RoR: Forum

I saw this thread in the morning, but was too busy to comment. I come back to it and find it has degenerated into a food fight. Pity. It has potential.

As those who read the unschooling thread know I both have children and am strongly against coercion, which I do not equate with permissiveness.

As my oldest is 12 we will have to wait and see if I change my mind by the time they are adults, but I disagree with the "Nanny" approach that Robert, in retrospect, thinks is good. Note that I have never seen the show, only heard about it.

I think threads on coercion and the rights of children will discuss more fully the fundamentals, but I'd like to address the points raised by Scott in post 27.

I have never had the occasion to use force against my children and would never initiate force against them. However, the use of force is valid in self defense and in the defence of rights in general.

Therefore the question becomes, at least for me, does the scenario Scott paints in post 27 constitute a violation of his rights, justifying the use of force? To me it seems yes.

This never came up in the unschooling thread because we were discussing using force in the context of giving a child an education, not in the context of protecting rights.

I will look for the threads on children's rights and coercion to continue that aspect of the discussion.

If this thread returns to the specific topic of discussing permissiveness in parenting I will post further here.

--jorge

Knowledge is Power. Power Corrupts. Study hard, be Evil. -Anonymous

(Edited by Jorge
on 5/20, 9:56pm)

Post 41

Friday, May 20, 2005 - 9:08pm

Jorge:

Knowledge is Power. Power Corrupts. Study hard, be Evil. -Anonymous

How delightfully tongue-in-cheek! I had a good belly laugh with that one. Where on earth did you get it?

(Er... think about checking out the Satanism and Objectivism thread? A most learned Evil One lurks about over there who apparently practices what you preach...)

Michael

Post 42

Saturday, May 21, 2005 - 4:14am

I've seen name-calling and the like destroy what were once terrific web forums. It's like a poison that seeps in and ruins everything it touches. I'd hate to see that happen to an important place like this. Calling someone on what they've posted (or haven't) is constructive, but reducing it to insults and ultimatums creates an uninviting climate for constructive debate.

Angela, as SOLO grows more and more knuckleheads turn up. The knuckleheads seem to go away after a few months and are replaced by new knuckleheads. There are a significant number of genuinely good people here and as long as they stick around SOLO will be fine. The good out-number the knuckleheads 4-1. :-)

Post 43

Saturday, May 21, 2005 - 4:23am

Regarding Branden's quote (somewhat),

Parenting is a skill like any other. And it isn't thought of as a skill very much. I see parents every week who find a comfortable balance with their kid's autonomy. And I see a handful of other parents who do everything in their power to ruin their kids. Not intentionally, of course. It's just that they have no "feel" for parenting and they sure as hell haven't studied, read or thought about it.

The best thing any of us can do for a kid is to be true to ourselves. To be a model for them. Let them watch us living well and they'll figure the rest out. Kids are smart.

Post 44

Saturday, May 21, 2005 - 5:52am

The Nanny shows make me want to puke. A parent crying because she cant control the little bastards is pathetic.

On the quote: JJ is right on. Relevant, and objectively valid quote. Thanks for throwing it out there.

Jason I think you are mistaken in her motives and in your chastising her for putting the quote up.

John

Post 45

Saturday, May 21, 2005 - 5:54am

Lance,

I think Branden said somewhere that one of the most important things a parent can do is allowing a child to experience and see the example of a parent successfully engaged with their work.

I grew up in a permissive environment (my father died when I was 9) and I think the effects are variable. However, the one thing my mother did do was move us up to a small town in northwest Iowa where my grandparents and an uncle and his family lived. My brother and I knew if we really got out of hand my mother would call my uncle (a former marine) over to take care of business.

I always remember having my interests nurtured. When my father was still alive and we were in rural Georgia, I remember going coon hunting and fishing all the time on weekends and during the summer. I also remember playing chess with the local high school chess team during second and third grade.

I also remember visiting the particle accelerator at Fermilab outside of Chicago where one of my uncles worked at the time. Going up in the control tower and looking out over the two-mile ring made a big impression on me at six. For a long time my goal in life was to be a high energy physicist. I also remember going down to Argentina for a couple of months (my father was a Latin American historian) when I was nine and attending an Argentinian school for two months getting by with a translation book and whatever Spanish I had managed to master. My mother also took us on a 7 week trip to England and Ireland just before 8th grade and we had a total blast.

