What is/are your favorite quote(s)?

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  • "For several hundred years, what we really taught children was to respect power, authority, and violence - but not other human beings."

    "When children cease to cooperate, it is either because they have cooperated too much for too long, or because their integrity has been harmed, It is never because they are uncooperative."

    "Generally, children react self-destructively towards violations. That is, when parents, consciously or unconsciously, violate their children's integrity in the same way and at regular intervals, children do not conclude that their parents have acted wrongly. They assume that they themselves are wrong! Losing their sense of *self-esteem*, they accumulate a sense of *guilt* or *shame*."

    ...I could go on and on. These are all from "Your Competent Child" by Jesper Juul. I absolutely love his work. Reading it really changed how I look at my work and my upbringing, and how I want to change how I relate to children I work with.

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    • What an excellent quote. :)

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    • If the author which you had cited is correct, then for several hundred years, we have been teaching children incorrectly.
      To 'respect', means 'to look back at'.
      How does one look back at power?
      How does one look back at authority?
      How does one look back at violence?
      The only reasonable way to do this, is to discontinue teaching a child these concepts or behaviours.
      How does a child look back at [the life of] other humans? They have very little life experience. The only way that a child could respect an elder human's life accomplishments, is if they learn these things from others.

      Please note: The use of 'being', relative to humans, should be self-evident, and is superfluous. I think that most everyone will agree that a human is living and does exist, unless they are now deceased.

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      • Your use of the word "respect" is Archaic.

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      • I agree and disagree, with the second quotation.

        When a child ceases to cooperate, it could be due to their integrity being harmed. In this, one needs to be careful, on which definition of 'integrity' one uses, but 'the quality or state of being complete or undivided', I can agree with. Otherwise, someone has taught the child divisive behaviour(s).
        However, I disagree with the first part, in this. I think that most any child could be conditioned for cooperative behaviours, unless they have a severe developmental problem. If they are uncooperative, I think that it is due to poor parenting skills, plain and simple.

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        • You should probably actually work out what you're talking about before you try to act all intellectual.

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        • Violations have now been outlawed by The Management, on this Web site.
          Would the children on this Web site, please re-construct themselves.

          How would a parent violate, unconsciously, a child's integrity?
          We are either conscious, or we are sleeping.
          Maybe they were sleepwalking?
          More likely, is that the parent was ignorant.
          The parents have acted incorrectly, if they have violated the child completely and repeatedly, and should probably be cited for child abuse.
          The parent has also not instructed the child 'never to assume things', learn about them, and / or help them to learn about them.

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