3212. The Collapse of Parenting?


We want to educate our young people and we’re after it, okay. We want young people to be free and responsible, and that’s okay too. We put them in charge of small jobs in the classroom and in the whole school, and that seems nice too.

But we grown-ups have to remember that they still need our guidelines and clear prescriptions, they need some clear vision of life from us adults. We may want to educate them inside the flipped-classroom model but they need our criteria to research and orientations to find the right material as well – well, a correct flipped-classroom model anyway presupposes and assumes our adult help and supervision.

And all that because they don’t have firm criteria yet: they’re making them. If they have clear vision of the “game”, we can allow them conduct on their own, but up to some extent: as I said they still need our adults’ firm and clear criteria, and they expect a lot from us: orientation, in a word.

They should not decide yet what the subject syllabuses and programs should be. We can let them conduct and research on their own, but they expect and need our orientation.

According to American psychologist Leonard Sax we even might hurt our young people if we treat them like they were grown-ups. And that’s very clear in the parents’ case: they cannot transfer their authority to them – otherwise they could even hurt them.

We can let them have ample discretion at small jobs in the classroom and the school but we adults need to supervise and orientate them and their charges and duties alike. Parents today need to revalorize and increase the value of their authority. Kids have to learn how to respect grown-ups, when often they might be watching movies and TV shows where adults and parents are disregarded and mocked at.

Our kids should not decide yet upon syllabus rhythms and contents, when they don’t have critic judgment capabilities – we’re after it, after providing them with those analysis capabilities. Kids should have creativity but they shouldn’t decide what the subject program or syllabus should be like.

Parents cannot give up at educating their kids. Leonard Sax may seem somehow kind of hard at his vision but we grown-ups should think up to what extent we can let our kids decide on what they cannot thoroughly decide yet.

In few words, we have to make them responsible at their working and learning, even somewhat autonomous learners but under our supervision and advice: I mean those supervision and advice are positive values, not despotic ones: we’re helping them grow more and more responsible. And ultimately happy.

We have to combine freedom and responsibility, freedom and discernment, freedom and critic judgment capability. And all that is something positive. / The photo above is just a nice illustration.

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