a look back at the mainstream
Sandra Dodd
I've been climbing away from mainstream life for 26 years now. Kirby will be 27 this summer. When I look back, "mainstream" is far in the distance.
For those who are newer to the idea of unschooling, step carefully and steadily away from things like this:
"I agree that children need rules but at the same time not mindless structure. Powering them down off of sugar and other stimulants are the first wave of things. We also need to get parents out of the micromanaging of their childrens lives to the extent that they do. Kids have to learn how to negotiate with others and come to terms with things like wants, loss, and control issues. Oddily enough parents need to learn these skills to0 as the kid will see what his/her parents do and emulate them which can take years to undo."
Every phrase of that is jarring to me.
It was posted by a friend of a friend. I posted an objection to a piece of word art that said "If I had spoken to my parents the way some children do now, I wouldn't be here to share this status. Some children need to learn the meaning of respect. Share if you agree."
My friend is a nice guy who teaches drumming to kids in various programs. He has step children, one of whom has lately gotten out of jail for I know not what. (He moved across the country years ago.)
Following some "Nuff said" and "Damn straight," I wrote:
If the parents had been worthy of respect, the children wouldn't have spoken that way. Do women learn respect from men who beat them?
You can unfriend me if you want to, but the harsh child raising practices of the past have created a whole lot of stunted, unhappy adults. There are whole other ways to be.
http://sandradodd.com/respect/dodd
How to Raise a Respected Child
Naturally, people come to write mainstream responses. People I've never heard of, never heard of me, friends of my friend.
Children need rules. Otherwise how would they learn the basic fundamentals of coexisting in a society that will not always give them everything they want? One of these rules is how to be polite to others. Just look at the lack of civility we see everywhere now...
and then the one I quoted up top.
And I didn't say "How is 'how to be polite to others' a "rule"?
But if someone had written something that unclear, unexamined in this discussion, I would have.
What I did write, to the response up top, was:
My children grew up without rules, but with a great deal of attention and interaction, and principles. It makes more sense to help children know WHY than to tell them WHAT (or else). http://sandradodd.com/rules
Rules vs. Principles
-------------------------------------------
I'll probably hang in there another day or two and then unfriend my friend, because he chose to bring the stupid quote, and wrote "Nuff said," and I don't want to have another little lump of ugly like that come back around unexpectedly.
Seeing all that, though, helps me realize how far our family came.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
For those who are newer to the idea of unschooling, step carefully and steadily away from things like this:
"I agree that children need rules but at the same time not mindless structure. Powering them down off of sugar and other stimulants are the first wave of things. We also need to get parents out of the micromanaging of their childrens lives to the extent that they do. Kids have to learn how to negotiate with others and come to terms with things like wants, loss, and control issues. Oddily enough parents need to learn these skills to0 as the kid will see what his/her parents do and emulate them which can take years to undo."
Every phrase of that is jarring to me.
It was posted by a friend of a friend. I posted an objection to a piece of word art that said "If I had spoken to my parents the way some children do now, I wouldn't be here to share this status. Some children need to learn the meaning of respect. Share if you agree."
My friend is a nice guy who teaches drumming to kids in various programs. He has step children, one of whom has lately gotten out of jail for I know not what. (He moved across the country years ago.)
Following some "Nuff said" and "Damn straight," I wrote:
If the parents had been worthy of respect, the children wouldn't have spoken that way. Do women learn respect from men who beat them?
You can unfriend me if you want to, but the harsh child raising practices of the past have created a whole lot of stunted, unhappy adults. There are whole other ways to be.
http://sandradodd.com/respect/dodd
How to Raise a Respected Child
Naturally, people come to write mainstream responses. People I've never heard of, never heard of me, friends of my friend.
Children need rules. Otherwise how would they learn the basic fundamentals of coexisting in a society that will not always give them everything they want? One of these rules is how to be polite to others. Just look at the lack of civility we see everywhere now...
and then the one I quoted up top.
And I didn't say "How is 'how to be polite to others' a "rule"?
