I am taking a risk in posting this. This is a very touchy and personal subject. I do not agree with the popular trend of society on a lot of things related to children and raising them. I am well aware I likely hold some unpopular views. I will strive to explain my positions and why. This could end up being a long post.

I am 45 years old. I have six children who are all adults now, and some grand children. Two children (the youngest) are mine biologically. The other four are biologically my second wife's. I raised all of them except the eldest two. I did have some interaction with them, but they were old enough that I didn't have a lot of input into their up bringing. All of my children are close to 2 years apart.

I want to touch upon violent entertainment first...

Violent Movies, Video Games, etc

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I watch a lot of horror movies, action movies, sci-fi, etc. I am also a gamer and will play almost any game existence. I played Dungeons and Dragons growing up. I listened to and loved all forms of Heavy Metal. In other words I am the perfect serial killer psychopath material simply due to my interests.

Source: giphy.com

Yet Mozart's music was also considered the Devil's Music during his time...

I have seen most things I am interested in vilified most of my life. Yet I realize looking back that I look at the world in a weirder way than MOST people. I didn't view an Appeal to Authority as a reason a thing was true. If the news or some news caster said "you should not do X because it causes Y" I didn't necessarily believe them because they said it. I'd think about it long and hard, I'd do thought experiments, and I'd make my own decisions.

When the Columbine Massacre occurred and the world went all "It was the violent video games that did it!" and parents all over the nation began saying they needed to keep violent games and movies away from their children I thought about it before reacting. I also observed the effects this EXPERIMENT that now was pitched as a one size fits all solution to parenting would have on kids. I also was in a unique position that I saw some big flaws in the the NEWS STORIES due to being an avid gamer.

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The perpetrators of the massacre were well off kids. The news was harping on Doom as the game of violence. Those of us playing games at the time chuckled and could see the story was just latching onto something. Why? These kids were well off. Doom was years old by then. It had been replaced by newer technology, and there were games like Postal that had been out for awhile that were far more violent and had actually a level where people were massacred on a playground. That game was too much for me, I could never get into it. Yet this existed before Columbine. So it was apparent what the media was doing... to me.

Source: lygsbtd.wordpress.com

I had done similar research on D&D which had been blamed for murders, suicides, etc. I knew a dispatcher at a sheriff's office who shared a stack of crime reports being circulated nationwide about the dangers of D&D and I read through them. There were some cases it was true, just like there are cases a person might listen to the song Helter Skelter, be a nut job, and be inspired. Just like a nut job might read a Stephen King novel, or see a movie and be inspired. There are nut jobs who can be inspired by anything. So what did I actually see in these reports?

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More often than not they would go into the persons room and they likely had a lot of books and other things in their room. They would take special effort to note that there was Dungeons and Dragons on their shelf.

This is a common scapegoat method that has been used for centuries.

Back to the violent entertainment

I let my children watch violent movies, I let them play violent games. Are you curious what the results were?

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I had perhaps the most peaceful children in their school (it was a small school). When they saw violence they used their head, they did not get thrilled or excited by it. They were less ruled by emotions than some.

Are you curious what the result of various parents I knew with similar aged kids that they restricted this material from was?

They were the most violent children on the playground, and outside of school. At this same time all over the country I was seeing children becoming more disrespectful, less disciplined, and more likely to tell an adult on the street "fuck off!" when they were say 10 years old.

Source: giphy.com - not intended against the readers just example of disrespect

Observation, Question, Hypothesis

Observation told me something was not working as had been predicted by press, media, and parents.

So I asked myself why?

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We are driven by curiosity, and love to observe. When we discover a new thing it is typically very exciting.

As children and even adults the taboo things attract us. You cannot drink until you are 21... How well does that work out? Don't touch the stove it is hot.... as a parent you've likely seen this ignored before. You cannot smoke until you are 18. How well does this work out? You shouldn't hang around with that boy, he is trouble... How often does that backfire? You can't look at porn... truly how well does that work out?

