Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

"Chris" wrote:

Which of the reactions listed did you engage in as a child, Nathan?
Note that I don't ask if you engaged in some of them because I know you
did - we all did.

My most serious ongoing negative reaction was when I was in elementary
school, and had to do with being forced to go to school when I thought it
was boring and tedious. That gives me an excellent reason to support
educational choice. But I don't view not requiring children to go to school
at all, or giving children carte blanche to choose "schools" where they can
play all day without learning much, as a viable solution. Some children may
be responsible enough to make good choices about their education without
outside limitations on what choices they can make, but I wouldn't trust
myself at that age to do so.
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You simply don't know yourself well enough to grasp the principle of
boredom. Without being coerced, once that stops, a child sooner or later
leaves behind his block to creativity caused by the revenge formation
due to abuse, and he starts being curiously interested in
learning things again, usually quite intently! He need only be offered
something interesting without being forced to engage in it and he will
be a fan for life!

This was proven at numerous "free schools" including the famous
Summerhill run by A.S. Neill. Kids, who when they came decided to
play for as much as several YEARS, to get rid of their revenge
formation for their previous abuse, all had caught up and even
surpassed their classmates in other schools upon testing only a
year or so after finally becoming ultimately bored and deciding
to come to some classes again!! And they became extremely creative
people with interesting inventive careers indeed, numerous among
them getting higher degrees with honors.


I'll also admit to having circumvented the rules about bedtime quite a bit
by reading in bed through the light of my open door - and hiding my book if
my father's chair creaked indicating he might be getting up. The very few
times I was caught, I wasn't punished, but I was always afraid that I might
be (and I wouldn't have regarded it as unfair or unreasonable if I was).
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Of course you would, and why lie to us and yourself about this now??
You obviously felt it immensely unfair or else you wouldn't have been
reading then!!!! God you're repressed!!!

Our kids read or slept or listened to music or TV or computer just
exactly as they LIKED, and came and went as they liked, and they
thereby learned their OWN INTERNAL self-regulation for THEIR OWN
purposes, and didn't have to undergo ANY shock of first freedom
when they moved from our home to their first place of their own!

They already KNEW all that! Did they abide our wishes that they
call? Not always, but when we cried once before them they always
called us thereafter (they told us they didn't realize how much we
worried) and they to always called us to tell us they were safely
someplace for the night. If you're hitting your kids just because
you can't dare show them your emotion then you're a REAL SICKEE!!


So
I have no illusions that punishment is anywhere near reliable when kids
expect not to get caught. Knowing that parents consider a behavior serious
enough to be worth punishing over might make enough difference in the
child's thinking to have an impact on the child's behavior - or it might
not.
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Ridiculous, punishment is NOT at ALL useful or effective when the
activity is THE CHILD'S HUMAN RIGHT!!!!!!!


As for the rest, I exhibited some of those behaviors, but aside maybe from
frequent arguments over chores (in which, looking back, I was generally
being unreasonable), they were neither frequent nor particularly serious.
Then again, my parents weren't all that punitive in their basic outlook.
They were willing to threaten, and to punish if necessary, when discussion
and persuasion didn't work, but punitive techniques weren't their first
preference.
----------------
Which you have to thank for your small remaining creativity.


By and large, a system with this many side effects, and with some such
side effects on the list manifesting themselves in every child raised
under it, doesn't "work" very well at all.

I think I'm looking at the glass as three quarters full and you're focusing
on the one quarter that's still empty. Yes, the system has problems, but
most children grow up to be productive citizens who generally respect each
other's rights and legitimate interests. And those who don't are kept in
check enough that most people feel reasonably safe.
-------------------------
YOU need a course in psychology, and statistical info on depression!!!


That gives us an awful lot to lose if we make a radical change and it fails.
-------------------------
That's like believing that since you keep hitting your head on the
cabinet door that taking it off the hinges or wearing a hat might
somehow do something terrible!! It's idiotic!!


Keep in mind that parents who use purely non-punitive techniques (to the
extent that parents who never resort to even indirect threats of punishment
exist at all) are ones who choose that kind of technique voluntarily, and
who choose to invest the time and effort to make them work. Keep in mind
that at present, parents who try to use non-punitive techniques and don't
succeed can resort to threats and, if necessary, punishment as a back-up.
The jump from that to taking away parents' authority to punish at all for
anything short of criminal behavior would be an enormous one and, I contend,
an extremely dangerous one.
------------------
What a deluded asshole you are!

None of the above are beneficial AT ALL, and ALL are extremely HARMFUL
AND ABUSIVE! You're quite insane, deranged, and damaged!!

My kids were raised that way, with their rights respected, never
coerced, never threatened or forced, and they are both very happy
and open people, and both are degreed computer professionals.
Steve