Location: Sometimes the light's all shining on me, other times I can barely see
Posts: 7,395
Does anyone here practice NCP? TCS?
Please pm me ! I'm very interested in the se parenting methods but I'm unsure about how to handle situation like trying to run off in a parking lot or not wanting to do safety related things.
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. ~ Dalai Lama
FAT FACT:
20 years ago a standard cup of coffee was 8 ounces and had 45 calories.
Today's 16 ounce cup of "brand" coffee has 350 calories.
You need to walk approximately one hour and 20 minutes to burn off the extra 305 calories in the "brand" coffee.
It's Taking Children Seriously (TCS), and Non-coercive Parenting (NCP). I have read some about it but I don't know how to handle many situations with it. I guess I would have to read more. There is a book, I can't remember who wrote it, I know she has a website, but I can't remember her name!
Oh, I think the book might be the called Continuum Concept?
The website is here: http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~tcs/ It is posted by Sarah Lawrence. Now I forgot what the questions were. Let me look again.
It's is hard for me to expain but basically about the idea that chlidren are whole people. They have their own minds and coercing them to do something can break their spirit. When I first read about tcs/ncp/cpf I just thought no way am I letting go of the control I have on my children, but over time it made more sense to me. I still have issue and don't put much into practice yet, but I am working on it one issue at a time.
Now of course when it comes to safety issues you need to insist. Would you let a friend going running out into the street? Would you let a friend drive unbuckled in your car?
It's about children's capacity to learn and create their own ideas. A child will learn it is cold outside and will be more apt to put their coat on if you let them go outside without their coat rather fighting them to put it on and the listening to them whine about it the whole time you are out. Another point being that different people have different cold tolerances. Mine certainly do not match my childrens exactly so what right do I have to insis that they constantly wear clothes inside the house. Again, if they are cold they will put clothes on.
Make any sense? Finding a common preference in a situation where everyone feels taken advatnage of is a difficult task for me. When two children want only one toy, you talk to them about it and try to come up with a common preference where everyone is happy. But when my children fight over a toy it always ends up coming to a point where I have to insist on timed turns.
Some people who practice tcs/ncp/cpf are really die-hard and this really turned me off. If you want to find women with varying degrees of this method a good place is mangomama.org. Click on her forum and it's the third list down. Hth
Sheri
<font color=purple>Sheri
<font color=black>sah-ap and beginning ncp, exbf, fb, non-vax, nc, cd, hs mom to
<font color=blue>Kyle 8/22/97
<font color=red>Gillian 3/19/99 <P ID="edit"><FONT class="small"><EM>Edited by sitamom on Fri Dec 07 09:36 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
__________________ ~Sheri~ mama to
Kyle 8/97
Gillian 3/99
My NSHO is that it's all fine on paper and a bunch of hoo-ha in reality. It sounds really great, but ultimately the philosophy insists that there is ALWAYS a compromise to be found where both parties are equally happy. The unfortunate reality is that there isn't always TIME to find that elusive compromise and IMO, it really depends on the individuals. If both the parent/child are both "spirited" individuals, you could both perish of old age before reaching that compromise goal, KWIM?
But, that doesn't mean that seriously evaluating your choices and your children's feelings isn't a totally valid and important parenting tool. I think that is an absolutely vital thing to help grow your relationship with your child.
S
Sarah L. Hallford s@kjsl.com
Mum to Ian Riley, 10/29/99
No private messages, please...I have a hard time keeping up with them.
__________________
Sarah L. Hallford
s@kjsl.com
Mum to Ian Riley, 10/29/99 and Lillian Margaret, 11/2/2003
"Our whole social order could self-destruct over the obsession with freedom disconnected from responsibility, where choice is imagined to be somehow independent of consequences." --Boyd K. Packer
I can see where that is pretty true. At the same time I think the idea behind the philosophy is a good one. We coerce our children way too much. We talk them into being people different thatn who they are. My mother coerced the lights out of me with guilt trips when I did something to her disapproval. That was all the discipline I needed but it left me telling myself how undeserving I am.
I am not saying that tcs has all the answers because I don't follow it to a "T" but I do believe in talking to my children rather than telling her how I think she should feel or behave.
For example, my current issue being that my dd wants a Barbie. I am totally against Barbie and her perfect "everything" and my first repsonse is "no, because of this and that". But really my dd just wants a toy. She just wants to have fun. She doesn't even think about how Barbie looks or how much money she rakes in for her makers. So I should buy her the Barbie and later when she is older, share my theories about Barbie with her.
