rsidab

Thanks for sharing your issues, nept551. Have you read The Drama Of The Gifted Child?

I am looking for a cognitive behavioral therapist, whose practice is consistent with ethics and philosophy, in the Charleston, SC, area. Does anyone have recommendations? Thanks.

@dsayers & csekavec: re: penalties and enforcing the rule - Accountability is loose; it tends to work more on an honor system. We want to focus more here on simply legislating, leaving the question of enforcement open. We want to have a two-pronged engagement (top down through this regulation, and bottom-up through persistent discussion with neighbors). We're hoping that this change in by-laws, coinciding with a very open and advertised forum for discussion, will be a good wake-up call to the issue. Hopefully even the most resistant parents will at least hear about this and know that the rest of us are making changes towards peace and are looking out for aggression. @dsayers: The suggestion to highlight the "personhood of children" is a great one, we'll add that, as long as we can keep the whole thing brief. Thank you. @villagewisdom: re. verbal aggression - We deliberately left this open. For example, screaming: it's the kind of thing we would hesitate to define, but we know it when we see it. We talk a bit about "as we would treat other adults" and I think that same somewhat loose standard applies here. Another example is the crazy guy on the subway muttering angrily to himself: at some point, as he gets louder and closer to you, it constitutes aggressive behavior. We are open to suggestions for a clearer way to write it. @mellomama & shirgall: re. shaming - Yes, we are open to this. It might come under verbal aggression. @accutron: Yes, we see acts of omission as with-holding provision of basic needs of child and therefore violent too.

We live at an intentional community of around 80 people including 20 or so children. We are proposing an amendment to the community's by-laws around the treatment of children. Our goal is to create a mandate that children be treated peacefully by parents and others, and that aggression towards the community's children is unacceptable. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks so much. ADDITION TO COMMUNITY'S BY-LAWS We have a concern about the treatment of children in our culture. Our emotional well-being is a direct outcome of our experiences as children. Parenting styles are highly influential determinants of children's emotional wholeness. In highlighting parents' intentions with their children, we are actively working towards a peaceful world. Living in community, we have the opportunity to choose consciously the environmental factors which we want our children to be exposed to – clean food, air and water, nature, alternative schooling, spirituality, healthcare and media. These are your choices. Yet just as there are restrictions around how adults may treat each other, certain behaviors towards children are equally unacceptable. Our community has the duty to uphold these 'common laws'. We want to explicitly enumerate the rights of children due to their disadvantaged position in mainstream society - that their bodies, property and minds are not as equally protected as are adults'. In our culture, it is acceptable to aggress against one's children, and is often considered necessary and right. However, it is neither necessary nor right as children deserve at least the same rights as other humans. And since they are in an involuntary relationship with a large power differential, their rights should be even greater. Children have less recourse to support routes than adults. They are less able to assert their right to protection let alone recognize and demand their right to it. It is therefore our duty to protect their rights for them. We assert the following right for all children: to be protected under the principle of non-aggression – that the initiation of force towards their person or property is wrong. We define force as physical violence, hitting, restraint, coercion, threats, confiscation of property, withdrawing provision of their needs, and verbal aggression. As the use of such aggression with adults is not tolerated so should the use of force with children be reserved only for when an explicit, urgent need can be demonstrated, when it is absolutely necessary for the well-being of the child or others (e.g. when the child's safety is in immediate danger should an action not be taken). Knowing that these principles are unusual in this culture, we will maintain support groups for families aimed at co-creating solutions and consequences that are peaceful and do not involve force.