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You're not allowed to play violent video games, you are not allowed to watch violent movies... Why would you expect that to work any differently?

I let my children experiment with those things but I early on taught them that games and movies are not real.

You could say they were desensitized to violence. You would be partially true. They were desensitized to representational violence. They still very much responded to violence in the real world around them, but they did so much differently from the children sheltered from it. They did not get a rush and excitement from seeing this taboo thing occur.

Source: giphy.com

Columbine had many other factors. Violent Video Games were the scapegoat. Correlation does not equal causation.

One size fits all mythology...

For some reason humanity makes the same mistake over and over again. They see an anecdotal problem and they believe the solution to that problem is the solution to every problem of that type. This is usually wrong. Yet we keep doing this same mistake repeatedly.

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• A rule that works for you child, may not work for mine. So why force it upon me by using the State?
• A rule that works for one of my children, may not work for another of my children. So do I learn and adapt?
• A person having a negative reaction to media or an event, does not mean everyone will have the same reaction, so should we ban it? If you say yes then anti-vaxxers are correct, because all vaccines do have negative side effects the numbers are simply low. So if you can ban media because you have anecdotal incidents where someone flipped out, why not ban vaccines no matter how low the negative effects may be?
• This education technique worked great for Timmy, Johnny, and Rosie... let's use it on all children.

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We are individuals. Our children are individuals. You cannot stuff individuals into boxes. There is no one size fits all.

Spanking and Physical Discipline

The anti-spanking and orders on the best way to discipline your children box became very popular right when I was becoming a parent. Violence is wrong. I actually agree with this.

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Psychological studies coming out showing positive reinforcement works better than negative also had a great impact. I do see merit in those studies, yet they did not study every situation. They studied certain ones where it definitely was true and then they extrapolated it to cover all situations. This is One Size Fits All again.

Studies such as that did have a dramatic impact on why this became the view and the norm.

Observation after maybe five years of this

I see more Door Mat (parenting class term) style parents, and children walking all over their parents and other adults than I've ever seen before.

Source: pinterest

Some circumstances it is difficult to come up with positive reinforcement for. Do we want to train our children to expect a gift anytime they do something good? Do we want to desensitize our children to hearing "That was a good job?" Human nature shows we are creatures of habit, and curiosity. We lose interest in the things that we are exposed to all of the time.

Let's look at the human body as an example:
There was a time that a woman showing her bare ankle completely excited men in the world. Why? They covered themselves up very thoroughly. Then you go to African tribes where women pretty much just have some kind of loin cloth and walk around with their breasts fully exposed. Breasts are not arousing or exciting to those people. Now we are in an age where if you show ankles or indeed most of the body we can say "she is beautiful" but not necessarily be sexually aroused. Show a bare breast and it could be completely different. Better yet show a bare breast that does not have the nipple removed....

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Why would people think these psychological things that we see evidence for all the time and going back in history would have no impact on raising a child?

Spanking as Discipline

I was spanked as a child. Though not often. It typically was well warned in advance. I also remember going to 1st grade (1976) and seeing paddles on the wall of the principle's office with holes drilled through the wood. VERY DIFFERENT time.

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Kids throwing a tantrum in a store or other place was a rare thing to see back then.

Let's get down to the brass tacks. Some people are assholes, some people are abusive. Not simply to children. There are going to be people that abuse their children with or without a rule. It is wrong. It is also anecdotal.

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Again one size does not fit all...

I spanked my children. Yet it was extremely rare and under two very specific cases.

1. If they did something life threatening to another
2. If nothing was working, I'd warn them "you do that again and I am going to spank you". I believe consistency and lack of empty threats is important to parenting. (observation)

I had to do this very rarely. Though I will say this EVERY ONE of my children was very different from each other and every one of them responded differently to parenting. There was no EASY do it this way rule that worked.

