自由。Jiyuu. In Japanese, this means "freedom."
My son is four. Almost five. He likes to go his own way. Do his own thing. And he is emphatically averse to being told what to do. Maybe it's like they say, that the apple does not fall far from the tree. I'm guessing in my son's case, though, that even if this were true, he might look up at the tree, stick out his tongue and roll down the hill. I couldn't be prouder. Or more tired!
As an anarchist who has studied children extensively, via voracious reading, institutions of higher learning, and my day-to-day life as an English teacher, I know that bossing people around does not accomplish much. Telling children what to do, threatening them with punishment if they don't do it, and giving no sensible explanation as to why they should do it, is a one-way ticket to creating an adult who will likely be an unhappy order follower, or worse.
Freedom.
Freedom is a scary word for many people. Myself included, at times. And, truth be told, it should be scary. But, it is also the most beautiful word there is, really.
This morning my wife was attempting to get my son Isaiah to put down the Nintendo 3DS, and come into the dining room to have breakfast, before heading off to Montessori. He let out a kind of whine and said "Jiyuu ga ii." "I wanna be free." For quite sometime now he has been ignoring my wife and I when we tell him to do something...or not do something.
Something always bothered me when I would basically force him to do something he wasn't ready to, or didn't want to. My wife and I try to never use threats or angry voices (though we fail at this over and over and over again), but even when I was gentle and "calm" there was often something "off" underneath it all. I wasn't affording him the responsibility of liberty of freedom.
But won't my kid just eat sweets and watch TV all day!?
This morning's episode got smoothed over somehow or another, but another conflict arose in the afternoon. Isaiah wanted to watch more TV (he had already watched a lot) and my wife had said that they should go to the library together. He was crying. He wanted to watch "just one more." I almost let my frustration take over, and was about to go into authoritarian mode and tell him to shut off the computer and listen to his mother, when I remembered:
Hey. You've seen freedom in action before. You talk about it all day. You've read A.S. Neill's book on the children at the free school called Summerhill, in England, and it changed your life. Give it a shot. You have before, and it was good. Now do it again.
"Isaiah," I said, "you've been talking a lot about wanting to be free, and you are your own person and you own yourself. You are right. Mommy is going to the library now, so if you want to go with her, you will have to close the laptop and stop watching the show. If you want to watch the show, that is also totally fine. I am not angry and this is not some kind of weird trick. You are free, and me and mommy don't always do the best respecting you as an individual. You can choose what you want to do."
Isaiah stopped crying. He sniffled out an "okay" and then began to type in his YouTube search on the laptop. Miyuki, my wife, headed for the door calmly. Isaiah looked back. In about 30 seconds he was with her in the foyer putting on his shoes. He made a very "adult" choice all on his own.
Another example involving CANDY!
When my wife and Isaiah returned from the library, I noticed he was carrying a giant lollipop. It was now dinner time. He proceeded to put the lollipop on the table to open it. "Hey, bud. Why don't we wait until after dinner to eat that?" His countenance fell, and he almost went into sad, pouty, ignore dad mode. I heard the voice again:
How's he gonna know what to do with freedom if you don't give him the chance to exercise it? The reason he is not listening to you is not because he totally disagrees, but because he feels he is being FORCED, and this means he has no will, and no say. What a fucking horrible feeling that must be!
"Okay, Isaiah. You know what. You are free, right?"
He nodded.
"Well, you are free to do what you want with that lollipop because it is yours. Can I tell you what I think about it?"
He nods, if somewhat reluctantly.
"I would wait until after dinner because your body needs to the healthy food to be strong, first. Then you can really enjoy the lollipop after that. but, you can do whatever you want, and I mean that. Do you think it is a good idea to wait until after dinner? What do you think?"
A pause. "Wait!" he said, cheerfully, and proceeded to set the candy on a plate for after dinner.
The Takeaway.
This type of thing has happened before, more than once, when I have given my son the benefit of the doubt, and the respect and liberty that any individual deserves. In the stress of the moment, when our minds are full of noise, and the last thing you want to hear is a whiny voice upset that you want some totally sensible course of action to be followed, it is easy to lose one's cool. It's easy to forget.
But these "little" moments and crises, are very important and real to our kids, and if we want them to respect us when they are adults and teenagers, it is important to respect their individual will now. If I can't listen to what my son is trying to tell my about his new action figure, and he can see I don't care--or if I tell him "quit whining!" every time he has a real dilemma in his mind--why would he come to me when he is older and has problems? He wouldn't. I would have already broadcasted that I do not really care about things important to him.
No one here is advocating letting your kid run into the middle of a busy freeway in the name of freedom. But I am saying that if we want our kids to grow into independent, capable, confident and happy individuals, we have to let them be that and learn how to handle their own very real self-ownership, freedom, and self-responsibility now. When children have freedom, they don't go wild and destroy themselves. Maybe at first, there will be a little backlash from the pent up authoritarian suppression, but eventually, like clockwork, that freedom works its magic and children begin to very earnestly seek order, purpose, and the fulfillment of meaningful goals...happily.
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(Thanks for stopping by. If you missed the last Unschooling Blog, Vol. 33: "A Day in the Hills: Climbing the Kushigata Mountain Range with My Son," you can find it here.)
~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as Facebook and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)