The Continuum Concept, though it promotes similar ideas that a child is a whole person, deserving of having their own needs and desires respected, in practice is a different thing than TCS and NCP, never mind that it is not a "parenting style" but a life approach based on anthropological study on the peoples of our earth least changed by "civilization", living closest to the way mother nature intended. If you are interested there is an interesting comparison between TCS and TCC (The Continuum Concept) at http://www.continuum-concept.org/. I think there are wonderful ideas there, though sometimes hard to practice in modern day life, but they have a email "list" to help you with practical solutions. As a side note, they would not recommend trying to arbitrate between toddlers squabbling over a toy because you are undermining their ability to communicate via the language of toddlers as well as inhibiting a valuable learning process that would occur had you let them do it themselves. It takes a bit of humility and the realization that sometimes mom doesn't have all the answers and lots of patience (especially dealing with other parents who get very anxious over these kinds of situations! :P)! It's funny but when dogs get together and jump on eachother and growl etc everyone says, aw leave them alone, their just playing. But we don't give the same respect to our toddlers.
I totally agree. I only step in when the arguing turns to hitting or someone swiping (normally my 4yo) the toy out of the others hands. What do you do at that point? Here you have the little one feeling violated and the other feeling like it's "his". That is where I just get so confused and ususally tell him to give it back and I will set the timer.
I just started reading the CC. I am on the 75 page chapter. Because I don't like leaving things in the middle, I am afraid to start the chapter and not be available for a great length of time. I didn't know that they had a comparison on the site. I was just there a few weeks ago....maybe it was last month. <grin>
So are you "practicing" CC? What about your husband? Did you make him readthe book? Have you heard of Parent Affectiveness Training? It is supposed to teach you basically how to parent in the fashion of your child being complete.
I'm really *not* trying to start a debate, here, I just have a question about the Barbie comment.
I've never heard of this type of parenting and I am just trying to understand the philosophy. I understood your Barbie example and I've been thinking about it because Barbies are also "forbidden" (LOL) in our home. So, I just had to think about it for awhile. What if your dd asked for a toy gun? or one of those really strange toys that Catherine (born2love) listed on the main swap board the other day (can't remember the examples except that one had to do with incest and another a really violent toy). Would you let her have that toy and then discuss it with her when she's older?
Just curious, really, if this is an *absolute* rule of the parenting philosophy, KWIM?
Thanks for taking the time to answer this...I'm really curious.
I will try to answer the best I can but the folks at the TCC list I am sure could answer much better. I am far from perfect at this, I don't know if I would even say I'm good at it, lol. But I try.
What I would say about the fighting over toys things is the one feeling violated is allowed to have those feelings. By stepping in he is learning to go to you to solve his problems and not to work out for himself his feelings about it or solutions to it. It is ok to have these feelings and he probably gets over it sooner than you think and moves on without intervention. (maybe to another toy or go do something else). The other child feeling like it's "his" or he's "won" I think is probably a projection of our adult emotions onto little children. These squabbles aren't so much about the toy as they are wanting something and acting impulsively on that feeling. No amount of our "teaching" him not to do so will fast forward his maturity level. Most children get to the point where they will stop themselves to be sociably acceptable on their own. One of two things will happen, either he will realize no-one will play with him or the children will work out a sort of hierarchy which is actually pretty normal. Our sense of "fairness" as adults is insulted but the kids work it out very well. We are the ones labeling one as "victim" and the other as "victor" when actually they are compromising. That's how I feel about it anyway. I do step in when another child is assaulting mine ( like repeatedly pushing, pulling hair, biting) or keeps after her with every little thing she does. I think that's a problem and that's my limit as a parent of what I will tolerate being done to my child! Everyone has different limits, it's important to know yours and feel comfortable with it.
The other things about toys is that left to their own devices toddlers will normally not play with toys but play games of chase, running, hiding, etc. Better to play outdoors and encourage that game playing or give them a big room inside to run around in than expect them to play nicely with toys together. I remember fondly a recent playdate where the kids fought over every toy for about 15 minutes, gave up on that and ran up and down the hall screaming with joy for about an hour.
I try to follow the principles. It is getting harder! My dd is 19 mos now and getting into everything. The babyproofing only goes so far, I guess. Now she can get on counters, climb on tables, move chairs around to do what she wants. I am worrying more about safety. DH hasn't read the book but we have talked about a lot of these things. His knee jerk reactions have a lot of times been much more cautious than mine, always telling her to be careful, etc. We have talked LOTS about that, not instilling fear in her, wait and watch before you leap at her, etc. We both agree that kids should have lots of freedom to explore and not have their lives scheduled so we work from there.
