Our insanity around children...

It's the end of the semester...and the insanity has set in, I think...

For the kids...and for the adults...

Here's how the insanity works...

Adults want the best for kids...they don't want them to make mistakes...and they don't want them to fail...

Both of which are necessary -- necessary...meaning not an option -- for learning...

Adults oscilate between two extremes, persistently...

On the one hand...holding them responsible for mistakes...and treating them -- and everyone, really -- harshly...

Which generally just gets peoples' hackles and defenses up and generally -- meaning as a rule rather than as an exception -- is counterproductive...

Or on the other hand...finding excuses for their behavior...to get them out of harsh consequences...

Rather than just letting kids deal with the natural consequences of their behavior...and treating them decently and real -- meaning, if you're angry, let them know that you're angry...and develop perspective about life and the things that make you and all of us angry, in the meantime -- and as kind as possible...

Adults constantly want to protect kids...and then to bring down the hammer harshly when they don't want to protect kids...

Rather than just chilling out, some...and learning to let kids deal with the natural consequences of their behavior -- like grades...as a reflection of what has been learned or not been learned -- rather than adult consequences, except to deal with immediate situations in a temporary way that can never replace the learning, no matter how much we might wish otherwise:):):)...

But instead...so many adults...teachers...parents...counselors...etc...

Want to protect children and young people from the natural consequences of behavior, on the one hand...

AND...want to impose unnecessarily harsh consequences, on the other hand, no matter how counterproductive they might be...

And I just feel constantly caught in between these various and often random and wildly oscilating moods of protecting kids and kicking the shit out of them...

And many times, I'm just like...

Can't we just think about this more...and develop better understandings of why we engage in this insanity...the range of our own moods...and just let kids deal with life and all of its more natural consequences without always trying to protect them or knock them down?...

Enabling isn't caused by being too nice...

Enabling caused by not deal constructively with problems...meaning not confronting problems in a way that will deal with them effectively...

And the most important problem that most adults who are responsible for young people need to have confronted is their tendency to try to control them and their choices, too much, in ways that just stunt their growth and maturity, rather than promoting it...

One of the best things my dad did for me as a kid was give me plenty of freedom...and to not always have my every move controlled by him...as a teenager I had far more freedom than most of my friends, largely because I had earned it, obviously...and many kids have not earned it...but we can presume trust until they violate it, and then give it back once it's been earned again...

But so much of the insanity of schools and child-rearing, generally, is both trusting kids, not at all...and then wanting them off the hook all the time because we didn't do the hard work...of teaching them...and modeling for them...how to be more trustworthy people...and how to deal with the natural consequences of being a less trustworthy person...

And much of this has to do with the fact that many people...and the people who demand the most, in particular...don't work nearly hard enough at being trustworthy models for our children, ourselves...and are not nearly trustworthy, ourselves, in our judgments about such matters...because the children who make the most excuses about their lives...generally come from families with adults who make the same excuses for themselves...

And in the big picture...

That means all of us...

Because we're all fucking it up...whether we want to face our failure around this one or not...

I had 2 spoiled brats, today, who goof off all the time when we work together...who do very little work, at all, on their own...and who are constantly complaining and demanding the energies of others...

Who really need to eat some low grades, right now, to get the message that they must earn their way through life...and that they can't and shouldn't be able to demand their way through a life that they work to little at earning their way through...

And who have parents...who simultaneously sit on top of their children, clearly counterproductively if you'd just look at the results of their efforts, in the maturity, or rather lack of it, in their children...

And..at the same time...demanding that teachers make all their failures as parents go away...

Without ever having to lift a finger...

To take responsibility...

For what shitty-ass parents they've been to their spoiled little brats...

I love these kids...I care about them...

And I care about them enough to be honest about what a total disservice this way of raising children is for them...what a disservice it is for the kids and their parents, much more than the teachers involved -- though we certainly have a powerful responsibility on our shoulders, as well -- not to have to face their failures...

Parents who kick the proverbial shit out of kids have consequences to face around that stupid, foolish way of raising children in the form of their kids' behavior, down the road...

And I have no interest in letting those kids' off the hook for their failure to take learning and earning their way through school and life seriously...

And I think perhaps the parents need a reality check, too, that fucking up with your kids for years and then expecting schools to make it all go away, overnight, is not only foolish and impossible...it's obnoxious...and it's that very attitude why those folks' children are such shitty students...and until that attitude is given up...they'll never succeed...no matter what we call the grade we give them...

I'm smarter and more responsible than most people my age or any age, really...because I had a dad who often succeeded despite himself, much of the time...to give me the freedom...to choose being smart and responsible...of my own accord...which is the only way that such qualities and any important qualities in life can be internalized for a lifetime...

Free will isn't just some luxury...or some fantastic notion...as a matter of practicality...it is the only way that people become better or worse kinds of people...

And if people think they can force kids to do what only free will and learning can do...

Then they will deal with the consequences of that foolish choice for as long as they maintain such foolishness:):):)...

I've got to get something to eat...I'm famished:):)...

Love,
Ben