Kids Trusting Themselves

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 [...]

Teaching Obediance to Authority or Culitvating Inner Trust and Self-determination?

One of the worst things about arbitrary authority is it makes us lose our trust in natural authority- people who know what they are doing and could share a lot of wisdom with us. When they make you obey the cruel and unreasonable [authority] they steal your desire to learn from [or listen to] the kind and reasonable [authority]” (Grace Llewellyn, The Teenage Liberation Handbook.) If we truly take the time to listen and be present with our [...]

Are your belifes about what kids can do limiting them?

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 [...]

What are kids needs underneath their behavior?

Listening for What Kids Really Need So how do we really listen to what kids are needing, not just at the surface but at the deeper levels of their being? If, as Marshall Rosenberg and Compassionate Communication (NVC) assert, human behavior is really an expression of met or un-met needs and all anyone is ever doing is trying to meet their needs, what is a person's behavior really saying and communicating? I am seeking to understand kids’ behavior [...]

Making Presence a Priority

Shifting Priorities Not only being in kids’ lives, but fostering a certain quality of relationship is very important. If we want to make a real difference in kids’ lives, then not only our presence, but the quality of that presence can be extremely important. How do we make a cultural shift to the point where taking care of children and giving them full attention, the quality of our presence in their lives, is just as important as anything [...]

Costs and limitations of Power-Over

Power Over? Living in the Old Paradigm, we have come to use manipulation, coercion and force to get children to do our bidding. The Old Paradigm, works on a system of punishment and rewards, of absolutes, of “good” and “bad”. We fail to recognize that children have their own needs and interests separable from adults, that they are people in their own right, and are not solely to be acted upon. Not only is such behavior undemocratic, life-diminishing, [...]

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