How many parents actually love their children 'unconditionally'. I personally don't see any issues with unconditional love as you state. I would say there is a far greater problem with conditional love, related to your rewards issues.
Actual religious sentiments aside (as I'm not Christian). This quote had a powerful impact on me:
"Christ could only be born to a mother who believed she would give birth to a god."
If we treat our children as the eternal godly beings that they are, that we are. Then that is who we will come to manifest.
My approach to child raising is going to be one where I do the least amount of 'teaching' as possible. I'll attempt to provide an environment conducive to learning and pose thoughtful questions. To pretend I know is only to preserve my ego and limit the possibilities of my children surpassing my understanding.
In case you wanted to know ;)
It doesn't even matter if parents love their children unconditionally, what matters is that they give the impression that they do, so children grow up expecting that kind of love from their significant other, where for instance looks or money or disease don't matter.
What that means basically is that you'll let others do the teaching for you. What you said means TV, their social circles, their random friendships, their school, etc., will have a greater impact than you will. If they are born on an island with only you on it, then fine. But they won't. Instead of not teaching them, I think you ought to teach them in as neutral a way as possible. I know a mom that takes her son to as many activities as she can think of, so he can discover what he likes. Gymnastics, violin, swimming, karate, piano - you name it, he tried it. She doesn't try to enforce a particular interest of hers onto him.
But yeah that's probably what you mean anyway by "an environment conducive to learning". I have many ideas about this. One of them is: since I'm experienced now with useful vs useless activities, time management, etc., and I'm only going to get better at it, a possible solution could be this: for 6 months my child will agree to live the way I tell him, and for 6 months he can do whatever he wants. That will be an interesting experiment to try, won't it? Specifically, it will be interesting to have him compare the results himself, and see whether he prefers to do whatever he wants, or live on a more organized schedule, or a combination. Absolute strictness will just cause a reaction, but a "do what I want for half the time" sounds like a compromise, and is more likely to be accepted. I mean, the mere fact of sending him to school is a kind of lifestyle enforcement anyway. In a natural state he'd be forced to farm or hunt or help in household activities etc. Children are not, and never were, completely free of responsibilities.
I.e. a Jewish mother! :P
I guess you don't know me very much :) This is nearly exactly what I intend for my children. ;)
You may be right... Though I have seen/read about many societies that presume the opposite. My goal is to give my children ultimate freedom to self-direct and create their lives. That's not to say they won't contribute, but I will never coerce or force them to do so through punishment nor reward. All rewards will be intrinsic! Just as when I was a child and was eager to assist my dad, I did not need any rewards, the reward was the relationship. This is what I will cultivate. Ultimate freedom of choice. No obligation, no 'responsibility' outside self-directed choices. I will facilitate an environment of unlimited possibility for them, so they will be able to accomplish impossible tasks!
"I.e. a Jewish mother! :P"
Haha, true. Which would make him a jew too! But regardless, the parable (if it is reality or not is irrelevant) is that he became a prominent figure simply because he was born to parents who treated him and believed as such :)
I too will treat my children as the infinite beings they are! And so shall they become!
I have had to dedicate nearly a decade of undoing the scarring my culture and parents imprinted upon me, and I have many years to go. My gift will be to not imprint any of my limiting beliefs on my children so they will be free to vastly surpass anything I believe possible. This is my sacred duty :)
Have you seen the movie Captain Fantastic? Sounds a lot like what you have in mind. Tho in the movie the dad is very actively teaching them stuff.
Oh yes! A perfect example I loved that movie. Okay, so think of that movie and it would be just about entirely different in his entire approach. The environment may be similar (though I'm aiming for non-reclusion in my approach, i.e. NeighbourGood).
His approach was a dictatorial approach to education where he merely imprinted his biases onto them through coercion! There appeared to be dissent in the group on many occasions where his kids were not interested in doing what he said, but that that was unacceptable. There was also a level of miscommunication and fear between the father and kids on many levels (this due to his dictator authoritarian fathering style). In a self-directed creative method, this would be non-existent as there would be nothing to fear or rebel against. So, while I like the idea of completely moving away from our culture and I would consider this movie a massive improvement on our current model (as juxtaposed in the movie). I would say it would bear no reflection on what I'm proposing. Further as detailed in the movie nearly all his time was devoted to imprinting his biases on his children (a very tedious task), this caused him a lot of stress which he then displaced on his kids.... All in all he had to resort back to sending his kids to cultural programming as his model failed.
I wish there were a pop-culture reference I could refer to as an example. But, I can't think of a single source that could even remotely relate to what I'm suggesting. Possibly some relation could be found in a mix between jungle-book and Pocahontas...
:)