This was taken from the Taking Children Seriously website which seems to advocate not TELLING your children what to do, but ASKING them instead.:rolleyes:
While I admit everybody is allowed to have their own unique philosophy and ways of dealing with/raising their kids, it seems to me a lot of parents over the last couple of decades have taken this TCS jive and ran like hell with it. And not in a good way.
We are going to live to be old people with a bunch of these kids (now grown up) who think they can do what they will because they were raised to think that whatever they do is ok. That fact scares me to death.
[obligatory Breakfast Club ref]
Vernon:You think about this: when you get old, these kids – when I get old – they’re going to be running the country. Now this is the thought that wakes me up in the middle of the night. That when I get older, these kids are going to take care of me.[/oBCr]
Ya know, I think that ol’ Vernon was on to something there. These kids, these hooligans that the ‘feel-good, only do it if you feel like it’ parents are raising are gonna be running the country in 20, 30 years, or so.
I seriously doubt that “a bunch” of these kids will be around. What sane parent can get through 18 years without eventually being forced to lay down at least a few laws?
If these kids are used to getting their own way in EVERYthing, they’ll soon be unpleasantly surprised by school. And if Mumsy and Dadsy homeschool them, then they’ll be unpleasantly surprised by their fellow kids. And even if they aren’t, they will DEFINITELY be unpleasantly surprised by college and adult life.
“Why didn’t you come to class for your midterms, Timmy?”
“I didn’t really feel like it, Professor.”
“Huh. Well, I really feel like failing you.”
“But I don’t WANNA fail!”
“Should’ve taken your test then. Too bad, so sad.”
And even disregarding college, these people aren’t going to do well in their jobs…
I know this is the pit, so an out-and-out, unsupported rant is not inappropriate, but do you have evidence (or reasons to believe) that such “non-coercive parenting strategies” (their term) lead to dysfunctional behaviour? Or is it just that what was good enough for previous generations must be good enough for the next, because, I can tell you, I know a lot of fucked up people, their incidence does not correlate to liberal parenting in the way you seem to anticipate.
I suspect that many posters to this thread will not bother to read any of the article(s).
I should admit, IANAParent (but my mum and dad played some in the movie of my life).
Well, I read the cite and it’s just as lame as I always thought TCS was. They didn’t answer any of the FAQ! Each and every “question” (such as "what if my child is about to do something dangerous?) is answered with "well, they won’t. "
Oh great, another “kids these days”, eh? Why is it I get the feeling that language was only invented to complain about how nowadays is worse than it was in the “good old days”.
All you’re doing is taking the worst example and claiming that that’s how everything is. I was raised late 80’s/early 90’s and I got none of this TCS crap. I was beat with a wooden spoon. And all my friends had mothers with their own instrument of choice.
And, of course we have things better than you did. The whole history of human innovation and invention is about making the world an easier place to live in.
Hmm, this is turning into a rant that deserves it’s own thread. I’ll just stop now.
I suspect that there are about 10 parents in the country who seriously believe in this TCS stuff. The current most popular theory is that you’re supposed to be authoritative, which is neither too authoritarian nor too permissive. You may quit worrying about the few loonies who subscribe to this one. Worry about something more worthwhile–say, that someone will demolish your house by mistake.
This country is going to hell in a handbasket - as has every country, throughout history.
I’m almost 50 and have encountered many kids raised this way throughout my life. Nothing new here.
TCS is not a common practice. There’s a few hardcore families but not many. It’s a very very hard way to parent (but you guessed that didn’t you? ). Most of the people on the mailing list appear to be teenagers or people without kids.
I’ve known people who tried to do it but interestingly enough 5 years down the track, they’re not as committed to the practice. I don’t think common preference is such a bad way to parent – the bit I would get stuck on is the bit where the parent is supposed to give way to the child because the child has no power. Ummm yeah, that’s gonna create a power balance for sure.
My main beef with David and Sarah is that stupid, stupid essay (which may or may not still be up on the site) about how autism does not exist. It’s worse than Bettelheim’s refrigerator mother theory but fortunately less influential.
How can you say kids today are identical to kids 50 years ago? Were kids shooting up their cafeterias in '53? I think not! There IS something wrong with the way kids are being raised today. I don’t know what the solution is (because not all methods are right for all kids - or all parents), but I do know we need one. What’s next? People showing up to work with guns? Oh hmm… nevermind.
Just came back in to say it’s idiotic to claim that all kids today are screwed up because of the very few families who practise non-coercive parenting. IDBB, you got a cite for it being a common way to raise children?
I’d guess there are thousands more families following Ezzo and his scary scary theories than there are TCS families.
Five year olds still in diapers. An entire family with lice because the youngest REFUSED to let anyone touch his head and they kept getting reinfected. Some people actually saying that it was wrong to keep a kid from being friends with known pedophiles. A woman asking what to do with a depressed daughter who was cutting and being told “help her do it.”
It is very real, folks. And it is very scary. VERY.
You were on the mailing list? So you might know more than I – all I have to go on is a ten minute review of their site, please illuminate me.
But, before we go on, and lest I am railroaded, if there are (well-founded) criticisms to be made of TCS none are clear from the OP, nor seem to follow from my short perusal of the site; specifically:
TCS advocates: methods that lead to late potty training; rule of the familily by ill-disciplined infants; association with child-abusers; aiding and abetting of one’s offspring’s self-harm
is a pretty different rant to
TCS advocates "not TELLING your children what to do, but ASKING them instead."
But Guin, not that I am an apologist for TCS or NCS, the thing is that the vast majority of those discussions are theoretical. The paedophile one comes up regularly as does the jumping off the roof one.
5 year olds in diapers doesn’t worry me.
The lice one would be explained away as a failure to reach a CP. Which it certainly is
The cutting thing is scary but then virtually every discussion I’ve seen of mental issues from a TCS POV is either stupid beyond belief or scary.
There are not many actual parents with kids doing this. Statistically it’s not a huge number and not a lot of them are in the US. It’s not to blame for today’s kids being all screwed up. It’s one tiny fragment of a reasonably statistically small parenting community. Your average Joe Blow and Joetta Blow don’t even know that these people exist, much less base their childrearing on these extreme theories.
Great Unwashed, the goal of TCS theory is to find a Common Preference which suits all members of the family, not just the adults.
So the nits problem theoretically should be solved by the parents finding a way and sharing their theories about why the nits are a bad thing. In reality if the parents ‘fail’ to share their theories correctly and do not convince the kid it is more worthwhile to treat the nits, everybody gets nits.
With the paedophile example, the expectation is that if the child wants to spend time with the paedophile, then the parent finds a way for the kid to do it safely.
If it is impossible to find a CP, then the child’s preference takes priority. Thus the nit infection.
I don’t practise TCS and I have no desire to do so. I’ve been flamed extensively by people who do see it as a desirable way to parent. But I can see the value in common preferences which are not taken to extremes. I know parents who I like and respect who do follow this way of life and their kids so far are not axe murderers.
Well, even if not all parents these days subscribe directly to the TCS method, certain aspects of it have crept slowly into the parental handbooks one reads when one is pregnant (or at least the ones I read for the heck of it one day. Don’t ask. I don’t know why I did it either.).
They all seem to advocate being more a friend than a parent and people who’ve never had kids don’t know any better. They are afraid to discipline their kids because they remember how they were disciplined as children and hated it.
As a retail employee, maybe I run into the very worst of these parents and their heathenish mutant offspring and that’s clouded my judgement. I dunno.
). Most of the people on the mailing list appear to be teenagers or people without kids.