You take one of two courses. Either you use excellent control with lots of communication, or you just let him grow. There is no other choice. Kids don’t like to be mauled and pulled around and not consulted. You can talk to a child and if your degree of affection, agreement and communication with him are good, you can make him do all sorts of things. He will touch the floor, his head, point you out and find the table. He will fool around for a while and after that you can just say do so-and-so and “Let’s go and eat,” and he will do it. He has found out that your commands are not necessarily going to override the totality of his willingness. So your commands are therefore not dangerous. You have confronted him and he can confront you. Therefore you and he can do something.

A child sometimes says “I want to stay up with you” and they insist on doing so, exerting their power of choice. Just letting children do what they are doing and not interfering with them and not exerting any control on them is psychology. They are never going to be in communication with anybody; they won’t grow or get experience in life for they didn’t change their havingness. They didn’t have to change their mind, work, exercise or do anything. But they respond very readily to good control and communication, but it certainly takes good communication to override this – not persuasion but good communication.

People think that persuasion works with children. It doesn’t. It’s communication that does the trick. You say, “Well, it’s time for you to go to bed now,” and he says, “No.” Don’t stay on the subject. Leave it alone and just talk about something else, “What did you do today?” “Where?” “How?” “Oh, did you? Is that a fact?” “Well, how about going to bed?” and the answer will be “Okay.”

One doesn’t have to use force. Go into communication with the child, and control follows this as an inevitability. Omit control from the beginning when bringing up a child and he who looks to you for a lot of his direction and control is gypped. He thinks you don’t care about him.

However, as in the case with the playing of musical instruments, learning of languages or the arts and abilities, consult the child’s willingness.

How to Live with Children    A Child’s Right to Contribute   
Working with a Child’s Willingness    Consulting Willingness   
Allowing Children to Work    Suggestions for Further Study   

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