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In the Meantime -
The Process of Helping Children Become Self-Directed
By Jan Fortune Wood
Living by consent requires a commitment to finding
solutions, but all too often we are so focused on the end product – the
solution – that we can forget to value the process.
When I first made a commitment to try to live in this countercultural
way I was very hung up on the notion of non-coercion. Avoiding coercing
my children seemed to be the absolute pinnacle of success and it is
certainly true that eliminating coercion from family dynamics was
helpful.
Children who know that ultimately they will be made
to do something no matter how much they have first been listened to are
much less willing to participate openly in finding solutions with their
parents. Coercion is an unhelpful psychological state to be in – having
to do something that goes against the grain of our intrinsic motivation
only creates useless inner conflicts.
But the fact is that trying to change our relationships by constantly
struggling to avoid coercion is incredibly difficult because it puts us
in the position of always thinking negatively. We all know how powerful
reverse psychology can be. Telling a toddler on a climbing frame, “Don’t
fall!” is invariably tempting the fall to happen simply because we’ve
put the idea of falling into the child’s mind. Telling parents, “Don’t
coerce” may be just as good advice as “Don’t fall,” but it is similarly
fraught with the constant possibility of failure. Trying not to coerce
was a big step forward for me in my parenting, but it is ultimately a
dead end unless we begin to reverse non-coercion and look instead to
positive consent.
Consent is a much more liberating goal to work
towards. Instead of assuming that we are constantly in hard situations
where the best we can hope for is not to become manipulative or
bullying, consent assumes that we can be proactive in our family
relationships. We can take the time to learn what works, to build in
conversations and opportunities to brainstorm, to reflect on things that
haven’t worked well so that we are better prepared for the future.
Consent isn’t about gritting our teeth and letting the three-year-old
play with toilet water for fear that coercion will be a worse evil.
Rather it’s about engaging with what that three-year-old might want from
an experience and working together to find ways to provide a solution
that is so much more satisfactory for everyone.
Consent is a whole new positive dynamic. Switching
from non-coercion to consent can unblock untold reserves of creativity
in both parents and children. But once again there is a note of caution:
We live in a very instant world – the Internet delivers virtually
instant information; we have a whole range of instant forms of
entertainment and even meals can be prepared, if not in an instant,
often remarkably quickly. These instantaneous features of modern life
can be highly convenient and great value whether as learning or
lifestyle tools, but that doesn’t mean that all solutions can or should
be instant.
When we engage in finding consent, we are living
and educating in a way that is outside the mainstream and we are
attempting one of the hardest things possible – to create new ways of
thinking and relating. We are aiming high and we shouldn’t be surprised
if we don’t always manage it in a two-minute conversation. There are
solutions that we make all the time and we can develop short cuts.
Choosing what to eat each meal time can be speeded up enormously by
knowing about likes and dislikes, keeping available supplies in the
house etc. Provided we also allow for change and new ideas, we don’t
have constantly to re-invent the wheel. But some solutions are much more
demanding than that and we shouldn’t berate ourselves if they take time
to solve. There are situations where consent is as much about the
ongoing dialog to work towards a solution as it is about the end result
solution itself.
Let’s take Stacey. At age sixteen, she decides she
wants to become a vet, but up until now she hasn’t done any formal
study. The mainstream answer is that it can’t be done, but of course it
can. That doesn’t mean that Stacey will have the path completely cleared
before her in a week’s time. There will probably be lots of alternative
routes to investigate and perhaps some blind alleys as a way forward is
worked out over time. The consent here doesn’t require parents to be
able to magically ensure that Stacey becomes a vet. Rather it is about
finding a way to help with the process, which may mean that at some
stage Stacey sees the goal through or that she has to revise the final
outcome for something else that will fulfill her intrinsic motivation.
Or take James. At twelve, he is already an
outstanding tennis player. His family is far from rich, but they have
worked hard to ensure that family finances allow for his lessons and
equipment. James is getting on well, but he’s ambitious and tennis means
a great deal to him. He especially wants a particular racquet that his
parents think is just a stretch too far for the family budget. However
they agree that there will be a way to work it out – it may take several
months, but with some saving and re-adjustments the racquet can be
bought. The family sits down and goes through the finances together –
James included – each offering ideas on things that can be cut back or
postponed for a while to save the money that is needed.
The solution isn’t instant, but the commitment to
work towards a solution can be every bit as important as being able to
come up with a solution immediately. Making a commitment to live by
consent doesn’t make us richer or impart ready-made genius at problem
solving, but it re-orients how we think about one another so that there
is a new dynamic in which the process of problem solving is valued in
itself.
No doubt James would really love the racquet as
soon as possible and it might be that there are times when the request
can be met or a garage sale can speed up the waiting. On the other hand
there may be times when the longed-for racquet takes even longer to get
and consent is still achieved; if the family car breaks down, then James
is highly likely to value a new one more than a racquet because above
all else he wants to be able to get to his lessons and keep improving
his game. It might even be that after sitting down and brainstorming
James decides that the racquet isn’t so important in the next few months
because he doesn’t want to miss out on a family holiday or having
take-out meals on Friday nights.
The key point is that it is our serious engagement
in finding a solution that matters, whatever the solution ends up being.
This isn’t an opt-out clause. Many of us who are parents probably grew
up with requests being met by vague “holding” answers that we knew from
a young age were just a way for parents to dismiss us without having to
actually say no. “Can I have a new bike?” was met with, “Well, we’ll
have to see…” or “Can I go to Janie’s party?” might have been brushed
off with, “Maybe. Let’s see how things go.” These ambiguously-phrased
responses are veiled negatives that make no attempt to find solutions
and children know it.
That’s not territory we want to get into, but
neither do we want to get into a position in parenting where we feel
that we should always be able to snap our fingers and provide like fairy
godmothers. Finding solutions is not the business of granting wishes.
Instead we are engaged in finding ways to seriously engage with what our
children want and find ways to meet their intrinsic motivation. That
will sometimes mean simply agreeing and will sometimes mean a long
process of brainstorming and working towards a goal, which may or may
not be the one first asked for.
As consent-seeking parents, our catch phrase is not
“we’ll see,” but “in the meantime” – that is, for as long as a solution
is not yet found we’ll keep on working at it, taking the issue
seriously, and pooling our creativity until we’re all satisfied. In
consent, the process of finding the solution is at least as important as
the solution.
Jan Fortune Wood lives and works in Wales, UK as a freelance writer, poet, publisher, parenting advisor and humanist liturgist (developing ceremonies and rites of passage.) She is author of four titles on home education, autonomous education and non-coercive parenting. (Doing It Their Way; Without Boundaries; Bound To Be Free and
With Consent, all published by Educational Heretics Press). She home educated her own four children.
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