@reasonisfun - 👶 Disagreements I currently have with Taking Children

👶 Disagreements I currently have with Taking Children Seriously: 1. The idea that it’s possible to be non-coercive without transforming your inner world (including blindspots/‘shadow’). It’s possible to vastly reduce external coercion, but without a non-coercive inner world, it is (physiologically!) not possible to be psychologically non-coercive. 2. The idea that theories in psychology are either bad or not useful just because they don’t understand epistemology. A lot of psychology does indeed use bad epistemology and bad science, but a lot isn’t based on or affected by that. There has been epistemology-compatible research with implications for child-rearing, which TCS must either criticise or incorporate. (Less because of the compatibility or credibility, more because the ideas are powerful.) Notably: attachment theory. (I would list many more but that’s the MVP. Being trauma-informed is also vital.) 3. Lacking a theory and practice of attunement. Babies can’t talk in words, but they can communicate. Being in sync and communicating through things like touch and other nonverbal language is part of ‘attunement’. Being attuned means being sensitive to their emotions and wants/needs. Not just intellectually and practically, but emotionally and physically (as in physical contact). Abandonment anxiety and other kinds of trauma often come from parental misattunement in infancy. Many adults have very low ability to be attuned. This is due to things like having to cut off from their body or cut off from intimate care when they were young to protect themselves. Avoidant attachment, disembodied heads, dissociation from trauma or neglect — all these aren’t rare; it’s hard to find people who don’t have these issues to varying degrees. Attunement is arguably one of the most important concepts in child-rearing. Coercion is not as big a deal if you’re in attuned connection. It still sucks (especially for education), but it won’t leave as much lasting damage as emotional neglect. 4. Too much focus on the intellect/mind and explicit theories. Currently, TCS frames everything as theories. This is part of its charm, but there are two problems with this: First, explicit theories are just the tip of the iceberg, and this is especially true when it comes to parenting. Inexplicit theories (subconscious ideas, emotions, practices, etc.) are far-and-away the most important when it comes to families and relationships. This sometimes leads people to thinking TCS says you need to talk everything out, or solve problems on just an explicit level. Even though, explicitly, TCS is against this and pays lip service to the inexplicit; it still inclines one to think in that way, and TCS doesn’t say how to process information inexplicitly. Second, it might be false to frame everything as theories: It seems like thinking may involve or require embodiment (see Descartes’ Error by Damasio); it seems like trauma is meaningfully ‘stored’ in the body (see The Body Keeps the Score); and it seems like touch may be fundamental to infant development (e.g. for learning how to do nervous system regulation). The thing that makes us human is indeed the conscious mind, but we are still relevantly mammals. 5. That our mammal side doesn’t really matter because we are universal explainers. It sort of goes back and forth with this depending which example is presented. (And this is perhaps a version of #4.) But in general, since TCS presents everything as theories and disagreements (which, I emphasise, is awesome and has a ton of power and gets you out of a lot of stucknesses), there isn’t much room for ideas like “children need physiological attunement to grow up sane” or “going outdoors might be relevant for child development”. It’s not that it says to not do these things, but there’s very little discussion of it. It’s kinda considered a non-fundamental preference, rather than “hey if you don’t attend to these things, kid could be handicapped”.