Seeing Children As Equals

[Maria]

I'm new to the no-rules approach, but now looking back I can see that I've been heading in this direction for years.  When I started reading about radical unschooling a couple of months ago I mentioned things to people, but I didn't make any grand statements. 

Recently I visited my parents, who aren't especially pleased I'm home-educating Megs and Austin, but apart from odd comments and workbooks, have left me to alone.  However this time, perhaps after Megs announced that "mummy doesn't teach me anything", I felt quite a change.  But the stand-out moment was when my father blew up at Austin over a puzzle he wanted to have from Megs.  This led to him storming out and my mum trying to rationalise, saying that adults get cross and children have to accept their judgement.  Austin said "well mum treats us as equals".  My mum looked at me with mild shock. "Do you?" she asked.  I said yes.

When we returned home I told a close friend, who also looked shocked at my saying I treat them as equals.  I started to tell another, but I suddenly realised that she (and maybe none of my friends) might not like hearing it either.

Seeing children as equals is at the heart of radical unschooling - isn't it?  I'm having a moment of wondering if I might be a bit crazy, though it make total sense to me.  By equals I mean that  I am not ultimately superior by virtue of age.  I am their parent, it is up to me to look out for their well-being, to lead the family when needed, to provide what I feel is a positive example.  But my judgement is not necessarily 'better' than theirs.

Any thoughts?

[Joyce Fetteroll]

It's a very idealized position you're arguing. While it sounds nice, it's going to make some of unschooling a bit muddy.

Equality is a good concept to prevent people from being discriminated against. But it won't help you see your role in their unschooling clearly.

They aren't your equals in terms of emotional maturity and knowledge of the world. They are biologically designed to be dependent on you. You can idealized those differences away, but it doesn't make them not true.

You can lift your kids up to your height by lending them your power. But that doesn't make them your height.

Better concepts for unschooling are giving them the support they need to explore their interests. Treating them with the respect due to fellow human beings. Lending them your power to explore further than they can on their own. Lending them your greater wisdom to support them in exploring respectfully, safely and peacefully. Listening to them and taking their wants, needs and desires seriously.

It's more of a mentor/apprentice relationship than equals. The mentor could be overpowering, squashing the apprentice which won't be good for unschooling. Or the mentor can step back and allow the apprentice room to explore and make mistakes, then stepping in when necessary and when the apprentice wants the support. But the mentor shouldn't see the apprentice as her equal because the apprentice still needs support in learning about how the world works and what should and shouldn't be done and why.

Joyce

[Meredith]

Unschooling doesn't begin with a premise of equality, it begins with the premise that learning is a natural human drive and that it's possible to support a child's natural ability to learn about the world. Support isn't necessarily about equality, and neither is learning. While some people bring other ideals to their personal understanding of unschooling, they aren't necessary or inherent to the philosophy.

It might help to think about why you want to tell people you see your children as equals - are you trying to get them to understand you? Agree with you? Change their behavior to suit your philosophy? One of the mistakes people new to unschooling make is to become very disrespectful and dismissive of the thoughts and feelings of other adults! It helped me to remind myself that adults don't like lessons any more than kids ;)

Austin said "well mum treats us as equals".  My mum looked at me with mild shock. "Do you?" she asked.  I said yes.

But what does that Mean? To your parents, equality might mean "everyone works hard for the good of the family" and by those standards your children very clearly aren't being treated as equals, they're being treated as welcome guests.

This led to him storming out and my mum trying to rationalise, saying that adults get cross and children have to accept their judgement.

In the future, it might be more helpful for you to prep your kids a bit before visiting grandparents and other adults, to help things go more smoothly. One of the things kids get to learn about, living life, is that people may be rude, or difficult, or have unspoken expectations of how others "should" behave. The world isn't made up of unschoolers! My kids know this and know to modify their behavior in different situations. Recently my daughter started coming to work with me one day a week and I made sure she knew to be very courteous with my boss, who is in her 70s, and be gently tolerant of my male co-workers. They're all trying to be friendly and welcoming to Morgan, and respect her in their way, but that will stop in a flash if she's rude.

