The Parenting Paradox: we don't like being controlled so why do we control our children?
We have been conditioned by society to obey our masters and answer questions when asked. However, as free-thinking individuals practicing peaceful parenting, we should never do this. Dayna Martin
It feels like common sense that as a parent I should be setting restrictions around certain things (like the ipad, eating cake & bed time) but in doing so am I teaching my children the right message? Is it even possible to effectively convey my message when the truth of it is that I watch a screen for hours at a time, I eat what I want to eat and I go to sleep when I feel tired? For some time now I have seen how the more I push towards achieving moderation through restriction, the more they push back and the desire for the restricted item/habit is increased.
Trusting our children's intuition
What if I told you that left to their own devices children would find a healthy balance in their lives without our guidance?
This may be hard to believe but... HAVE YOU ACTUALLY TRIED IT?
Prior to researching this subject I would have been sceptical myself but it turns out there are hundreds of testimonials online from happy parents who can confirm this to be the case.
Be the change we want to see
Perhaps the best guidance we can give is to facilitate their desires whilst always living by example... and in time the balance we are able to cultivate in our own lives will find it's way into theirs without the need for any kind of resistance or control.
If this is true I have been getting it horribly wrong and it is in fact me and not my children who needs to find the balance within myself to begin trusting their innate wisdom and stop mindlessly recreating that which has been done to me.
Peaceful Parenting
One of the major ideas of peaceful parenting is that what we often term "misbehaviour" is actually an expression of an underlying need. Dayna Martin
I am very grateful to @dannyshine for bringing my attention to Danya Martin and her website in his recent film you can see HERE. She speaks briefly about her work as a guide for parents who are looking for a more respectful & empowering way to bring up their children in this authoritarian world in which we live.
She refers to it as Peaceful Parenting and aside from opening my mind to a plethora of new ideas Danya has helped me clearly define this ongoing revolution in schooling.
Homeschooling
Children are taught a basic curriculum at home, usually by their parents or tutor.
Unschooling
With no curriculum and no kind of schooling at all and it is the job of the parents to provide an environment designed to spark new interests and connections whilst facilitating learner-chosen activities.
Radical Unschooling (also known as Peaceful Parenting)
No school, no curriculum, no restrictions of any kind, so... bed time, co-sleeping, food choices & screen time are now 100% up to them.
The real work comes in our finding acceptance with this whilst doing our best to facilitate it. Sometimes it is harder than we might imagine due to our own conditioning and the way we respond to the judgement of others.
The bedrock of radical unschooling is trust: a belief that our children possess an inner wisdom or intuitiveness far beyond what the mainstream gives them credit for. Parents act as guides and facilitators, helping children to connect with that inner wisdom. unschoolers.org
But won't they just watch the screen & eat cakes forever?
Not having implemented the radical unschooling method yet I cannot speak from experience but I can tell you there are many people who have and they seem to speak in one voice about the success they have had, assuming they were able to provide stimulating alternatives.
I understand there will first be a period in which the new freedom is taken to an extreme. Cakes will be finished and ipads will run out of battery. Not much different to myself at University when for the first time in my life there were no more rules relating to the length of my hair, so I didn't cut it for three years. Let's hope it doesn't take that long with them!
The 'angry' act
There is a side to Esteban (3 years old) which is quite loud & aggressive, particularly when he doesn't get his way. I couldn't understand where this was coming from at first but it is clear to me now he is simply trying to model our behaviour. He raises his voice, puts on an angry face, stamps his feet... it is more of an energy shift than anything else, and once shifted there is very little we can do to calm him down other than wait it out.
By adopting the radical unschooling method we will never experience this again.
Parenting is supposed to be joyful, and it can be when we learn to connect with, rather than control, our children. We were raised in a different era, where the majority of the parenting focused on obedience and doing what we were told. Just learning that a new parenting paradigm exists is often the first step in someone’s journey to a new awakening. Dayna Martin
My past
Now I understand this to be possible I find myself asking how it is I came to believe that punishment was necessary to instil discipline and teach about consequences? I am quite shocked it has taken me this many years to stand back and contemplate the bigger picture here.
Dayna tells us that "arbitrary rules and punishments for the sake of teaching model unrealistic circumstances and inauthenticity." She goes on to explain how this damages our relationship with our parents and I look back on my own strict childhood and wonder if this is the reason why I have always been a bit rubbish at keeping in touch with my mother?
