Elementary
One Minute
“We have to leave the park in five minutes.” “How about six?” “You need to work on this for ten minutes.” “No, I choose nine!” What do you say next? Do you dig your heels […]
power struggles
At Home
In the “Wrong”
My kids built an obstacle course together out of pillows and mats in our house. My son went on it first. When he got to the end, he flopped down on the mats, laying down […]
Elementary
Power & Safety
Exerting power over a child just for the sake of exerting it is a threat to the child’s feelings of safety, and they know it. They’ve been living in this world for however many years, […]
At Home
Two Stories of Power and Powerlessness
Two stories about power and powerlessness. A child and an adult were entering a classroom, together, one on one. The child skipped ahead of the adult through the open door of the classroom, zigzagged to […]
At Home
Giving Kids Power
Okay, after my last post, you might be asking, how do we give kids power and autonomy? Honestly, a different way to ask this same question might be, how do we protect their right to […]
Elementary
Self-Autonomy
There’s a quote that I’ve seen on the internet that goes like this. “Sometimes people use ‘respect’ to mean ‘treating someone like a person’, and sometimes they use ‘respect’ to mean ‘treating someone like an […]
Philosophy
Feelings of Powerlessness
A couple of weeks ago my son, who’s 5, needed to have dental work done for the first time in his life. It wasn’t extensive and there wasn’t any drilling, but just the process of […]