Change Your Default Setting From "No" to "Maybe"

I have had many conversations about parenting in the past eight months since I started this blog. The absolute most frustrating type of conversation goes something like this:

Me: I like to help my kids get what they want.
Other Person: That's impossible! What if they want to go to the moon in a spaceship? I can't get my kids what they want every time they ask! I'd be broke.

Here's why I have a problem with this kind of thinking: It's focused on the impossibilities, the exceptions, the singularities. It's focused on what we can't do. How often do our children want things that are truly impossible to get? More importantly, how often do our children want things that are possible, and we brush them off because we have to teach them they can't always get what they want.

A parent who thinks this way has the default setting of No. She's at the grocery store with her kids, and they ask for a piece of  candy or a small toy at the checkout counter.

She thinks: We can't buy something for you every time we go to the store.

She responds: No, put it down. 

She's satisfied with the lesson: You can't always get what you want .

I guess the idea here is that the parent is afraid that if she "gives in" this time, the child will come to expect it every time.

Freedom Doesn't Always Look Pretty

My children have a lot of freedom. They are free to make their own choices about lots of things like food, television, sleep, bathing, helping around the house. This makes a lot of people nervous. I have had more than a few people tell me, That's great if it works for you, but it wouldn't work for my kids. My kids wouldn't be able to regulate themselves.

I understand it's difficult to imagine what it looks like when you allow children this kind of control over their own lives. We grow up being told that children are incapable of making good decisions. It's hard to let that idea go. I was doubtful about it when I first read the suggestion, not long ago. But as we read more about radical unschooling, my husband and I decided we could and wanted to trust our children.

About a year and a half later, I can definitely report that the freedom is "working" for us. My kids are happy and healthy and fun, and we have wonderful relationships with each other. That doesn't mean it's always easy or that it always looks pretty, though. Some days the kids make choices that seem to be extreme and, if taken out of context, would probably make us look like "bad" parents.

So what does freedom look like in our house?

The Television Ate My Child's Brain! Or Not.

I've been reading a lot lately about how bad it is for kids to watch television. How television is like an addictive drug that induces a brain stupor for anyone who watches for too long. How kids can't possibly learn anything from watching a screen. How kids love limits and will someday thank me for limiting their screen time. How I should not let my kids watch too much or they might actually be sucked into the screen and disappear forever. Ok, not really that last one.


My kids watch television. I'm not afraid to admit it. We love watching it together. We don't have cable, but we do have DVDs, VHS tapes, a library card, a computer hooked up to our television and a Netflix account, so there are almost no limits on the number and range of programs we can access.

Also, they have absolutely no arbitrary limits on how much television they can watch. We let them decide how much is right for them. There are days when the television is on all day. Does this mean my kids are zombies with brains of mush? If so, I haven't noticed it.

Where Children Are Treated Like Adults

This is my third post in a series about an article in The Atlantic called How to Land Your Kids in Therapy. In it, Jean Twenge, a co-author of The Narcissism Epidemic and professor of psychology at San Diego State University claims that:

We treat our kids like adults when they’re children, and we infantilize them when they’re 18 years old.

Sometimes I feel like I don't live on the same planet as these experts. How many people do you know who treat their kids even remotely like adults?

"You Can Do Anything You Want." Except That.

This is the second in a series of posts about an article from The Atlantic by Lori Gottlieb, called "How to Land Your Kid in Therapy." In the first one, I argued against the premise of the article, which seems to be that if your child ever goes to therapy, even if he only has wonderful things to say about you, you might be a failure as a parent.

Today I want to address an idea that is often expressed in our society, and is perpetuated by articles like this. I touched on this topic once before, in The Myth Of Permissive Parents. Here is a quote found in Gottlieb's article, from Barry Schwarz, a Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College:

Most parents tell kids, ‘You can do anything you want, you can quit any time, you can try this other thing if you’re not 100 percent satisfied with the other.’

THIS IS A MYTH! It shocks me every time I hear it. This is NOT what most parents say. Let me alter it slightly for you with some of my own additions in bold: 

Life Is Not Fair... But Parents Can Be

It's a phrase people use a lot. Life is not fair. And it's true. Nature doesn't do fair. Terrible diseases can dramatically reduce the chances for some people to enjoy life, and cause people to die young and tragically. Hurricanes and tsunamis and tornadoes strike with unforgiving intensity. Some people get much more than a fair share of nature's wrath, while others seem to skip through life unaffected.

What does this have to do with parenting?

Choosing Your Guide

You have been invited to go on a day-long hike by two of your friends, to the same place, on the same day. You have never been hiking before, so you will be relying on your friend to guide you on the difficult course. You have to choose one of them:

Kids and Limits

Limits. Boundaries. Restrictions. Things that must be imposed on children for their own good, right? Parents who don't draw hard lines and enforce compliance are told they are setting their kids up for lives of crime. How will they know their limits if you don't tell them what they are?

It is even commonly believed that children don't just need parent-set limits, they actually crave limits. Whenever I hear that, I get a vision of Homer's Odysseus and his encounter with the Sirens. In order not to fall victim to the irresistible song of the Sirens, he orders his men to tie him up and not to let him go, no matter how hard he begs. Are people saying that our children are like this? That they will thank us for restraining them (literally or figuratively), for giving them no choice but to avoid temptation?

This guy did thank his crew for keeping him tied up. (source)

"You Can't Always Get What You Want"

I don't like to hear adults say this about children: They have to learn they can't always get what they want. And I really don't like the implication that it's my job to teach my children this lesson, by withholding things they desire.

Because I want my kids to keep having big dreams. And to keep sharing them with me. There are enough obstacles in the world without me having to be one for my own children. I want them to see me as someone who will help them get around the obstacles instead of add to them. Someone who will help them realize their dreams instead of shut them down.

These kids (my cousins) were determined to throw this really heavy rock off the pier.

I wonder if the parents who never want their kids to quit things are the same parents who consistently respond to their kids' requests for things with: No, you can't have that. And quit asking! I hope not. Because that would be confusing.

Food Freedom

We are nation confused about food. It seems like every week, there is a new study about what's good for you and what's bad for you. Experts do not agree. We have people advising us not to eat any meat, and others to eat mostly meat. We have some touting the goodness of whole grains, and others saying we don't need any grains at all. You can find advice to go gluten-free, dairy-free, low fat, low carb, raw, fermented, or a hundred other things.

One of the most difficult things about nutrition confusion is when you become a parent and suddenly you are responsible for not only your own choices, but also those of your children. Parents are advised that they know best. Parents are told to decide what their kids should eat, when their kids should eat, and how much they should eat. I've seen lots of articles over the years warning against giving kids too much food freedom.

But how are we supposed to decide what is best for our kids if the experts can't even agree on what's best for us?