Must Read: Parenting for a Peaceful World

[jenn_unplugged]

I'm reading Parenting For A Peaceful World right now, and it's a fascinating read. It starts by tracing the history of human childhood through the ages, and the picture is not only unpleasant; it's horrific. The author states that prior to the 20th century, there is NO evidence that any child, anywhere, escaped what we would today call severe abuse. I mean seriously -- think about that.

He goes on to make a very strong biological and psychological argument for the way that mass abuse of children has shaped human history. He traces the rise of the most brutal regimes in western history to violent and abusive parenting approaches that numbed generations of people into submission. He also shows that peaceful movements and changes in societies can be traced to positive changes in parenting approaches. In other words, the way we (as a society) parent our children has a huge impact on the world, much bigger than any of us realize.

I can't do it justice in a few paragraphs, so I highly recommend it. I think it should be required reading for parenting or working with children in any capacity, actually. Here is a video that summarizes some of the main points, but even that doesn't do it justice.

I think one of the things I've gotten from this book that I didn't expect is that we in the AP community often claim that we're parenting the way humans were "meant" to parent. But there is very little evidence that human children were ever parented this way. We're forging new paths, and rather than look back at a romanticized, inaccurate vision of the past, we should look forward.

I could go on and on. Fascinating!

The link above goes to Amazon, btw. Read the reviews for even more accolades.

Comments

[teleute.livejournal.com]

I don't have time to watch the video, and if I don't post I'll forget to, so if this is answered in the vid, please just point me there ;-) When you say "abuse" does the author mean the deliberate "I'm going to hurt this other person" kind of abuse or the "I can see my child is starving and there is nothing I can do about it" kind? I find it hard to believe that children were universally subject to parents deliberately trying to hurt them, if that's what he's arging.

[aschmidt87.livejournal.com]

So if I'm correct I believe it was you that I first heard about Alfie Kohn's "Unconditional Parenting". And I loved it. So given that I think we would probably have similar interests on parenting books. Soo, one question...when you say "in the AP community we claim we're parenting the way humans were meant to be parented...little evidence human children were ever parented this way..." what do you mean by this? According to this book do we have it all wrong? I just think AP is the way things should be because of the closeness and love involved. Does this make sense?

[sassywoman.livejournal.com]

I think I should start with Alfie Kohn before reading this. Thoughts?

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Somehow that's one of the "peaceful parenting" books I have NOT read. I'll have to read it, though!

In a non-parenting book, Barbara Tuchman in her book "A Distant Mirror" about 14th century Europe makes a similar point. She talks about the practice of sending kids away from their parents for the first seven years, the prevalance of corporal punishment, and also the fact that since so many children died before the age of two, parents deliberately distanced themselves emotionally from their babies so as to lessen the pain if they died. She says all of that combined to create a deeply fucked up society of people who had all kinds of serious emotional issues.

And on a similar note, the Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse arose OUT OF the movement to protect animals from abuse. In other words, society recognized abuse of animals as a crime BEFORE they recognized abuse of children as such. (And it took soceity even longer to recognize abuse of spouses as a crime.)

Anyway, good point about AP not necessarily being somehow "natural." Not that I think that child abuse is "natural," but if you consider how children who abused grow up to be abusers, then you can see how those practices took root and became so much an accepted part of society. AP really does attempt to break that cycle, which is why it seems so unnatural and illogical to many people.

[faithandworks.livejournal.com]

Definitely going to check this out. Thanks for the rec :)