Teaching a child to think for themselves is hands-down the best protection from extremism!
Whether you are afraid of extremism on the right or the left, it is the best thing you can do!
But, teaching a child to think for themselves in involves something that maybe you don’t want to do. To be honest, most parents don’t want to do… and that is….
You have to give your child a voice.
That doesn’t mean they run your household. It means that when they skin their knee, you don’t tell them to quit crying. No, you ask them, you say,
“Show it to me. Are you okay? Where does it hurt?”
When you do this, you are teaching the child to think for themselves about themselves. What is true in their experience? In their body? What are the facts as well as the feelings pointing you to believe? You might know they are ok, but telling them this teaches them nothing. They need to be part of this decision, because listening to their internal guide (can be the Holy Spirt for those of us who are Christians) is absolutely necessary to successfully navigate an increasingly complex world.
Otherwise, their life is just about obeying and following you! And we know what will happen later! They’re going to get a little older, and they will find someone else who wants their total obedience. Blind obedience leads to a lot of problems! And unfortunately, it seems, from my experience with families, this misguided parenting goal seems to be on the rise in popularity…yielding only exasperated children and exhausted parents.
Attempting to instill blind obedience in children will only set them up (later on) to completely go the other direction once they learn that there are people who think differently than you do. It may feel fun and powerful on the parents’ end to be “large and in charge”… and later when they rebel hard against you (and not all will), you can definitely say, “I taught you better!”….but what you really taught them was how to be controlled. And this world wants control of our kids. Just put them in front a screen and see what happens. We are all prone to it.
We all want the best for kids. We don’t want them to wind up becoming mass murderers, killers, or any form of an extreme. And I cannot guarantee that your kids will turn out perfectly or the way you want them to if you allow to think for themselves while enforcing limits. But I can tell you that at least all children stand a chance of turning out well if they are encouraged to think for themselves, given the responsibility to decide early, and then live with the consequences of their decisions without outrage. We will all have to learn and none of us can by being a bystander.
For additional parenting resources, visit: https://lastinglove.us/resources/
