Unconventional Parenting (Was: Importance of learning TCS)

[Jason]

On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 2:35 PM, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:
>
> On Feb 10, 2014, at 5:31 AM, Jordan Talcot <jordan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> If you are just throwing out parts of convention without any good criteria, you will end up replacing things with worse alternatives. There are a lot of different ways that things could go wrong. One example of this kind of mistake is the somewhat recent conversations on this list where some people thought it was against TCS to get your child a glass of water once they are physically able to do it on their own.
>
> Yes, this stuff actually happens and goes wrong. Many more examples can be found with unschoolers and homeschoolers since there's a lot of people there who are changing parenting behaviors significantly without knowing much. They do things like:
>
> - teach their children math beyond arithmetic is useless and sabotage any interest child has in math

I have seen this, and it's awful. It's pretty rare in overt form, but
covertly it's more common (things like parent saying math was always
hard for them so don't feel bad if it's hard for you too).

However, I've seen it happen with parents who send their kids to
school too. Both the overt form: "Don't worry if you flunk math, it
doesn't matter" and the covert form. Kids who go to school might (or
might not) get different messages from their teachers, and this might
(or might not) be enough to counteract their parents' discouragement.

All told, though, it's not a lot of parents who are anti-math at least
in our group. Math heavy games like KSP are quite popular in our
group, and are encouraged.

> - teach child do self-identify as different and value it strongly, and alienate him from some normal things he might have liked

This is common, but not sure how much is just a reflection of reality
and how much is going over and above that to inculcate "different for
difference sake". Homeschooled kids really *are* different, at least
insofar as they don't spend hours per day at school and thus don't
learn / do some of the things that go on there.

For example, school kids know the pledge of allegiance by memory. This
comes because the younger grade classes recite it every morning or at
least often enough that they routinely memorize it. Homeschool kids
usually don't. Good parents tell their kids about the pledge, what it
is, what it contains, etc. But most do not say it every morning, or
otherwise cause their kids to memorize it.

This can result in embarassment when, in another situation (not
homeschool related), an adult expects the child to know the pledge and
he doesn't. Granted, said adult is an evil bastard too, for publicly
calling out the youngest child in the room to "lead us in the pledge"
without checking if that was OK in advance. But the best explanation I
know of to the kid is, the adult expected you to know the pledge
because all kids in school recite it over and over, but we don't do
that. We can if you want to ("no, I don't want to").

Same thing with lining up in alphabetical order and walking through a
door single file. School kids know how to do that. Homeschool kids
often do not.

I don't think this is worse than conventional parenting, just
different. But kid deserves to know that he's different, and why, and
have an opportunity to change if he wants.

Harder to judge are things like sports. Sports are very conventional.
But it's also very conventional to pressure kids into playing them
even when they don't want to. So it's hard to separate out parental
behavior, what's:
"I am not pressuring my kid to play sports, and he's homeschooled so
no one else is pressuring him to play sports either, and I don't like
sports so I'm not setting an example of playing or watching sports,
but if he asked I'd let/help him play." from
"I hate sports, because I was pressured to play them as a kid and I
hated it, so I'm going to alienate my kid from playing sports even if
he would have liked it."

I suspect there's some of both that goes on. I'd argue the first is
better than convention, whereas the second isn't.

> - not let child try school and see what he's missing

I've addressed this in other threads. My experience is most
homeschoolers will allow their kid to try school if they want. It is
kind of an unspoken norm in the homeschool communities I'm familiar
with, though by no means universal.

I suspect (but don't know) that it's more common to not let children
try school in the Christian homeschool groups. Many more people there
homeschool to "protect" their kids from knowledge of things like sex
and evolution and pop culture - which they might learn if they tried
school.

> - control child's diet (and other things) more than normal parents manage b/c child is at home more

Is this more or less than the control schools exercise?

There are indeed some egregious examples: hardcore vegans,
natural/whole foods advocates, and anti-sugar bigots mostly. For them,
yes if the kid went to school they might get some of a break from that
level of diet control.

But for the average homeschooled kid I'm not convinced there's more
diet control than for school kids. Sodas, candy, etc. are banned from
school cafeterias and vending machines in most districts. Cafeteria
lunches are generally abysmal in terms of both quality and available
choices. And if child brings lunch from home it still has to be parent
approved but also in some districts, school approved too! And of
course it's limited to what can be easily carried and stored for the
hours between when school starts and lunch time - something like
chicken nuggets and french fries are really hard to pack in a
brought-from-home lunch and have them still be warm and appetizing 4
hours later.

> do other people want to add more examples of ways inadequate philosophy, combined with trying to do parenting stuff better than convention, can end up worse than convention?

I think religion is the elephant in the room here.

Granted, "convention" on religion is hard to pin down and changeable,
but homeschool / unschool or not many parents try to implement
religion more than convention. They think doing so is being a better
parent than convention.

For sake of discussion, I think "convention" in terms of religion is a
belief in God, that what the bible says is good and contains important
truths, that you should go to church at holidays, not curse too much
or drink too much or do drugs, but otherwise conventional religion is
not a huge day-to-day matter.

There is a well known pattern in churches of people with a childhood
background in the religion or who are loosely affiliated with the
religion becoming very religious when they become parents. Parents
decide, "Well, I'm a parent now, that means I have to get right with
God and bring up my child as God commands." Pastors promote this
regularly from the pulpit and seek out pregnant women for special
efforts to proselytize. They reach out specifically to parents, hold
childbirth classes and parental "counseling" and free babysitting and
such.

For a few parents who were living really immoral lives before their
"come to Jesus moment," being more religious than convention is better
for them and their kids than if they didn't. But for most parents and
most kids, it's way worse.

Highly religious parents go beyond convention in terms of:
- sex => parents with a strict "abstinance only" policy who actively
thwart any learning about sex, and surround the subject with shame
- medical => parents who fail to get their kids medical care and rely
on faith healing and prayer instead
- conversion => parents who pressure their kids to have a religious
conversion experience, and get baptized or perform other public
rituals
- proselytizing => parents who pressure their kids to spread the
religion to their friends or go on proselytizing activities
- morality => parents who teach their kids that all morality comes
from one authoritative book, or an authoritative church hierarchy
that's infallible
- career => parents who teach that faith is a means to truth, that
science is useless or even sinful, and sabotage a whole host of career
opportunities
- time allocation => It's common for highly religious parents to force
their kids to be in church activities 10 or more hours per week,
memorize bible verses, pray before meals and at bed time
- money => religious parents often give 10% or more of their gross
income to their church, even when they're not adequately meeting their
responsibilities to their children. They usually make their kids give
10% of any money they get to the church, too.

I have personally observed all of the above. I think it's a major problem.

--Jason

[Jason]

I should add, other parents try to do better than convention on
religion by being less religious. I count myself among them. One
approach (mine) is:
- I don't believe in God, bible, etc.
- I tell my kids I don't, and why
- I tell them morality is still important, and arises from reality and
man's nature rather than the supernatural
- I let them go to any church they want, read any book they want,
believe anything they want, discuss anything they want

I think my approach to religion is better than convention.

Some non-religious parents don't talk about God / religion, or tell
their kids that morality and free will are illusions, or forbid them
from learning about religion or going to church. I think that approach
is worse than convention, and in extreme cases can even be worse than
the highly religious parenting approach.

--Jason