Mimicking/modelling
Through discussion and modelling, our children have the benefit of a rock solid foundation of love, support and trust with us as parents. This is what is severely lacking in the authoritarian paradigm of parenting and this puts children raised this way at a great disadvantage in life. Loving parents never need to be mean to their children to “prepare them for the real world.” Dayna Martin
It is interesting to watch Esteban with Luna his little sister. Again we can see him mimicking our behaviour with her by implementing rules around not touching his stuff and putting on a display of hostility when she does.
I wonder... had we never implemented the idea of 'mine' with a set of limiting rules around the item(s) would he behave in this way with her?
I suspect not.
My intention to (re)EMPOWER my children
Steemit has gifted me a life at home with my family (wherever that may be!) and I don't intend to waste this opportunity.
It never felt right raising my voice to Esteban, trying to impose my hypocritical rules on him... and now I know why.
AS ALWAYS the work to be done is internal, but rather enjoyably on this occasion it is Steemit which has led me to this new understanding.
Radical Unschooling clearly isn’t a journey for the faint of heart or for a parent who isn’t willing to dig into the deepest parts of their soul to do the inner work necessary to heal from the past.
If we want to raise powerful, confident and free-thinking human beings, we must model how to live in freedom and peace whist facilitating their interests and empowering them to listen to their body and their instinct.
Who is @samstonehill?
He is travelling the world with his partner & two children and with no bank account he has been living on STEEM & crypto for over nine months.
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Great perspectives, Sam!! This solo mama especially supports and endorses the idea of not controlling our kids, but empowering them. Such an important job to parent, and loving the thought and soul you put into this!!
Bless you. Thanks ;)
Indeed, there was a fair bit of thought & soul behind this one. Am pleased you noticed.
I do so enjoy sharing the messages which have the potential to change peoples lives.
Our feeling is that life itself is the greatest school.. and a love filled one, with parents to hold hands and share it with is the greatest joy of all. Thank you for sharing your journey as inspiration for others Sammo. Wholeness brother 🙏🏻 🌟
I watched that same video that @dannyshine put up and I was very impressed by what Dayna Martin had to say and her experiences raising her children. I do try and let mine follow their own lead. They more or less eat what they want, we don't have any sugar n our home so that is not really an issue. I still have to pull myself back when they are being not so nice to one another, I find that very hard. I try and talk about how important it is to be gentle with one another. But like you said sometimes they are mimicking us and it's really all about us as parents changing our behaviours. It's one big crazy rollercoaster adventure being a parent, but if you want them to be respectful you got to show them some respect.
So true. The respect is lost when all they understand is the limiting rule around the thing they enjoy. So happy to have discovered this one in time for their childhood! And am looking forward to providing stimulating alternatives to the ipad.
Thanks for sharing your story. And congrats getting sugar out of the house! Still working on that one here. Sabrina is a sucker for it and I see how much this influences Esteban. His first word in the morning is usually 'cake'!!!
getting into raw cakes and making my own chocolate has been a great help, raw food is alot more filling and more satisfying so we don't really crave 'sugary' foods, dates are a great alternative. dates peanut butter and carob make a really good caramel. Sugar is a tough one really. But it can be done.x
Yes, yes, yes!!! It turns out beautifully! My 19 and 16 yo's grew up with mostly this. It's so magical to watch. I didn't start this way, but they were maybe 4 and 7 when I shifted to this. It took the 7 yo a little bit to find his balance, but he's so amazing now! He's @anarchyandbread. I will say that in finding my balance with this, there were times when I neglected myself, and that's not an particularly good message for them, and it surely didn't help me. I finally decided that the best balance for me was to say, this is what I need to live comfortably in our little community together. I started thinking of our family as community. I need us to come together to keep common spaces tidy. I need all of us to pitch in to make our community function beautifully. They can also always come to me with what they need. We make agreements together. Now we have two littles (5 and 4), so it will be interesting to see how it goes when they start from that place. We still have fits and troubles. The 5 yo is very passionate. Everyone in our little community has their own path, their own stuff, and their own needs, and they can handle those how they choose. No one has to share or play with anyone they don't want to. We do have agreements about hitting, which is not allowed in our home. Anyway, best of luck with it. I hope it goes well for you.
