How is the parent-child situation more complicated than the adult-adult one?
Why parenthood can seem unexpectedly challenging even if you have thought about it beforehand.
dangers
My child refuses to wear a coat in the cold! Help!
There is a reason a child doesn’t want to wear a coat, and with a bit of creativity and effort it is possible to discover the reason and (dis)solve the problem.
How do you tell pre-verbal children about dangers given that they do not understand explanations?
With pre-verbal children we have to be creative and come up with concrete ways of conveying information about dangers, rather than just giving explicit explanations. (I suggest both.)
Surely it is necessary to coerce children to avoid them doing unsafe or unethical things?
It is far safer to show children potential dangers and how to handle them safely, than it is simply to rely on them never interacting with such dangers. Even if you yourself keep all the dangerous items and chemicals locked up, there will come a day when your child is somewhere else, where that is not the case, and then your child is potentially navigating dangerous things with no knowledge of how to do so safely. Taking our children seriously is so much safer than the alternative.
‘Protection’ against a child’s will is coercion not protection
How would you feel if your partner took it upon himself to ‘protect’ you from something you do not want to be protected from, or he rode roughshod over your wishes with respect to the protection he was offering? It is dishonest to call something ‘protection’ when it is against the will of the person being protected. It is a parent’s responsibility to protect children from harm as perceived by the child.
Explanations and experience
Sometimes you can explain in terms of your experience; but not when it comes to drinking bleach, presumably!
Genuinely protecting children versus coercing them
Children’s lives are their own, and they are far more competent than many parents think they are.
“What if…?” questions
What if [insert feared disastrous outcome here] happens as a result of taking my children seriously instead of coercing them?
There is no safety in ignorance
American children should be prepared for the playmate who reaches into his parents’ drawer and comes out with a loaded gun
What if your child wants a dangerous substance?
Reason keeps a child safe because the child has the correct theory (that the stuff is dangerous); coercion is risky because the child’s theory is not based on the reality of the substance, but upon the possible punishment for an infringement of the parental rule.
Keeping children safe without imprisoning them in the home
Relying on a policy of imprisonment to keep children safe is risky: there will come a time when young people do venture out alone.