The other word for repression is self-control. And here's how it's learned. First, your terrible mean awful horrible parents keep you from doing what you want.
Then, as you get older, you begin to realize that your friends whose parents didn't stop them from doing those things are now having horribly messy lives. You're glad your parents kept you from doing it. Now you keep those same rules yourself. You have learned to control your desires because you now understand the consequences.
But during those many, many years when children are too ignorant, inexperienced, self-willed, stubborn, or angry to grasp the idea that really bad things can actually happen to them, parents have to have the strength to say no, to mean it, and to make it stick.
That's what happens when parents actually love their children.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Orson Scott Card on Permissive Parenting
OSC is my favorite author, and what do you know, his parenting philosophy is the same as mine:
New TV shows to catch
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
