that something bigger. Loose upbringing just creates kids who think that the world revolves around them, that the world owes them. |
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| Post #7 Mar 3 2008, 09:20 PM |
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I didn't read the link, but I think I'm following what you're saying ScottHughes. I raised my daughter to be independent and to "question authority". Basically, I treated her how I'd treat any one else. With respect and I let her have her own opinions about things and life. Granted, I was still the one in charge, because kids will want to eat cr@p all day long if you don't give them guidelines. And kids will want to stay up till all hours of the night. The way I got around the "ordering her around" was by educating her - healthy diet = healthy body/kid. Decent sleep hours means an uncranky kid = happy mommy. At some stage I had to go over all of the different jobs I had in the household so that she would understand how valuable her jobs were to me (of course she got "paid" for her chores - point system, which allowed her to make more money each week, if she wanted to). Not only did this make her more willing to do her chores, but she got the understanding that her doing them without being told allowed me to keep focused on my jobs in the household. She learned about working as a team member. I think too much parenting as well as too little parenting can be wrong. There is a happy medium and thankfully I had that with my now grown daughter. ScottHughes - if you don't have kid(s) - who's the cutie in the picture with you? |
Civil Servant
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| Post #8 Mar 3 2008, 09:31 PM |
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I don't think there is any such thing as too much parenting. There is bad parenting. There is smothering parenting. There is controlling parenting. There is overprotective parenting. But, those are all bad parenting. There is always room for more good parenting. Unfortunately, many kids (and some adults) think that strict parenting is somehow oppressive. When the child does not get what he wants (which should happen a lot when parents are parents), he immaturely, but naturally, perceives that his individuality and freedom are somehow being stifled. However, strict and oppressive parenting are neither synonymous nor are they mutually exclusive. They are independent concepts. |
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| Post #9 Mar 3 2008, 10:48 PM |
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Too much parenting by my definition is: not letting the kid make any decisions for themselves, "ruling the kid" - as in you can't do that Johnny, no, Johnny don't do that, Johnny, stop. It's oppressive (unjustly inflicting hardship and constraint or causing depression or discomfort) parenting. You've all seen the kid with "too much parenting" - they're afraid of their own shadow, that can't speak until their parent tells them what they are allowed to say, etc. Basically, they are treated as a possession or an object and not treated like a human being. |
Civil Servant
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| Post #10 Mar 3 2008, 10:50 PM |
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| That's not too much parenting. It's not parenting. Parenting is not controlling the kid. |
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| Post #11 Mar 5 2008, 12:33 AM |
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About parenting, I am inspired by Lao Tzu who said that when a good leader's work is done, the people will say, "we did it ourselves." I think the same general idea can be applied to raising children to be adults who can best take care of themselves, respect themselves, and respect others. To take the example of unhealthy eating, a child who is forced to eat healthy with threats of artificial punishment will most learn to coerce people with threats, I believe. A child who is taught the benefits of eating healthy by a parent who does not buy unhealthy food will learn to manage his own diet. Of course a 1-year-old child cannot feed itself, so the goal must be to enable the child as quickly as possible to take care of itself and make it's own decisions. The same is done with a baby and learning to walk, in that you would carry the child when necessary but let it try to walk on its own as much as possible. To take the example of a child in the street, that is obviously a case where force would be used. I would do the same if a full-grown man was in the street and about to get hit by an automobile. It's not really a matter of parenting. But this example helps me point out something important: A parent must supervise the child to save the child in emergencies, to advise the child, to stop the child if the child exceeds his freedom (e.g. when he attacks another child or vandalizes property), and to passively manipulate the environment so that the child learns. I fully believe it takes much more work to raise a child by giving them freedom than to neglect them or to boss them around with threats of inflicting punishment on them. In analogy, it's probably easier to be an effective dictator than to be an effective leader of free people. Trying to treat a child like an adult also requires strict restrictions, which I think we are not acknowledging well enough. While it is important for the child to learn to respect itself and to exercise its own rights, it is simultaneously necessary that the child be made to respect others and respect the equal rights in them. For example, just as I believe the parent would be unwise to force the child to wear a certain t-shirt, I also believe the parent would be unwise to allow the child to force another child to wear the t-shirt. Additionally, I assume we can all agree that spoiling a child with gifts is a horrible idea. As an adult, the child will have to earn his keep, and couldn't rationally expect to be spoiled for free. So it is best to teach the child that as young as possible. Giving a child free gifts will spoil the child just as it will to punish the child when the child exercises freedom. Just as the child needs to learn to respect its own freedom, it needs to learn to respect its parents' freedom (to not give the child gifts). If the child wants the goods, the parent can offer to give them to the child in return for the child doing the parent a favor. Again, that is a simulation of how free adults interact with each other--something which the child is better off learning in the safety of a home with the supervision of a parent, not alone as an adult or off in college as CT-95 did. ;) I apologize for this long-winded post.
