Questioning our Assumptions

To raise a child as a sovereign being requires self-awareness, attunement, and emotional intelligence. As parents, we may be more controlling than we realize. We may think we're helping a child to follow their own path when it's really our path.

Not long ago it was not unusual to punish or threaten children for being gay, refusing to eat meat, wanting/not wanting to go to college, refusing to join the family business, or playing with 'girl' or 'boy' toys that didn't agree with the child's visible gender identify. Of course, there are still parents who do this, but most kids experience more freedom in these areas than they did a couple of generations ago. Cultural consensus is gathering around the belief that it isn't right to hurt children to make them obey us, and that child labor and exploitation are not acceptable.

Will you join me in exploring your own family structures and expectations? Let's get curious about the paths we may be pushing our children toward, and the alternate paths that may be right for our child even though they seem strange to us.

Tomorrow--the difference between respectful parenting and permissive parenting.

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