Giving Away My Power

Disobedience is not an issue if obedience is not the goal. ~Daron Quinlan

I have never been interested in obedient children. They tend to either grow into rebellious teens who are a danger to themselves as they try to "make up for" all that time spent living under a regimen of artificially repressed urges, or perhaps worse, obedient adults who are a danger to the rest of us.

This is why the children at Woodland park make their own rules. This is why we adhere in to the law of natural consequences. This is why we strive to avoid bossing the children around with directives like, "Sit here," or "Put the blocks away." This is why I actively teach children to question authority and why we celebrate when they engage in civil disobedience.

I have no patience for people who justify their authoritarian approach to children by arguing that it works. If I'm bigger and stronger than you, if I have more power than you, if I have more money than you, I can use that strength, power or money to force you into doing my bidding no matter how hard you fight back. Of course it works if the goal is mere obedience. It's a lazy, short-term, adversarial approach, one that will ultimately backfire, but sure, in the immediate moment threats and violence shut the kid up and make him submissive.

What children learn from authoritarian parenting and teaching is that might makes right. What they learn is to follow leaders, not because they are doing something great, but because they can punish you if you don't. What they learn is that someone else is responsible for their behavior and decisions, that the powerful know best, and that knowing "their place" is their highest calling.

Adults who have internalized these messages make wonderful factory workers. They are reliable votes for one political party or another. They are easy prey for cults and crazies. And when they do find themselves with an upper hand over someone else, like a child, they are far more likely to wield that authority abusively because that's what, in their experience, the powerful do.

As a teacher, I am always looking for ways to give away whatever power is implied by that title, to let the children be in charge of their own learning, of their own bodies, of their own small society. I want them to make the "right" decisions, not because I've told them so, but because they have learned through experience that it is the right decision. I want them to know that they are always responsible for their own behavior. I want them to know that their feelings, their thoughts, and their opinions are just as important as anyone else's.

I want them to know, most of all, that this is true even for people with who are stronger, more powerful or wealthier. I want them to grow to be adults who make their own decisions and will not be pushed around.

And yes, it's a lot more work for the loving adults in a child's life, but man, it's worth it.

Note: I love the "Daron Quinlan" quote at the top of the this post and have used it often here on the blog, but have never been able to track down who this Daron Quinlan person is. A little while back, I received the following message:

I stumbled across this post today and laughed, because I am Daron Quinlan. It's not my real name, and if I had said that today I might have attached my real name instead, but such is life, I guess. I wrote it on a parenting board years ago, as part of a discussion on discipline. Another member picked up on it and started using it in her sig, and Jan Hunt saw it there and asked for permission to use it on the Natural Child Project. I said yes. I had used the name Daron online for years - it's from a mishearing of my actual name, which is definitely female, as am I - and the last name is my daughter's but not mine.

I didn't realize the quote had become so well-known. Jan did invite me to write an essay but I never did. I've written a lot on the mothering.com boards under the name Dar, if you're curious. My only child is almost 19 and is currently in college full-time after unschooling through high school. She's a lovely person: bright, compassionate, funny, kind, and all-around wonderful, and I miss her a lot when she's away at college - where she's thriving, just by the way.

I parented as a single mother and my daughter and I talked a lot, about everything, from the time that she was very little - under 2, because I remember a woman commenting on our conversation once. I didn't do a lot of "not letting" her do things, really. I did much more of "let's find a safe way to do that". Maybe it's semantics, but I found that it worked better, and still does. 

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