[Jean Godar]

     Maria, I am going to support you on this. Good for you for seeing your children in this light. When you said that you treat your children as "equals" I thought of my own definition of that word as being synonymous with "egalitarian" - believing in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities. It sounds like you have a vision for your family that children and young people contribute, are valued, and their rights are respected. I love your definition : "By "equal" I mean that I am not ultimately superior by virtue of age. I am their parent, it is up to me to look out for their well-being, to lead the family when needed, to provide what I feel is a positive example. But my judgement is not necessarily 'better' than theirs."
     When your son said that you treated him as an equal, my interpretation is that he was saying that you treat him with respect and value his opinion and perspective (as you would someone much older.) He may have been feeling the frustration of having to deal with someone who he felt was treating him unfairly, perhaps solely because that person is the "adult". Simply being an adult gives us great power over children, and sometimes we adults treat children in ways we would never treat another adult. (And sometimes, when given the opportunity, adults are condescending and hypocritical to other adults).
     You are just starting out on this journey of becoming a unschooling family. Please follow your heart, your intuition, and remember what it was to be a child. I too had my doubts when I made the break from the hierarchical power structures, one being traditional school, it is so ingrained in us it can be hard to think and feel out of the box. It sounds like you have the right ideas when it comes to your relations with your children. Perhaps, by taking on this perspective and trying to see our children through the tinted glasses of equality it will help to shift the imbalance a bit.
    Here is one of my favorite quotes, it is from John Holt from Instead of Education, I feel this has a connection to what we are discussing.
   "Next to the right to life itself, the most fundamental of all human rights is the right to control our own minds and thoughts. That means, the right to decide for ourselves how we will explore the world around us, think about our own and other persons' experiences, and find and make the meaning of our own lives. Whoever takes that right away from us, as the educators do, attacks the very center of our being and does us a most profound and lasting injury. He tells us, in effect, that we cannot be trusted even to think, that for all our lives we must depend on others to tell us the meaning of our world and our lives, and that any meaning we may make for ourselves, out of our own experience, has no value."

[Meredith]

When your son said that you treated him as an equal, my interpretation is that he was saying that you treat him with respect and value his opinion and perspective 

 

That may be true, but how did the other person hear it? Did grandma feel respected and valued? That's the sticky point when you focus on ideas like equality and respect - the perception of either depends on the person on the receiving end. The catch with principles and values is that it doesn't help to "apply" them - you're more likely to make a mess of things that way. Demanding respect isn't respectful. Pushing equality doesn't treat others as equal.

In the original story, a kid felt disrespect and turned around and gave the same disrespect to an adult. That's a common outcome if you try to apply a principle like equality or respect, but it doesn't support relationships and for the most part people don't learn anything new. Bummer.

 

Step back from rights and be kind. Look for ways to extend kindness and joyfulness all around you. Help your kids get along with people in ways that feel good - to them, to you, to other people. When you do that, you're living a life that values people equally, whether you like them or not, agree with them or not. It's totally possible to do that without going to an opposite extreme and becoming some kind of doormat! Being a doormat is another example of applying a principle rather than seeking to live by it - you apply it to others but not yourself... woops! 

[Jean Godar]

     Maria wrote a post saying that basically she is examining her philosophy as a parent and looking at treating her children as equals. She says that "equal" means "By equals I mean that I am not ultimately superior by virtue of age. I am their parent, it is up to me to look out for their well-being, to lead the family when needed, to provide what I feel is a positive example. But my judgement is not necessarily 'better' than theirs".
    I personally, philosophically, spiritually, wholeheartedly, agree with her. Why ? Because that is how have and still be treat my children. I spoke with all of them and they stated that they would define my parenting style as such. Some people call it "unconditional parenting"
    I wonder if our differences on this topic are based on semantics because sometimes people can get thrown off of something by their own definition of a word. Or are our differences based on actual differences in our perceptions about children and power? The word ‘equality’ is a loaded and highly contested concept. Your replies to Maria's post sounds like your worried about Maria's kids becoming unruly spoiled children because she respects them and treats them as equals.
   I believe that radical unschooling in at it's very core about respect, empowerment...equality. What about a vision of a society in which children and young people contribute, are valued, and their rights respected. Wouldn't that be done in part through what Maria is proposing ?