But if someone had written something that unclear, unexamined in this discussion, I would have.
What I did write, to the response up top, was:
My children grew up without rules, but with a great deal of attention and interaction, and principles. It makes more sense to help children know WHY than to tell them WHAT (or else). http://sandradodd.com/rules
Rules vs. Principles
-------------------------------------------
I'll probably hang in there another day or two and then unfriend my friend, because he chose to bring the stupid quote, and wrote "Nuff said," and I don't want to have another little lump of ugly like that come back around unexpectedly.
Seeing all that, though, helps me realize how far our family came.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Virginia Warren
-=-
"If I had spoken to my parents the way some children do now, I wouldn't be
here to share this status. Some children need to learn the meaning of
respect. Share if you agree."
-=-
How can all of the people agreeing with this statement fail to notice that
they are casually accusing their own parents of being capable of child
murder? They are advocating emulating the parenting practices of people
they are simultaneously describing as barely-restrained homicidal maniacs.
Clearly, many people find it less painful to believe they deserved to be
treated badly than to believe that the bad treatment they received was a
terrible mistake. Sometimes I feel lucky for my unambiguously bad parents.
Virginia
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
"If I had spoken to my parents the way some children do now, I wouldn't be
here to share this status. Some children need to learn the meaning of
respect. Share if you agree."
-=-
How can all of the people agreeing with this statement fail to notice that
they are casually accusing their own parents of being capable of child
murder? They are advocating emulating the parenting practices of people
they are simultaneously describing as barely-restrained homicidal maniacs.
Clearly, many people find it less painful to believe they deserved to be
treated badly than to believe that the bad treatment they received was a
terrible mistake. Sometimes I feel lucky for my unambiguously bad parents.
Virginia
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Sandra Dodd
Virginia, I agree. The other night on TV on the same program where they were later going to talk about Rhiannon taking back her abusive boyfriend, there were jokes about a parent being harsh to a kid. I just noticed it and turned it off.
This is kind of haunting me. The second line...
-=-: "I agree that children need rules but at the same time not mindless structure. Powering them down off of sugar and other stimulants are the first wave of things. We also need to get parents out of the micromanaging of their childrens lives to the extent that they do. Kids have to learn how to negotiate with others and come to terms with things like wants, loss, and control issues. Oddily enough parents need to learn these skills to0 as the kid will see what his/her parents do and emulate them which can take years to undo."-=-
-=-Powering them down off of sugar and other stimulants are the first wave of things. -=-
Doesn't it seem kind of like a plan to disrupt the power source of a robot uprising?
-=-Kids have to learn how to negotiate with others and come to terms with things like wants, loss, and control issues. -=-
To come to terms with control issues? To accept other people's control?
Or to over come their own desire to control something? Therei s control, one way or the other, but the kids AND their parents should "come to terms" with it.
I'm guessing some of the people in the discussion are teachers.
But it's a captured clue from people who would surely think unschoolers are raising dangerous sugar-fueled robots. :-)
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
This is kind of haunting me. The second line...
-=-: "I agree that children need rules but at the same time not mindless structure. Powering them down off of sugar and other stimulants are the first wave of things. We also need to get parents out of the micromanaging of their childrens lives to the extent that they do. Kids have to learn how to negotiate with others and come to terms with things like wants, loss, and control issues. Oddily enough parents need to learn these skills to0 as the kid will see what his/her parents do and emulate them which can take years to undo."-=-
-=-Powering them down off of sugar and other stimulants are the first wave of things. -=-
Doesn't it seem kind of like a plan to disrupt the power source of a robot uprising?
-=-Kids have to learn how to negotiate with others and come to terms with things like wants, loss, and control issues. -=-
To come to terms with control issues? To accept other people's control?
Or to over come their own desire to control something? Therei s control, one way or the other, but the kids AND their parents should "come to terms" with it.
I'm guessing some of the people in the discussion are teachers.
But it's a captured clue from people who would surely think unschoolers are raising dangerous sugar-fueled robots. :-)
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]