A beautiful story of conscious parenting there. Thank you for sharing!
I do agree that we will also have to create an 'agreement' about hitting. Much better word than rule!
That being said, Esteban is improving already after a few months of biting and hitting his sister for touching his cars. He understands now and just screams at her instead.... very loud!
Sounds like you have a great system in place :)
It takes a while to learn effective communication. He won't bite or scream forever ;)
That's what I figured. Feels like a stage. And the next stage is them being best friends! Fingers crossed ;)
For sure it will happen. Might be a while though. :D
Kids primarily want attention and letting them do what they want and being attentive to their needs fulfills that. On the other hand I also believe that kids need boundaries and setting limits is a form of attention too. This teaches them, especially when they are still little, how to set their own boundaries and not feel the dissatisfaction that comes from having no limits. Inevitably our kids take our parental authority as an inner voice that they carry with them into adulthood and even after we are gone. And I think that's natural and fine.
I think the Rolling Stones said it best: "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find, you get what you need."
haha! Brilliant. Love how you squeezed in the Rolling Stones there :)
I think boundaries surrounding safety and a basic understanding of the world are important for sure.
Am unclear on why having no limits might bring dissatisfaction?
I get where you are coming from .. I've read Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society and I share his distrust of institutions. But I also think setting limits on children allows them to learn how to self-discipline better and my point about dissatisfaction stems a little from my own childhood. I didnt grow up in a total hippie household, but my Mom did model her approach on less boundaries and being friends with her kid. What do they say in Hair, "Be whoever you want to be, do whatever you want to do as long as you don't hurt anybody, and remember I am your friend." And that's cool but I think without parents to push against and boundaries to rebel against, I was left drifting without much self discipline. Everyone is different but I think in some ways we all have to go through that painful phase with our kids when they reject us to a degree. And that's important for the kids because it helps them grow up. I never had a healthy rebellion. So anyway I guess I'm saying that limits breed responsibility. But in your case, of course, you try it however you want.
Robert Bly called it the Sibling Society where parents and kids are at the same level, we are playmates and like older brothers to our kids. It has its drawbacks too.
However I do feel screen time is damaging to kids, especially when they are under 10. Many Silicon Valley parents severely restrict screen time, and my take on it is also that we are going to be on computers half the frigging time as adults anyway so why start so early. Its a social experiment I dont want to expose my kid to, so I limit my son, who is 11, to an hour a day watching or games just at the weekend, and I think he likes asking my permission to do stuff. Setting limits is another way of showing you care. Do you know what I mean?
Parenting is not so easy. Sometimes we don’t know what’s the right or wrong for our children. At very early age we give them gadgets. It’s not the right procedure to control them.... I think. It’s have some bad effects. There should be freedom,but it should be kept in mind that it should not be misused. Your article is very informative. I like it so much . Thanks for sharing and happy parenting....
Thanks very much for leaving your thoughts here. For me it is so obviously unfair now to expect him not to want a computer screen when he sees me sitting at one so often. I just never looked at it this way before...
Now I see that I am the one who needs to moderate my time on the computer!
His actions will follow mine :)
Very interesting article Sam..I do not have my own kids but I have niece and I have a great relationship with all kids. I always treat them like they are adults and I trust their insticts. On the other hand me as a human I have a big problem.I always spend more money that I can not afford. My psycologist told me that I don't have bountries because my father never said no to me!! He was always giving to me whatever i wanted.So I am thinking shall we let kids free which is the way I act till now or we should put some bountries on them? I think we should let them free to develop their own personality and never doubt their insticts!! It is their own life and i think the most important Job of the parent is to give love and compassion to their kids. Eventually everyone finds his way!!
nice pic Wow. so beautiful your art i like your post. i wait for your next post carry on your life . all the best @bijoy123
Thanks very much.
It makes no sense I know. Thats why its unconscious dysfunction. The paradox of dysfunction is that it doesn't make sense...
Better then for us to stop trying to understand and get back on with that which FEELS good to us ;)
Love & Light to you brother
Lots of good insights here about parenting (or not) Sam. I like the term "radical unschooling". WE have been brainwashed into following "societies" rules for far too long. Time to BE the change! :) Upvoted!
Great perspectives, especially supports and endorses the idea of not controlling our kids, but empowering them. Such an important job to parent, and loving the thought and soul you put into this!!