    Here's part of your previous post :
   "In the future, it might be more helpful for you to prep your kids a bit before visiting grandparents and other adults, to help things go more smoothly. One of the things kids get to learn about, living life, is that people may be rude, or difficult, or have unspoken expectations of how others "should" behave. The world isn't made up of unschoolers! My kids know this and know to modify their behavior in different situations. Recently my daughter started coming to work with me one day a week and I made sure she knew to be very courteous with my boss, who is in her 70s, and be gently tolerant of my male co-workers. They're all trying to be friendly and welcoming to Morgan, and respect her in their way, but that will stop in a flash if she's rude"
    Now I'm going to turn this around, as an exercise in pushing the envelope a bit :
  "In the future, it might be more helpful for you to prep your parents a bit before visiting with their grandkids and other very young people, to help things go more smoothly. One of the things older people still need to learn about, living life, is that small children may be may rude, or difficult, or have unspoken expectations of how others "should" behave. The world isn't made up of mature adults! My parents know this and know to modify their behavior in different situations. Recently my mother started coming to work with me one day a week and I made sure she knew to be very courteous with my first graders, who are six and seven years old, and be gently tolerant of my (socially challenge because of gender? ) students. They're all trying to be friendly and welcoming to my mother, and respect her in their way, but that will stop in a flash if she's rude"

[Joyce Fetteroll]

*** When your son said that you treated him as an equal, my interpretation is that he was saying that you treat him with respect and value his opinion and perspective ***

Equal is a nice ideal for life but it's not useful as a principle for unschooling. The problem is that it *is* open to interpretation. Making choices that are "more equal" isn't as helpful for creating a learning environment as the concepts you're using to describe your interpretation of equal: respect, empowerment.

*** What about a vision of a society ... ***

That's a separate idea. People can have visions of a society where all ages are equal without unschooling. People can unschool without visions of a society where all ages are equal. It confuses both concepts to think of them as one.

*** One of the things older people still need to learn about, living life ***

Which is where equality steers towards points of view that will make unschooling decisions more difficult.

Trying to change people, like relatives who have different views on child rearing, having different views on whether kids are equals or not, is likely to make them angry.

Better is helping people be comfortable in situations where they feel uncertain by helping them understand. (Which doesn't apply to family get togethers.)

Better is keeping kids out of situations they aren't ready for. Someone who is using equality as a guide is more likely to decide kids have as much right as anyone to be in a social situation as adults. And that's not true. The determination isn't based on equality but ability to act in socially acceptable ways.

Joyce

[Maria]

Thank you for your responses.  I found it really useful to hear different interpretations of 'equal'.

I trained for a while to be a counsellor and was drawn to Carl Rogers - the link between individual growth and the nature of the relationships.  Respect, trust and unconditional positive regard.  So my sense of 'equal' is not very political; it is.. more a heart-felt total recognition of a fellow human. 

Thank you Jean.  Your suggestion about how to prepare for a visit made me smile! I appreciate your highlighting the bias towards preparing children for adults.

 

[Meredith]

I wonder if our differences on this topic are based on semantics because sometimes people can get thrown off of something by their own definition of a word. Or are our differences based on actual differences in our perceptions about children and power?

It's more of a difference between discussing philosophic ideals in the abstract versus figuring out how to live with those ideals as a guiding force in your life. How do you live a life which values people equally? It's a real, nuts and bolts question - a great question! Because life isn't fair and people regularly Don't treat each others as equals, especially kids, so it's easy to get cynical... and then all your lovely ideals are for naught. That's why equality doesn't work for me, personally, as a principle, but kindness does - when I'm focused on spreading kindness, I treat people with equal respect and dignity. When I'm focused on equality, I get very, very cranky. But that's the intersection between personal issues and philosophy. Some moms feel very strangled by the idea of "kindness". If focusing on equality helps you make your kids' lives easier, that's a good thing (because people learn more easily when there's less stress - the ethics of unschooling are the ethics of supporting learning).

"In the future, it might be more helpful for you to prep your parents a bit before visiting with their grandkids and other very young people, to help things go more smoothly.

