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 [...]
The Voice That Speaks InsideThe Voice, by Shel SilversteinAhh, yes! The voice that speaks inside. And yet, how often do we deny or crush that voice? How often do we argue with that voice or make it wrong?What if you're not wrong? What if you stopped drowning out that voice and started listening to its every little whisper? What would it have to tell you? What would it show you about your life, about your heart, about your [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Community Can Increase Autonomy Sidney and Ana live in a rural environment in which they are surrounded by a community of caring people that look out for them and help them meet their needs. As I ponder the limited scope of children’s movement in current society, I have thought about what sorts of structures, social practices and designs might help to increase the mobility and autonomy of young people. One thing I have observed is that in the [...]
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”) [...]
How we (adults, parents, adult culture and society) control kids bodies/movement and a New Vision of Respect and Empowerment I decided to include this list as part of my series on body space/freedom of movement, as I think it is useful to explore these particular areas and examples and to explore a new vision for how things could be. Control of physical movements-curfews for one, where kids can or can’t go. Forcing kids to sit still in school, [...]
The effects of our beliefs on kids' capabilities One of the ways we interfere with children’s autonomy and act upon them, rather than cultivating relationships of mutual respect and shared power is through our beliefs of children’s limited capabilities and our efforts to keep them within those limits. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We don’t allow kids to do things we think they are not capable of and therefore they don't have an opportunity to prove otherwise or [...]
Child as a Category: Are 3 year olds and 13 year olds really that similar? Are 16 year olds and 18 year olds really that different? After speaking with my now 17 year old friend (who I've known since she was one) about the phase of life she's in~ this place that, as society and culture has constructed it, is somewhere between childhood and full adulthood~I felt inspired to share some reflections on childhood as a category, why [...]
I have come to believe that the current social construction of childhood puts children in a position of subordination to adult authority in ways that are both oppressive and limiting. It teaches fear of and obedience to external authority rather than fostering freedom and promoting the capacity for independent thinking, mutual respect and self-responsibility. Given this, how can we construct childhood in a way that is not controlling or oppressive; that gives children power over their own lives; [...]