I have heard of Parent Affectiveness Training but haven't looked into it. Is it good stuff?
I am not against guns. Dave has a gun (in a safe) and my son make believes all of the time. He isn't playing to hurt anyone. He is exploring. Exploring what it might be like to be a cop, military man, good guy, bad guy. Why take his imagination away from him? I loved shooting soda cans when I stayed with my aunt when I was little. It was fun. And wonderful fine motor skills development. And I can't wait until we find good sitters (or family arrives) so I can go with Dave to the range!
When Dave got his gun, he took a safety course where they urged us not to let children think that guns are toys. So he can use his imagination all he wants but we will not purchase a toy gun for him because in my opinion it is a safety issue. We alwyas talk to him and tell him (and drill him) that if he ever sees a gun he needs to run away and tell an adult.
He may be too little for a gun, but he loves swords too and I would like to be able to find a local fencing teacher. I have always wanted to take fencing classes too. So that might be something that we do together.
Another point is that the more you try to take something away from a child, the more he rebel with it later. We were just discussing on the mangomama forum about how one lady knows many menonite people who are upset about how tightly they controlled their children with the gun issue becuase later that is all their children did. They believe if they had let their children get it out of their system (the way ap tells us to do as well, remember the whole elevator analogy in Dr. Sears' book?) then they wouldn't be adult-children playing with guns . And most people who grow up with good gun teachers don't go and shoot up schools or murder people, if that is what you are afraid of. They become knowledgeable handgunner. If you would like to read the thread that started out as my Barbie question and turned into the gun issue, go to mangomama.org and enter her forum. It's under the tcs forum.
I have always been really good about letting the children explore. We skipped the babyproofing with my daughter completely. (Except for the safety plugs, dangerous stuff.) And basically have a very simple home. We don't even really have coffee tables though we are about to buy our first post-baby pair. They jusmp on the beds but I encourage them to use the trampoline because I don't want to see any broken monkeys.
That's a very good point about protraying my thoughts on victim and victor! I never even thought about that!
And life was always much easier when we had a backyard. Currently we are in an apartment. Hope to buy next year. But after contemplation about how do you raise children in an ancient fashion in technology. If parent's are supposed to be working but can't take children to work?? But my dream to have a garden would be the work they needed. The lesson of living. I try to let them in the kitchen whenever they want, though this can be very stressful for me. Thay have always done the shopping with me. And Kyle loves to help Daddy put gas in the car. I think between school and this our days will be filled with good work.
There is a big part of me though that wishes we could live in a commune and still have our own space so that the children could have their own "tribe". Just rambling now.
Sheri, I so know what you mean. I came back to clarify that I did not mean to imply an "independence agenda" when describing the fighting over toys, just that kids do have the faculties within themselves to work things out amongst themselves, probably better than we ever could.
It is frustrating in our technological world. I hear people talk about taking kids to work a lot and in some cases it works but in others there are so many things the kids can't get into it definately wouldn't. I can just see my dd pulling the plugs on all the computers at dh's office, taking all the paper out of the printer. Dd can get into tons of things at home and I just put away the things that I don't want her to get into (selfishly, I admit). And I don't want her standing at the stove though she desperately wants to! It's so artificially hot, what natural senses could warn her that if she touched it it would sear her fingers? I guess if we cooked on a fire she would learn safety around it on her own. My IL' are driving me crazy lunging at her ever time she even steps near the woodstove at their house. I told them, she's no dumby, she can feel that it's hot when she goes near it. The more you try to keep her away, the more she irrationally wants it, and that's when she'll hurt herself on it! I don't know what to do about them.
I like what you said about days being filled with good work. There's nothing that gets my dd more antsy than me sitting at the computer (another techno society frustration), and if I'm sitting on the couch she gets very whiny. But if I busy doing stuff, so is she. Wanting to adopt a simpler lifestyle sort of goes with the territory, I think. But it can work in an apartment. It's harder, but it still works. I was able to find a great group of women through LLL that I considered a tribe, shared babysitting, cared for moms with nbs, traded clothes, favors, had playdates (arguably artificial, but they got the same kids to play with at least, and there was a good age range and usually a very small group), went shopping together, etc. It was fun. I hope to find even a shadow of that here. We have a yard now but I don't think dd has seen another child besides her 10 yo uncle in nearly 2 mos now. The intensity of being together constantly is starting to wear on us.
Well I am rambling too! I do dream of a big family with lots of kids running around, sort of our own tribe, and a big house that others love to visit and stay. Someday maybe.
I think that is an absolutely vital thing to help grow your relationship with your child.
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