My mother moved us from that small town to Des Moines, Iowa before high school and got us involved in accelerated math and science programs. She also taught my brother and I how to play tennis and made sure I had violin lessons and encouraged me to practice although she left it up to me whether I did so or not. She allowed my brother to drop the bass when it became clear he was less musically inclined. He was encouraged to go to a math summer program when he showed math aptitude and finished two years of algebra in six weeks and came back to enroll in Des Moines' magnet school to finish geometry and trig in eighth grade and AB and BC Calculus as a high school freshman ( at the same time I took Calculus as a senior!)

For all of the moaning and groaning about public schools, my brother and I attended public schools our whole lives and received decent educations with many great role models as teachers. I remember having a great high school physics teacher who ran a special session before school for promising students and a took us through special problem solving sessions and we read the Second Creation about symmetry breaking after the Big Bang and Infinite in all Directions by Freeman Dyson. I had an Orchestra director who was second chair in the Des Moines Symphony. I had a biology teacher who encouraged me to read Origin of Species and under whom we dissected fetal pigs and cats. I had an anthropology teacher who had us read from primary sources such as Leakey and Levi-Strauss. I had several liberal teachers who I enjoyed arguing Rand with. I even had one English teacher that encouraged me to write a book report on We the Living after I had read Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead (He had read the book and enjoyed it.) I also had a terrific Calculus and Geometry teachers.

So I am somewhat incredulous over all of the angst about schooling and parenting. Childhood is a joyous period of discovery!

The missing context from Branden's quote is that parents that establish reasonable authority very early rarely have to use it. Also, parents who lead boring lives can expect their kids to be bored.

(Edited by James Heaps-Nelson on 5/21, 6:53am)

Post 46

Saturday, May 21, 2005 - 7:47am

After my last post, I started thinking about general curriculum improvements that could be made. There is very little economics instruction in public schools and very little instruction in logic. Also, I think some more rigorous exposure to Latin and Greek word roots and vocabulary building exercises around 7th grade or so would be beneficial.

I had an experimental combined Language Arts/ Social Sciences class in 8th grade where we went through a book called "30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary". The emphasis was on Latin and Greek word roots and it helped me tremendously. The only logic training I received was in a 4th grade supplemental program working out problems using logic boxes. I also think schools should try to squeeze in a course in Statistics, if possible. I can't believe I made it through an MS in Chemical Engineering without having a class in Statistics. However, I took plenty of Statistics classes when I worked at Intel!

(Edited by James Heaps-Nelson on 5/21, 7:49am)

Post 47

Saturday, May 21, 2005 - 11:01am

Linz:

"...As one who believes all children should be drowned at birth & their parents horsewhipped for being so careless as to spawn them, I can view this matter with optimal objectivity, & I thought the two sides were talking past each other."

You know, I am basically at the point now where Linz could sock me in the jewels and, with common sense and tongue in cheek, hysterical stuff like this, I don't think I'd much take offense. Friggin' hysterical!

John:

"The Nanny shows make me want to puke. A parent crying because she cant control the little bastards is pathetic."

You CANNOT watch Nanny 911 with any type of seriousness at the forefront of your conciousness (but if you do, you will puke). You need to be firmly in the 'watch cartoons' or 'watch Star Wars III' mindset to watch it and enjoy the ridiculousness of it, and chuckle at the utter suffering of these foolish people who have accepted such worthless child-rearing premises.

All of you 'argument from authority' folks can kiss my grits, Flo. I was a kid. I had brothers and sisters. I have babysat my share of kids when I was younger. My peers and siblings have kids. Now, I agree, there is nothing like raising them. But do automobile reviewers have to physically assemble a car themselves before they are allowed to pass on car quality or needed improvements? (Now I want everyone to notice how this last bit ties in with my teasing Kat about the whole "relationships are not cars and stuff" ages ago--and possibly even in a different thread. I couldn't LIVE with myself unless everyone got to see how clever I am...).
(Edited by Scott DeSalvo
on 5/21, 11:25am)

Post 48

Saturday, May 21, 2005 - 11:29am

So I am somewhat incredulous over all of the angst about schooling and parenting. Childhood is a joyous period of discovery!

James,

It's a jungle out there, buddy. My family network was/is quite good and I'm forever grateful about that. The stories I hear about the childhood of my contemporaries are often frightful; all kinds of abuse, a multitude of broken homes, mostly apathetic teachers. Childhood is all too rarely a joyous period of discovery.

It ought to be that and under the right circumstances it would be that.

Post 49

Saturday, May 21, 2005 - 2:02pm