The Illusion of Coercion

I've been reading John Holt's How Children Fail. It's an amazing book. I'm lucky enough to have a cousin living 20mins away who has wonderful books about unschooling, and this was the book I recently chose off her bookshelf.

I finished reading it about a week ago and a piece of it has been swimming around in my mind (the sign of a good book, right?). He wrote about coercion always using fear. When we're getting a child to do something that they don't want to do, we are always employing fear.

"The idea of painless, non-threatening coercion is an illusion. Fear is the inseparable companion of coercion, and its inescapable consequence."

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Wow - that hit me. It's so true! When I raise my voice to get them to put their toys away, they do it because they're afraid - of me, of some intangible maybe that hangs in the air, of my anger, of what my anger will do next - they're scared. Ouch. Even when I'm doing it "nicely" - when I'm speaking kindly, with compassion in my heart, the threat is of my kindness being withdrawn. That's some confrontation right there. Yuck! What a way to live! for me, and for my kids. I mean, how positively fucking awful for them to be living in fear in their own home.

It's really made me stop and think before I react (which is ALWAYS a good thing). Like, when Jossie has told me that she wants to go to bed, and we get all snuggled up, and I'm drifting off, and then all of a sudden she says, "I don't want to, I want to get out" - previously I would have made her stay. "No, it's bedtime. Lie down. Close your eyes. Go to sleep." I might have been pleasant about it, might have spoken in a kind gentle manner. But her protestations and my persistence were a war of how afraid she was that if she got out of bed something BAD would happen. YUCK.

A few months ago, pre-How Children Fail, Louis was playing out in the back yard with two friends of his and I heard the ominous phrase, "I'm not going to be your friend if you don't …" Yuck! a six-year-old's version of coercion. I had heard this phrase being bandied around by a group of boys at Louis' playgroup and had spoken to the head teacher about it. I knew that they'd had a specialist come in and talk to the teachers about how to deal with it, so I got on the phone to her and asked her what the specialist had had to say. And low and behold, she had said that what needs to happen is that every threat-based phrase needs to be axed. That every time we, as parents, say "If you don't help me pick up the toys, then the TV won't go on", we are validating using threats as a way to navigate the world. What struck me is that there's no real difference between threatening, coercing, and bullying. Coercion is just the word that we use when grown ups bully. We like to think it's different, but is it really? It's just like smacking being the grown-up word for hitting. (Actually - that's quite cool - I'm gonna make me a meme out of that one: Smacking is to hitting what coercion is to bullying. Watch this space.)

Wow, mind blown. Of COURSE!! But, you know what? It's a bloody hard habit to break. "If you don't put your helmet on, you can't go on the bike track." "If you don't come up to the table now, you won't get any lunch." "If you don't… " You fill in the ones that roll of your tongue. And then, I imagine my children saying these things. See how that sounds. Usually it sounds fucking awful! And the few times that Louis has used it with me: If you don't let me xyz then I'm not going to abc! it has been awful.

So, in the interest of reforming my ways - in the interest of my children having a childhood NOT ruled by fear - I've been employing different strategies. Now when Jossie begins her going to bed dance, when she announces that she wants to get out of bed again, I say "OK", roll over, turn the light on, and start reading my book. Mostly, she'll go off and potter around for a few minutes and then come back. We might do a few rounds of this, but eventually - when she's ready - she will snuggle down and go to sleep. Meanwhile I've had a chance to chill out and read my book, and she's exercised her autonomy about bedtime and gone to sleep without fear getting a look-in. How cool is that?

I love John Holt's writing! My stretching and growing on this unschooling path doesn't have much to do with learning - it has to do with personal autonomy. It has to do with me relinquishing (well-meaning) control. John Holt's later thoughts and writing are a wonderful support in this. I can't wait to get my hands on more.