It's my niece, Mikaela. :D
What do you mean by free-thinkers and what do you mean by strict parents? I think the rules need to be strictly enforced; insofar as that, I agree with you. But I suggest limiting the extent of the rules to treat the child as a free adult (as much as is safe and with close supervision). So, for example, if a child purposely broke a TV that wasn't his, I would strictly make the child pay back the owner for the TV, which would probably involve working it off. (Even the freedom of a full-grown adult does not include the allowance to offensively hurt other people or vandalize their stuff.) In contrast, rules needn't be made to tell the child he must go to a certain church, or wear a certain outfit, or read a certain book, or so on and so forth. Those rules would limit the child's freedom when the child would, in my opinion, be much better off learning to exercise his freedom in a free environment. |
Civilian
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| Post #12 Mar 5 2008, 06:34 PM |
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A child is decidedly NOT and adult, and should not be treated as one. It gives them the unreasonable and arrogant belief that they are the moral equivalent of an adult. Any parent who does not approach a child as though he were a child is doing the child a disservice. I deal with the remnants of the folly of treating children like adults. The net result is a person who thinks he already knows it all (more than adolescents already do), has nothing to learn from anyone, gets to choose which rules make sense and must be followed and which don't and need not be followed. Treating people like adults is a process, moving from treating them not at all like an adult, up to treating them like an adult, once they have fully assumed adulthood, including finally taking full responsibility for suffering all the consequences of their actions. To treat a child like an adult, without regard to their development is just plain foolish. |
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| Post #13 Mar 8 2008, 06:29 PM |
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Yes, that is what I would say is thinking for himself. His mistakes, which he will make under adult supervision, will help him learn to use his freedom in a self-beneficial way. Regardless, I am sure you and I would agree on most of what makes an effective parent. But most of it goes without saying (e.g. saving children from cars, not letting children jump off the roof, not letting them beat up other people, etc.). I believe our differences in views are based on what our different ideas of free-thinking and free-acting. About thinking they know it all, I believe that children have a tendency to respect advice when they are enabled to take it (or not take it) voluntarily. They will learn when how taking advice can be self-beneficial. Overprotection leads most often, I believe, to a child eventually over-rejecting authority and believing that he already knows it all (more than adolescents already do) and has nothing to learn from anyone. Even in the rare cases that it works, I believe it mostly works to create kids who more blindly obey so-called authority and who I would not view as free-thinkers. I also wish to say that neglect is worse than it all in my opinion. In my opinion, nothing is more horrible and psychologically scarring for a child than to be neglected. Even being lightly ignored is much too painful as a child in my opinion. If I was to choose to be a young child, I would choose to be the victim of overprotection or the victim of physical abuse long before I would choose to be the victim of neglect. |
Civilian
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| Post #14 Mar 8 2008, 08:58 PM |
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And that is what I would say is anarchy. No doubt, Charles Manson only was doing what he thought was right, that he had a good reason not to follow the rules laid down by society. But, we live in a society. We have a responsibility to others, not just selfishly to ourselves. We give up freedom to live in a community. If we don't want to give up a little of our freedom by agreeing to live by rules, we ought to find a mountain top and go live there. However, if we want the advantages of living with others, we should not so selfishly cling to the freedom to do whatever we think we ought to be allowed to do. Rules and requiring that they be followed, even if the child disagrees, teaches them the above critical concept--at least teaches it to most of them. |
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| Post #15 Mar 8 2008, 09:40 PM |
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Indeed. I would want a child who would refuse to be ruled by others and who would not rule other people. I would want a child who behaved as though everyone had freedom in that each person can pursue happiness without being the victim of offensive coercion as long as he or she does not use offensive coercion against anyone else. This child would be most prepared to exercise his own freedom and thus to live in a free society--a society with basically only one rule: do not offensively rule others. And this child would most understand how to enter into free arrangements which would have to be the foundation of any free society. But does it have to be so politically philosophical? Can it not simply be said that a child most effectively learns to exercise his freedom in a self-beneficial way when he has had as much practice as possible? Can it not also simply be said that a child will--if he does not reject the authority--learn to blindly obey threateners on the threat of being punished if that is how he is raised? The latter child will not know how to self-beneficially exercise freedom when nobody is threatening him, and he will not--unless he rebels, which is most likely--respect his own freedom, but instead he will have been conditioned to submit to commanding threateners who try to subjugate him with commands and threats. I believe one of the number 1 ways to encourage kids to become either push-overs or over-rebellious persons is for their parents to attempt to greatly limit their freedom. It does not have to be about complete anarchism or creating full-fledged anarchists. |
Civilian
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| Post #16 Mar 8 2008, 09:52 PM |
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I have to deal with children all the time whose parents "would want a child who would refuse to be ruled by others and who would not rule other people." They are anti-social and get in the way of those of us who are trying to get things done, you know, like teaching the other kids or, in the case of those kids, learning. Fortunately, I teach at a private school, and we can drop-kick those high-minded "freedom" seekers out the front door! Again, we have to live in society. That means we must give up some freedom to make the society help all of us. Anyone who does not want to participate in a society with rules really ought to find a mountain top, where they can selfishly do what they want, regardless of the impact on others, as there will be no others to suffer. |
