Instead of focusing on rules, Taking Children Seriously focuses on fostering understanding. Parenting is the process of supporting a child until they understand the world well enough that they can support themselves. What is the best way to foster understanding? To provide freedom and security for a person’s creativity to discover how the world works. Rules limit freedom, and hence understanding, and therefore impair the parenting project.
Instead of focusing on rules, Taking Children Seriously focuses on fostering understanding. Parenting is the process of supporting a child until they understand the world well enough that they can support themselves. What is the best way to foster understanding? To provide freedom and security for a person’s creativity to discover how the world wor
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Don’t forget this secret to great parenting: children are real people on the inside, just like you and me. They gravitate to people who believe the best of them, give them time to learn, and do not repeatedly remind them of their mistakes and shortcomings. People of all ages like to be asked, not told. They appreciate it when their needs are taken
... See moreSince food and screens and sleep play a role in everyone’s daily life, this gatekeeping is a constant job, which puts kids in a continual state of opposition. The old-school way of avoiding the painstaking work of gatekeeping was to be threatening and intimidating. “Don’t even ask,” the parent might say in clipped tones. The simple act of asking wh
... See moreGood parenting opens minds. Good parenting encourages children to ask questions and provides the child with a guilt-free environment in which to bud and bloom.