Committed to finding ways out of the coercion/self-sacrifice mire of conventional parenting. We are variously critical rationalists, libertarians, home educators, attachment-parents, but we take our ideas where we find them.
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I wrote a blog over on the Libertarian Parent (archives not working: scroll to Theories on Work) about money-earning theories, which I think is an important area of knowledge for all parents hoping to be able to contribute to their children's ideas about establishing financial independence. It applies to bored frustrated teenagers as well as bored frustrated homebody mothers (although the theories themselves remain untested at this early stage).
Worth blogging about, because it doesn't happen very often... Blogger Queen Rachel Lucas today posted this piece about some tearaway French toddlers who disappeared from home and rampaged around their neighbour's empy house to disastrous effect. But then Rachel went on to blame the little people and not the parents for the antisocial nature of their foray.
As Camille points out (scroll down, 4.25.2003), three-year-old runaways are their parents' fault. They are extremely small people who haven't learned much yet, and their welfare and behaviour are the responsibility of their parents. Just as well they didn't gobble up more than vitamin pills. Unless accidental drug-overdose would have been worthy of punishment too?
Here's a link to otherwise very good blogger, Mr James Lileks, and it sets out very clearly exactly the sort of parenting we do not approve of on this blog. For goodness sake, Mr Lileks. Give your daughter what she wants to eat and stop messing up her food theories and hurting her feelings. Does anyone want to know how I would feel if they said I couldn't have my chocolate until I had eaten my vegetables? I would punch them on the nose, that's how I would feel.
And I would like personally to testify that there is no need for this kind of pointless cruelty to children, there are actually perfectly friendly other ways of enabling them to grow up healthy and strong. Like, for example, helping them develop their own ideas about what food is good. Because food that's good for humans can and should taste good to humans. And it's our job, as parents, to make it so. Nothing gets my goat so much as people trying to force other people to eat things they don't want to eat.
It's not World War Two rationing anymore, and if it was, kids would choose to eat their vegetables and drink their milk, for heavenssakes. Bleh.
I should patent this, but what the hell. Having suffered from terminal recurring boredom, at last I finally invented the following permanent all-time cure:
What you do is, write down in a notebook or computer file everything you come across that you like or enjoy or feel inspired by or that turns you on. Try to be as specific as possible, but don't worry about it being a legitimate activity or an easily applicable hobby or anything like that. Your list might go like this:
1. Purple shoes
2. The way the sun comes up in the summer
3. Something about this poem that reminds me of whatever
4. Dancing
5. Skiing in the alps sounds nice
It doesn't matter if you have no money or means or wherewithal to pursue anything like the idea you write down, just write it down anyway.
Important note: only write down things you like, not things you think you should like, or want to like, or whatever.
Now, you have to do this for quite a long time, whenever you find something else that you like. You should do it every time you find a thing you find exciting or fun, indefinitely. Keep the list, add to it, and never lose it. Then you need to do stage two, which is puzzling out ways to pursue the things you enjoy. This is quite difficult therefore enjoyable, and should be a great fun activity in and of itself.
For example:
5. Skiing in the Alps sounds nice. Why does it sound nice? What about it inspires you? Skiing: can you take classes in the sports centre, go somewhere nearer and cheaper? Can you find a way to get enough money to do one short trip/ lesson somehow? Is it the snow you like: where and when can you get to some snow anytime? Maybe snowboarding would be just as good?
Read books and brochures about skiing, watch training videos, research around the subject, find out about great skiers in the world, watch the Winter Olympics (on video). Track down what exactly you like, and how to start getting it. It is always possible to start getting something, even if completion is a long way off.
It doesn't matter if you never make it to the Alps, because you will find out all sorts of wonderful interesting things on your learning-journey that satisfy you anyway. The point of the exercise was to solve your boredom, not get you everything you fancy having right away, which isn't necessary to a great and wonderful life.
The key to solving the boredom problem is: never running out of interesting things to do. As soon as you have enough of these puzzles ongoing, hopefully you'll never be bored again.
That was aimed at adults: it's obvious that adults can and should help their children to do exactly the same thing for their boredom problems, if they have any.
