Your children will certainly see you angry from time to time, and how you handle those situations will teach them a lot. Will you teach them that might makes right? That parents have tantrums, too? Or that anger is part of being human, and that learning to manage anger responsibly is part of growing up? […]
Kohn: Mutual Respect
A discouraging proportion of adults who demand that children treat them with respect – or complain loudly about how kids today fail to do so – think nothing of behaving toward children with an utter lack of respect. -Alfie Kohn, from Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other […]
Forget About Being “Tough Enough”
We have to stop thinking of the child as the “problem” that needs correction. We have to give up the idea that because we’re adults we always have the right answer. We have to stop worrying that if we’re not “tough enough” the child will take advantage of us. Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish, […]
Holt: Hypocritical Acts
We ask children to do for most of a day what few adults are able to do even for an hour. How many of us, attending, say, a lecture that doesn’t interest us, can keep our minds from wandering? -John Holt, from How Children Fail
Holt: What Makes People Smart
We don’t have to make human beings smart. They are born smart. All we have to do is stop doing the things that made them stupid. -John Holt, from How Children Fail