Free children

My family and I just returned from a one week camp of NVC-inspired training. It wasn't intensive, just couple of hours per day, but it involved horses and just being with other families which are also implementing NVC in their life. Total strangers, but, thanks to their general attitude we had no problem with getting along - not that we expected any problems - but for a week we created a small village of cooperation and coexistence, so to speak.

What was truly amazing though was the children. Each family had kids with them of course, and there were something between 10 and 15 constantly running around, shouting, creating chaos and generally being free and happy children. And there is a very visible difference between children being taught to "behave" in more traditional manner, where adults are kings of little kingdoms and children are supposed to just take directions, orders, and obey (or else...) NVC children do not take orders. They are not told what to do, they are neither praised nor punished. They are free to grow as humans and discover through interaction and guidance from parents how to... well, live. In contradiction to both traditional model of adult authority and stress-free parenting (which I admit only seeing in extreme and most probably incorrect form), the children behaved as independent but networked units of society, our small society we created ad hoc for a week. But before I explain what I mean by this: I am a father, by my experience with children is limited and I'm an IT engineer, not a teacher, so I'm aware that I oversimplify and you, dear reader, should probably read a lot if you want to get the full picture :)

But the way I saw it is:

First, authoritarian parenting regards children as "incomplete adults". Sort of. Little people who need to be directed, told what to do and what not to do, and rules need to be enforced by either praise or punishment, so one day they can become adults too - adults like us. And yes, it does precisely that. That's why it is so very rare for people to question authority or think about self-reliance. We were taught to trust in authority - polarized into fatherly army/police and motherly social security, and participate in society that might be dysfunctional and based on violence, openly or discretely, but having known no other models we just don't have anything to compare it to, and it takes quite a lot of conscious effort to step outside of our boxes.

Second, even stress-free parenting, from my very limited experience, does not teach anything useful, it simply leaves kids disconnected from us as source of guidelines and others as parts of the system we create (in positive sense, system as network of relationships).

However, if children are not directed by sticks and carrots, but encouraged to know themselves and stay in constant touch with their (and others) emotions, something great happens. They, while still being happy children, can connect to others (adults and other kids) on level that surprised me. They were unruly, but they were not violent. They were loud, but not offensive. They had conflicts of course, but they did not need any adults to arbitrarily solve their problems for them. And they were free to use their internal compasses, creativity, abilities - because they wanted to, not because they were asked to. They remained in constant contact with their inner selves, authentic, honest, free. Awesome.

What I saw there were free and happy children who will never need any psychoanalysis.