Consensual Living

Imagine you have an appointment with your doctor for your annual physical. The morning of the appointment your eighteen-month old child wakes up in a grumpy mood. What would you do? Would you: A) take your crabby child with you and make her wait with you, as you had planned to do before you discovered she was Oscar the Grouch? B) arrange to have a babysitter? Or C) would you cancel your appointment and wait for a time when your child was in a better mood?

If you just answered "C", you might be a proponent of a growing trend called "Consensual Living", a lifestyle in which an itty bitty toddler has as much say in what to do and when to do it as her parents have.

The core principles of Consensual Living are as follows:

* Everyone's wants and needs are equally valid, regardless of age.
* Children can be trusted to know their own minds and bodies.
* Punishments and rewards are tools of manipulation, unneeded when family members work as a team.
* There is a creative solution that works for everyone.
* Each family member has a positive intent and desires harmony.
* When all are secure that their needs will be met, they will branch out and help others to meet their needs.

I'm sorry, but are these people on crack? This is the formula for producing happy, functioning adults? Oh, brother! This is all so ridiculous that I am getting nauseated from my head shaking back and forth in such appalled disagreement.

Let's start at the beginning: Everyone's wants and needs are equally valid, regardless of age. Um, no. It's true that children have important needs and wants, but childhood is a perpetual state of not knowing what you want, or why you want it, or why you should have it. You just want, want, want. Especially if someone else has it. Then you want what that person has and you want it now! As for needs, children only know a fraction of what they "need". Mostly they think they "need" TV and candy and to stay up late. This is why you set bedtimes and provide them with things like education and medical care, because they certainly wouldn't be lining up to take care of those things on their own.

Children can be trusted to know their own minds and bodies. Which is exactly why, if I let him, Michael would subsist entirely on hot dogs, fruit snacks and candy. And he would never be potty trained or go to bed. Sure, he might conk out on the floor after a couple of all-nighters, but why give in before that? And as for food, what kid wants nothing but veggies for dinner, after which meal he'll voluntarily clean his own plate and turn in for the night at 7:30, waking up the next morning fully rested and asking, "Mother, might I trouble you to help me use the facilities?" Not my kid.

Punishments and rewards are tools of manipulation, unneeded when family members work as a team. So one is supposed to sit idly by while her child sticks a steak knife into the electrical socket? Or hits another child? (According to one Consensual Living couple, they ask their child if he would like to express his frustration some other way, by hitting a pillow or using words, or whatever. And they never make him apologize because, "if he's going to apologize, we want it to be authentic." Huh? So it's better to not apologize at all?) As for "punishments and rewards [being] unneeded when family members work as a team"? Excuse me while I vomit. What child naturally gravitates toward any teamwork that doesn't involve some kind of planned naughtiness? I mean, Michael might coordinate with a friend to get out of the house or into the medicine cabinet, but working together just to hold hands and sing "Let There Be Peace on Earth"? I don't think so.

There is a creative solution that works for everyone. No there isn't, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It is good for children to learn that they can't have everything they want, and that sometimes life is hard and they need to compromise with others. If the solution to every problem has to be equally agreeable to all concerned, how is a child supposed to be learning about real life and how to deal with unfairness and disappointment?

Each family member has a positive intent and desires harmony. Have you ever seen my toddler antagonize another child just for the sheer fun of it? If not, you should check out the mischievous gleam that appears in his eye just before he steals a toy or smacks someone with a baseball bat. Positive intent, my foot!

When all are secure that their needs will be met, they will branch out and help others to meet their needs. I admit that my child can be very sweet and charming much of the time, but most of the sweet and charming things he does are things I taught him to do, such as saying "Please", "Thank you", "I love you" and even, heaven forbid, "I'm sorry". But even if every one of his self-proclaimed needs were met, that would not stop him from snatching a cookie from another child or induce him to offer assistance to a person in distress.

Yes, children are humble, sweet little creatures, but they are also the scriptural "natural man" through and through. Why do you think every little person runs around shouting "Mine!" all the time? Selfishness has to be rooted out. The problem is, who is going to do that when all the parents are caving in to the moody tantrums of their five-year olds?

Good heavens, have we really lost our minds so completely? How are we supposed to produce the next generation of responsible, independently functioning human beings if we are too busy giving in to their childish whims and immature feelings? Isn't the job of a parent to parent?

I guess I'm just not "consensual" enough.