Source: giphy.com

I made my own rules. I told my children repeatedly that there was a reason all of my rules existed and they could ask what those reasons were any time and challenge them. If they could show me the reason was not valid we would toss it out. This doesn't work when they are really young but it does start to work in the 4 or 5 age if your children are people you talk to a lot so they build up their comprehension.

I believe talking to children a lot is important. I also believe that you shouldn't always dumb it down as they learn by being challenged. This may not work for all children, in fact it likely wouldn't. One size does not fit all.

When I spanked my children I did it with forewarning, I did it with my hand, and I did not do it out of rage, abuse, etc. I very much did not get any thrill or enjoyment from it, actually sadness. My wife would end up crying herself if she had to spank the children. I believe the crying mother may have had more impact on them than the spanking.

I know there are people that post very much against this form of discipline. I've read enough of it an bit my tongue. I do not believe in spanking as THE answer to be used for all discipline. I do think it has its place though.

I've had many parents lecture me about this and they had the most undisciplined rude, and disrespectful children I knew. I'd see them literally stick their tongue out at their parents back when they told them to do something.

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The key here is one size does not fit all...

Yet violence violates the NAP....

I do not believe a person has authority over another...

As an Anarchist how do I reconcile this?

Source: victuruslibertas.com

Answer: With great difficulty and always trying to revisit my thoughts on this.

Here are some important things I believe are important to note with relation to human children:

• We are not born with the ability to do most of the things nature requires of us to survive.
• We require someone to teach us and protect us as we develop.
• Nature itself teaches with both positive and negative reinforcement.
• Should a person learn to be aware of anger and the appropriate response to protect themselves, or should they having been sheltered from it instead view it with curiosity and ignore potential danger?
• Equal opportunity should be provided. Yet we are all individuals so what works for one may not work for another.
• We are fascinated by taboo things and things we are told not to do.

What does an Anarchist parent do?

Source: skylerlehto.com

That is for you to decide. One size does not fit all and this is a very tricky problem.

We need to teach our children to survive. We do need to teach them the NAP. Yet part of teaching them is that they need to be aware that violence exists and how to deal with it when it happens. How do they know that with no exposure to it? You can expect them to take your word for it. They might, or they might stick their tongue out at your back. Who knows? They are all individual people.

Source: giphy.com

So this is one I truly have not reconciled from an Anarchistic position.

I'd say if you see children being abused physically such that there are bruises or other things, then something needs to be done. If you see a child being psychologically abused they definitely need to be helped. If you see a child being neglected (very common) they need to be helped.

Source: www.massnews.com

When they reach an age that they are mature and they can survive on their own then at that time your authority over them should cease. They have entered the world hopefully as a full fledged NAP supporting Anarchist and can venture forth and bring new wonders to the world.

I do want to part with some considerations...

I had many bloody noses, wind knocked out of me, etc physical bullies when I was younger. I did learn to defend myself. Those were all short term and healed. I also received psychological bullying. I still bear the scars of some of those encounters decades later. I catch myself being conscientious of things and not doing things purely due to these psychological scars. To me this form of abuse is far worse than a bloody nose, or a spanking.

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I also see psychological bullying as worse than it has ever been to my knowledge within our society, school systems, and on the internet.

Why?

How did we stop it before?

I stopped it before by punching the bully in the nose. When one of my kids who was small and intelligent was getting bullied a lot at school and the school did nothing about it after multiple trips to see them, I told him to kick them in the nuts and punch them in the nose. He never did it, and I did end up getting a lecture from the school. They enforce violence pretty well. They leave the door wide open for psychological bullying.

It impacted my child so much I pulled the two youngest out of public school and schooled them online and at home for years. The school system would do nothing.

So now we have increasing amounts of Trolls since that was how they got their thrill in school, or perhaps they were bullied psychologically in school, and now are seeking an out by trolling people on the internet. I don't know.

Source: giphy.com

We see more and more stories of suicides related to this...

I can only tell you one thing for certain.

On size does not fit all!