Love and Not Love I recently saw a post on facebook about a study showing that spanking is harmful even if the parent has a warm and loving relationship with the child. Wow, ok, so this really set some wheels spinning for me... Inflicting physical harm or pain on other human beings is considered violence, aggression, assault or abuse. Nowhere else in our culture do we sanction inflicting physical pain/harm on another human being, not even on violent [...]
Bullying is a symptom, can we address it at its cause?Bullying. I've been hearing a bit about bulling lately, chiefly about legislation, laws and rules in response to bullying. My heart goes out to all the children who are or have been victims of bullying, and to their families, especially to the families of those children who have taken their own lives. A tragedy I would not wish upon anyone. However, I really wonder if laws and legislation [...]
What IS actually Possible? Would you like to find out? Have you ever noticed how many conditions and limitations you put on your life? Have you ever noticed how many conclusions you have every day about what is or isn't possible, about that you can and can't do? Me hiking in the Andes in Argentina. I thought I'd NEVER make it to the top, but I DID! I have! And guess what else I noticed? When [...]
What does Nonviolence mean to you? We opened our first class of Communication From the Inside Out with this question. As we delved into the exploration of Violence and Nonviolence we discovered that violence and the roots of violence is far more complex and complicated than we ever would have imagined. Recognizing violence in all of it's forms Most people think of violence as physical harm, brutality and the like, in which most of us don't actively participate, [...]
A Context for Mutuality... Adult/child relationships are also constructed through family design and structure. In mainstream society and nuclear family settings, virtually all relationships children have, at least initially, are mediated through their parents. While kids gain greater independence, especially as they get older, in conducting peer-to-peer relationships, there is little scope for independently initiated and facilitated relationships with adults. Most child-adult relationships are based on adult authority such as parents and teachers and not on mutually shared [...]
Reconstructing Adult/Child Relationships Much of the way our relationships with children are currently constructed is based on adult authority and adults acting upon children rather than sharing power and holding mutual respect with them. The labels of “adult” and “child” so often become barriers to connection, on a mutual or horizontal level, where people who find interest in each other and benefit from the company of the other engaged in freely chosen and mutually beneficial ways. What avenues [...]
Age Discrimination We have perceived children for so long as immature and incompetent that we have barred them from participating in activities that allow them to mature and gain competence in the world. These ideas are based more on our sentiments about children however, than on the validity of what children, if they are allowed, are actually capable. Age in and of its self is neither a measure of competence nor of maturity, but it is constantly used [...]
Pursuing One’s Own Interests The best preparation for a meaningful and productive future is a meaningful and productive present Too often, childhood is thought of in terms of preparation: “Do this now, even if it doesn’t feel connected to your most pressing interests and concerns, because later on you’ll find it useful.” Helping children to figure out what seems interesting and worth doing right now, in their current lives, helps them develop self-knowledge and experience at figuring out [...]
I am re-reading a children's classic-Tom Sawyer. I am struck not only by the high level of autonomy and freedom the boys posses in this book, but also the great degree of self-confidence, trust and self-reliance. The reality of structure, supervision and control of kids lives has become, for the most part, the predominate experience. Between sports and homework and whatever extra-curricular activities kids are involved in- when is there time to play, to discover, to imagine, to [...]
Kids Trusting Themselves Thinking children incompetent or not realizing just how capable they actually are, perhaps because we have provided them little opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities, keeps us managing their lives rather than trusting them to make decisions and be responsible for themselves. Such acts foster a relationship of dependence and enforce inequality and inability rather than bring children into parity. By constantly making decisions for kids and managing their lives we are also teaching them to [...]
Social Structure Social structure constantly shapes and directs our lives. For most of us, it is not something that we pay much attention to or that we are consciously aware of. The following experience and insight from living on a family homestead and community with kids and parents living and working in the same space together, helped me to see how social structure might be an important element in design and of increasing kids’ autonomy: My experience of [...]
I do a lot of wondering. A lot of wondering about kids and childhood and our current social construction of childhood, how it supports kids as unique beings in their learning and growing and becoming autonomous people, and how it might work better. What does it mean for kids to have rich, purposeful, engaged lives as part of their community and their society, not only when they grow up, but now, this very moment, at what ever age [...]
Children’s Freedom of Movement The issues of space and the control of a person’s body also extend to the control of their range of movement. Not only do we invade and control children’s physical bodies/space but the way that children can move about in the world is often severely limited. Children have their movement restricted and are not free to move about as they please. They may be confined to a specific room (such as “the toddler room”) [...]
Personal and Physical Space Personal and bodily space are interesting facets of people’s lives, ones that we generally consider the private and sovereign domain of the individual, and that the individual has the right to control and protect. Violations of personal and especially bodily space, particularly by strangers, is taken as quite a serious offense. Control of another person’s body, both in restriction of movement and in control of function, is quite literally imprisonment/slavery. While children are initially [...]