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| Post #17 Mar 11 2008, 12:12 AM |
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Eye95, I'm glad you can get rid of antisocial kids. For the most part, they are probably glad to be gone as well. Freedom entails that a school is not forced to let a student attend it just as freedom entails that a person is not forced to attend. We do not need to give up freedom to live in a society for it to help all of us. Insofar as social interactions help those involved, the people involved will engage in them voluntarily. The free individual is not forced to participate. And the free group's interaction is not to be non-defensively disrupted by the free individual. Insofar as an interaction would cause offensive harm to a person, that person has the choice not to take part in the interaction if he is free. But how a free society works is a topic for another thread. Parents can raise minarchists if they do not wish to raise anarchists; they can let their children learn to be almost free rather than fully free. It is those who have such a hard time not dominating others who I wish would go live on a mountaintop, so the rest of us could live in freedom. Thanks, Scott |
Civilian
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| Post #18 Mar 18 2008, 07:07 PM |
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We do indeed give up freedom to live in a society! As an extreme example, if we did not live in a society, there would be no such thing as "property." If we wanted something, and someone else had it, we could just take it. Without a society with laws, we would be free to take what we wanted. When we join a society, we give up that freedom. That's a stark example, but it proves the truth of my point. Generally speaking, we give up rights to do things that would work to undermine the ability of a society to help and protect the individuals within it. To make the decisions on what rights will be legislated out of existence, we institute governments. Those governments take more or fewer rights away to accomplish the goal of creating a safe and fostering circumstance for its citizens. At one extreme you have despotism. At the other would be anarchy. Despotism takes away too many rights. Anarchy takes away none, but is not really a society. It is a bunch of individuals doing what ever they want, without regard to others. A happy medium must be struck. In the history of the world, I think the US has done the best at trading off rights for a society in which people can be productive and secure. In any society (or subset of society, such as a school), those who will not operate within the constraints of the society need to be motivated to do so (punishment), or removed from the society (or subset). I don't give a rat's behind if the I-got-my-rights antisocials are happy to be gone. I am glad they are gone, because now I can teach the rest of the students much better without the interference of those who think their individuality is supreme--even at the expense of others. And, that is the goal. |
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| Post #19 Mar 21 2008, 05:40 PM |
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Yes, hence the greatness of freedom. :D They don't go to your school if they do not want to go, you do not have to let them if you do not want them there. To each his own.
I disagree. (I believe people can have free interactions, meaning those in which two or more people make deals without either party using offensive coercion, which is a lack of governance to me.) But that's a topic for another thread. Parents can raise minarchists instead of anarchists. They can raise their children to not demand whatever few freedoms the parent's believe are necessary for people to not have for a society to function. The difference between minarchism and anarchism is of little consequence, especially when talking about parenting. Take the hat example: I believe a parent can best raise a child who is prepared to exercise their freedom in a (mostly) free society (be it minarchist or anarchist) if the parent does not force the child to wear their hat one way or the other but lets the child choose on the child's own. By giving the child lots of personal responsibility (i.e. freedom) and advice under the safety of supervision, I believe the parent will have setup an enviornment where the child will naturally learn to take care of itself and exercise its freedom, rather than simply learn to follow commands given on the basis of threatening the child with artificial harm. For the same reason, giving unearned rewards is also not effective. If the child wants the parent to do the child a favor, then the parent can let the child persuade the parent by promising to return the favor. |
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| Post #20 Mar 21 2008, 05:52 PM |
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Children don't need that level of freedom. Parents and schools not only teach knowledge, but they teach children, who are by nature selfish, the meaning of living in a society, where we do indeed forgo the right to do whatever we want to do whenever we want to do it, for the sake of others. When children don't learn these lessons, they grow into "adults" who break the rules of society and then complain about the rational punishment they receive, while crying for more "freedom," by which they really mean "having the right to do anything they want without fear of repercussion." Giving children freedom is foolish. As a child mentally and morally matures to the point where a rational parent believes they can make sound decisions that respect those around them, the parent can increase the number of decisions the child can make. By no means should the child be allowed to be completely free until that child is totally responsible for his whole life--that means being out of the house, fully supporting himself, and suffering his own consequences for his actions. For some children, that means letting them go out on their own before they are totally mature, because they insist on the "freedom" without fully realizing the ramifications. They need to be allowed to flop to learn. Children petulantly demanding freedom, while still sponging of truly free and responsible adults is silly. Giving nonresponsible children freedom is sillier. Parents (and, by extension, schools) have a responsibility to dole out the freedom in small doses once earned. |
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12:51 PM Sep 9
