Taking Children Seriously

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When I force my son to go to bed, TCS parents equate that with rape or beating. That’s too far-fetched for me. But while I reject their belief that no coercion is best, I will acknowledge that less coercion is better. By exploring their philosophy and questioning my own firm beliefs about my parenting role, I have discovered opportunities in raising my son where before I saw problems, and for this I am grateful.

The problem for those of us outside TCS theory is that it is only a theory, as the adherents freely admit; there is no proof that it works. Even if the idea of using human beings to prove a parenting hypothesis was feasible, there are no adults raised on TCS philosophy to whom we can look. The first TCS children raised from infancy without coercion are just now heading into their teens, I am told. It will be interesting, one day, to hear their thoughts about their upbringing.

Dawn Friedman lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband and 6-year-old son, Noah. Excerpted from the thoughtful and provocative parenting magazine Brain, Child (Winter 2003). Subscriptions: $18 (4 issues) from Box 714, Lexington, VA 24450.

Readers Respond

Dawn Friedman's article in Brain, Child inspired more letters to the editor than any other article the magazine had ever published. Here are two of them.

I, for one, get chills thinking about the selfish youngsters about to be unleashed on the world by practitioners of this kind of nonparenting.

Maybe if adults lived in a world where we got to do everything we wanted, this kind of approach would make sense. I have enough faith in children to believe that they will still be wonderfully creative and outstanding thinkers, even while learning to fulfill their obligations to take care of themselves and others.

I see a couple of major problems with TCS reasoning. First, the assumption that a child’s ego and sense of self are so fragile that “coercion” will do some kind of psychological damage. Anyone with an 18-month-old knows that their own sense of self is completely intact; getting them to realize that there are other “selves” out there in the world that need to be respected is the challenge. Which brings me to the second problem. “Respecting” a child by kowtowing to his every whim will hardly induce the child to respect the person who is doing the kowtowing. Yet TCS supposes that this is what will happen.

Don't you think it would be scary for a 5-year-old to believe her parents didn't have any answers? Or worse, has the answers and won't share them?!
Carol Price Spurling, Moscow, Idaho

Dear TCS Mommy:

When you call to tell me that you won't be coming over to play as we had planned because your son has rationally explained that he “doesn't want to,” and I have to throw out the pot of freshly brewed coffee, freeze the cake I baked, and explain to my sobbing daughter that not only is her friend not coming over to play, but it's too late to try to call other friends and invite them over, I want to know how you can justify placing one person’s need to be taken seriously (your child’s) over others’ need (mine, and my child’s).

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