That's a good point - depending on the specific people and situation it can be a very good, practical thing to do! It depends on a lot of factors, just like prepping kids. I actually did prep my boss and coworkers a bit for meeting my daughter because she's quirky and shy and I didn't want her to be overwhelmed with a rush of well meaning friendliness. But there are also situations where it's not possible for me to prep the adults at all, or where trying to explain things to adults beforehand will result in more conflict - such as grandparents who think all this "gentle parenting stuff" is nonsense or don't appreciate being told how to behave by the younger generation. 

Over the years I've done a bit of gentle information sharing with my partner's mom and my Aunty (who stands in as Mo's other grandma). They both dote on Morgan and are glad for any tips which help things go more smoothly. My dad and his wife aren't interested in that. They've both raised multiple sets of kids (including step kids and grandkids) and they have their ways of doing things. They aren't interested in hearing what will help Mo - she's a child and "needs to learn to respect adults". So we meet in neutral territory, I make sure Mo eats first so they don't try to bully her, I run a little interference, and everyone goes home happy. I can and have jumped to my kids' defense, but setting the stage for that to happen isn't going to help anyone get along or feel "equal". 

Your replies to Maria's post sounds like your worried about Maria's kids becoming unruly spoiled children because she respects them and treats them as equals. 

 

No. If they're perceived that way by other people, they run a real risk of being treated badly (and the parents may find themselves treated badly, too, or ostracized). Sometimes it's not possible to prevent other adults from treating kids badly - that's something I run into with Mo now and then and it was something we ran into again and again when my stepson was a young teen. Adults were sometimes appallingly rude to him because of his age. It helped a little to stand up for him in rough moments, but it helped more if he had some idea what to expect - he's very good with people, but if he was expecting easy-going adults and got blindsided by someone who was dismissive of him, things could turn ugly fast.  The worst time was when a man wrestled him into a headlock (none of Ray's parents were present) because "your boy was disrespecting me". After that, Ray was very, very careful how he spoke to that man but until that moment he thought "its all good, he's an old hippie, I can relax and talk to him like a person." 

Here's another example. One of the things we coached my stepson about was how to talk to police. Ray looks like a bad-boy - he likes the look, and he can get away with it because he's white and he knows to be very very careful when talking to police. In a sense, he knows that in order to be treated with dignity he shouldn't push their "danger" buttons any more than he does looking the way he looks. That's not fair. It shouldn't matter how he dresses or whether or not he says Yes Sir, or what color his skin is - and yet all of those things have and will continue to play into the decision of whether or not police will harass or search or arrest him.

Kids are stuck navigating a world in which they are not equal. We can't change that. We can treat them kindly and thoughtfully and graciously and help them navigate that world as easily as we can possibly manage so they don't feel "less than" others and learning and wonder flow and swirl through their lives as a result. 

[Meredith]

We can treat them kindly and thoughtfully and graciously and help them navigate that world as easily as we can possibly manage so they don't feel "less than" others and learning and wonder flow and swirl through their lives as a result. 

 

I'm starting a new post from here, because I'm going off on a bit of a tangent. In a home with multiple children, it can be a massive disaster to try and treat kids "equally" - because ironically it sets kids up to feel "less than" when their needs are different. My stepson, for instance, needed a looooooot more attention than my daughter. When he didn't get enough attention he would clamor for more and more and more - which didn't feel good to anyone. It was more helpful to step back from ideas of equality and see that he had big needs. He could get them filled in ways which were easier or ways which were harder. Choosing to meet his needs deliberately and proactively made the lives of everyone in the family better.

 

Rather than focusing on "equality" it can help to strive to create a sense of abundance - not in the sense of material goods, necessarily, but in terms of emotional "fullness". Different personalities "fill up" in different ways - and that's something which changes over time. 

 

Husbands (working partners) sometimes wind up feeling "less than" when moms get all revved up about ideas of freedom and equality for children. This is a big deal - a partner who is supporting a family may not feel like an equal, he can start to feel like all this lovely ideology is for other people, not for him. He's the worker to mom and kids' bourgeoisie lifestyle, as it were. It's important to be gentle and kind and gracious to your partner so he doesn't feel "less than" the other members of the family - because when people feel "less than" they don't value others' needs as much. When people feel a sense of abundance, it's easier to share the wealth.